From Greenville, South Carolina, we present, Let the Bible Speak. Let the Bible Speak is the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America, preaching Christ in all His fullness. This is Alan Kern saying hello to you once again, it's my pleasure to be with you. Once more to let the Bible speak, we're thinking of the beginning of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ when immediately following His baptism, He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. That descent of the Spirit upon Christ was important in his life and ministry and it carries a very significant message for our lives and our ministry as well. So I trust you'll stay with us as in a few minutes we turn back to the Word of God. We will also be having today's commentary which deals with sin without guilt. But first we have some music, our church choir singing a beautiful piece Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart. This is God's gracious command. If all thy ways acknowledge him, so shall the world Trust in the Lord, O troubled soul, rest in the arms of His care. Forever, my love, in matter and thought, for nothing can trouble Trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord, O trust in the Lord still and peaceful be. Friend of thy spirit in vain, one holy answer there is one, still shalt thou praise him again. The simple Lord, His eye will guide, all through the pathway ahead. We have redeemed, and He will be Trust Him and be not afraid. Trust in the Lord, O troubled soul, Rest in the arms of His care. For nothing can trouble thee there. Trust in the Lord, O troubled soul. Nothing can trouble thee there. Recently a woman wrote to a nationally syndicated vice columnist with a cry for help. After living morally through 10 years of widowhood, she confessed to a one-night affair with a married co-worker, evidently a man who's a serial adulterer. Her problem was that she felt guilty. and wanted to know how she could gain some self-respect again. The advice of the columnist was a classic whitewash. Never for a moment was the woman to consider the possibility that she had sinned. Sin's an old-fashioned word that hardly even exists in the vocabulary of your modern self-indulgent pleasure seekers. According to this newspaper Agony Aunt, the woman needed to realize that she had been thrilled to find that even as a widow of long standing, she had not lost her power to attract. While her conquest had made her temporarily feel that she was on a high, intoxication was the word that the columnist used. She had not gained what she was looking for out of the relationship. The answer was to put the experience to good use, to make it into something positive, by determining to get out more and place herself in a position where she could meet more men. That's the kind of moral relativism that's choking the life out of America and is damning precious souls. Here's what the woman really needed to hear. First, thank God you feel some guilt. You need to. for what you did was sin. Even if the world smiles on it, the Lord doesn't. His law is unchangeable, and He still utterly condemns such immorality. You wonder why you did what you did. You look on yourself as a good person who has acted out of character. You may indeed have acted out of character, but the Bible tells us that there's none good. We're all sinners. And that's the real problem you're facing. You're a sinner, and therefore you have sinned. Your guilt is the witness of your conscience, the law of God written in your heart, that you stand before the judge of all the earth as a self-condemned sinner. It tells you that you need more than a psychological band-aid to make you feel better, despite what you've done. You need God's grace and forgiveness. That's the second element in what you need to hear. There is grace for sinners. God loved a world of sinners lost and gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The Lord Jesus Christ died to save sinners from their sin and deliver them from their guilt. So here's the bottom line. You can be delivered from guilt not as the newspaper columnist suggested, not by ignoring the wickedness of your sin, and certainly not by telling yourself that really you don't have too much to worry about just as long as you put a positive spin on your actions. The way to be delivered from guilt is first to face up to the fact of your sinful state before God. He calls for honest confession. Then cry to Him for mercy, for pardon, for the gift of His salvation. Call on the Lord Jesus Christ to save you, to make you a new creature. In love He will hear you and will answer you more abundantly than you could ever imagine. Not only will He forgive the action that so worries you, He will make you right with Himself and will cleanse your conscience. He will remove the old filthy rags of your sin and will clothe you in the spotless robe of Christ's righteousness. This is God's answer to your guilt, and it's the only answer. The world wants you to believe that you can sin with impunity. You can't, even if it appears that for a while you can. But I need to warn you. that you may reject God's answer and opt instead for the world's philosophy of sin without guilt or consequences. In doing so, you may actually lose your sense of guilt and be deceived into thinking that this is a good thing. In fact, it will signal only the deadness of a conscience that is past feeling, to use Paul's phrase, and that is a tragedy beyond description. Whether you feel it or not, sin and guilt go together, for guilt is really the liability of the sinner to the judgment of God. The Lord will judge your sin, either in your own person or in Christ as your substitute. So, if you feel guilty, do not deny your sin, but confess it and cry to God to save you from it by applying to your heart the saving merits of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame. And I love that old cross Where the dearest and best For the world of lost sinners was slain So I'll cherish the old rugged cross Till my trophies at last I I will cling to the old rugged cross And exchange it someday for a crown Oh, that old rugged cross, so despised by the world, has a wondrous attraction for me. For the dear Lamb of God left His glory above To bear it to dark Calvary I will never be true. It's shame and reproach that we bear. And he'll call me someday. away, where his glory forever I'll share. So I'll cherish the old rugged cross, to my trophies and maps I'll Yesterday in our continuing series of studies on the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, Continuing to look at the descent of the Spirit upon Christ immediately after his baptism, we made the point that that anointing of the Holy Spirit equipped the Lord Jesus for his earthly service. Now we return to this point today and set out to answer a question that must arise in any thinking heart and soul. Why Did the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Himself God incarnate, the all-powerful God incarnate, why did He need the Holy Spirit to equip Him for service? We're going to explore that a little, and I trust that as we now turn to the Word of God, there will be something to instruct and edify and encourage each believer in his walk with the Savior. Descending on Christ, the Holy Ghost identified Him as the Son of God. Second thing He did was He equipped Him for service. Now that raises a huge question. The question is, why did the Lord Jesus Christ need the Holy Ghost to equip Him for service? Was Christ not God manifested in flesh? As God, did He not personally have all power? If He is God, as He is, if as God He is all power, as He has, why did He need the Holy Spirit to come and fill Him with power? I think that there's a divine principle that runs through the Word of God, and it's working here. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and the entire Trinity always operates in the work of redemption. And as I understand Scripture, the Father never, never has ever revealed Himself to a creature, angel or man, He has never revealed Himself to a creature except through His Son. But I think it's equally clear that the Son never imparts His grace apart from the Holy Ghost. In other words, it is the Holy Spirit who prepares and who enables the human heart to receive Christ and to benefit from the grace of Christ. to receive and know the blessing of the designs and the deeds of God on behalf of men. So, the grace of Christ never comes to any man without the operation of the Holy Spirit. Now, the Lord Jesus was a true man. He had a true human nature. And that human nature, interestingly, was produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit from the substance of the Virgin Mary. So, it was by the Holy Ghost that the humanity of Christ was created in order to live in union with the eternal Son of God. So, by the Holy Ghost, that humanity was fitted to receive all the gifts and all the graces needed for Christ's ministry here upon the earth. You see, even in this, it beholds Christ, as Paul puts it, to be made like unto his brethren. For it is by the ministry of the Holy Spirit that we receive God's gifts and graces. It's only by the Holy Spirit that we are equipped to serve the Lord. That's why Christ, as our representative, as our Savior, Christ in His humiliation received the power of the Spirit. For what? To overcome Satan for a start. You go on and read about the temptations and the victory Christ got. He got it by the power of the Spirit of God. And then after the temptations, as we have read in Luke chapter 4, how he went out and in the power of the Spirit, he began to minister. So the Holy Spirit of God came upon him, and he gave him victory as a man over Satan, and then he made him successful in the work for which God had sent him. Now there's a message that will come to you and me if we're ever going to serve Christ. You see, while we're in this world, understand there are two great items that we're always going to have to face as Christians. Number one, The temptation of the devil. If you really aren't too much troubled by the world, the flesh, or the devil, it's probably because your conscience has become desensitized, and because you're really not doing much for God at all. If the devil doesn't have to bother much with any of us, then it's because he's not too worried about us. It's not because he's gone on strike, or because he's not interested. We're going to have to face the devil. We're going to have to face temptation. We're going to have to struggle with the impulsions and compulsions to sin. Now, every Christian has to face those. The second thing we have to face is the matter of serving Christ and doing so successfully. I have never met a Christian yet who's really satisfied with his success rate in the service of God. I remember in the 1960s in Ulster when our churches were in great blessing and every man's hand was against us but we were seeing new churches opened up all over the country and hundreds of people were being saved. It was the nearest thing that we have ever seen to revival in the 1960s and the early 1970s. We used to have American preachers come over, and they were walking ten feet tall. They'd never been in prayer meetings like these before. They had never felt the presence of God like this before. And they said, this is revival. But in those very prayer meetings, I remember days of prayer and nights of prayer and times of special prayer where ministers and elders would get together to see God. And we were crying to God because of our lack of success in the work of the ministry. So I've never met anybody, even in times of blessing. who's satisfied with his success, or success rate, in the work of God. So these are two constant elements. Sanctification, struggling with the world, the flesh, and the devil, and service, and how to succeed in it. And here's where we can learn from the Savior. First of all, the only way to overcome sin and Satan is by the power of the Spirit of God. He's the Holy Spirit. He's the Spirit of holiness or the Spirit of scientification. Second, the only way to serve God with success is by the power of the Spirit of God. There is such a thing as being filled with the Holy Ghost for the service of God. Now watch carefully. When was Jesus filled with the Holy Ghost at His baptism? Remember we looked at the significance of that last Sabbath morning? The Lord Jesus at that time was committing himself to fulfill all righteousness. In other words, he was in the place of obedience. One of the biggest obstacles to Christians enjoying the power of the Spirit of God in their lives, both in their struggle with the devil and the flesh and the world, and in their Desire to serve the Lord, one of the biggest obstacles is simply sin. You're not going to make God bless your sin. Disobedience to God, our greatest obstacle in having the blessing of the Holy Ghost on our service. It was when Christ was in the place of obedience that the Spirit came upon Him. And it is not for nothing that we are told in Scripture, Acts 5 verse 32, that the Holy Spirit has been given to them that obey God. The Holy Spirit is not a plaything. He's not an item on the church's entertainment agenda. The Holy Spirit is not given, as the charismatics seem to think, to make you dance and jig around like so many idiots, and have so many experiences with the hair raised in your back, and, oh, you've all these wonderful feelings, and go out and you're unchanged. The Holy Spirit is given to the people of God to give them power to overcome Satan. Then power. to serve Christ with success. The Holy Spirit was given to Christ when He obeyed, but second, the Holy Spirit was given to Christ when He prayed. We are told specifically by Luke that it was as Jesus came up out of the water and was praying that the Holy Ghost came upon Him. Did not the Lord Jesus Himself say in Luke 11, verse 13, 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 who ask Him? You've been listening to Let the Bible Speak, the radio ministry of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. I hope that you found today's broadcasting a blessing to your heart. If you'd like to email us, our email address is ltbs at freepres.org. Or if you'd prefer, you may write us at LetTheBibleSpeak 1207 Haywood Road, Greenville, South Carolina 29615. We would love to hear from you. If you'd like to know how to be saved and how to be sure you're saved, we'd like to send you my booklet, A New Beginning, and I think that you'll find it very helpful. Each quarter we publish a free full-color magazine, Let the Bible Speak Quarterly, with a good variety of Bible teaching and testimony. It's available to all who request it. If you'd like to receive more information about the Free Presbyterian Church of North America and its ministry, we'd like to send you our booklet, Separated Unto the Gospel. Or if you'd like to have tape or CD copies of the messages here in Let the Bible Speak, you may have them by contacting us. Or you may visit us on the web at letthebiblespeakradio.com. Now that's a lot of information to digest all at once, But you can find it all on our website, LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. There you'll be able to listen to and download our programs, visit our online bookstore, and read a text version of each day's commentary. So visit us today at LetTheBibleSpeakRadio.com. This is Alan Kern saying, thank you for listening. I trust that you'll join us each day at this time, Monday through Friday, as we let the Bible speak.