So there will be an abundance of things that I don't normally do, and that is zeroing in upon Calvin's doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I'm allergic to quoting somebody too often from the pulpit, so as long as you remember that I don't consider Calvin to be a prophet or to be infallible. But nevertheless, in keeping with this year's Reformation Bible Conference, the message today will concern the Holy Spirit. John chapter 7, verse 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this fake he of the spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, For the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And may God, the Holy Spirit, who has given us these words, see fit to instruct us and to teach us in the ways of righteousness and truth. Now, my purpose today is to give you a kind of a primer of what the Bible teaches on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And, like so many doctrines, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was also rediscovered during the Reformation. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit didn't receive too much ink from the Lutherans, but it did from the Reformed, especially from the likes of men like John Calvin. In fact, there are some who suggest that there should be a sixth Sola to the previous five Solas, Solus Spiritus. the spirit alone, not just justification by faith alone and the Bible alone and grace alone, but also the spirit alone. Now, John Calvin has been called the theologian. He was called that by Philip Melanchthon, and later he became known not just as the theologian, but he became known as the theologian par excellence of the Holy Spirit. This emphasis upon the person and especially the work of the Holy Spirit has received short shrift. Most in fact wrongly identify Calvin more with predestination than they do of his exposition of the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In fact until Elder Doug Schlegel who was a. Not to put blame on him today, but it was largely responsible. And he's the one that mentioned this to me that Calvin was known as the theologian of the Holy Spirit. I had never really given this subject much thought at all. Now, first, the first to ever dub Calvin as the theologian of the Holy Spirit that I'm aware of was the Princeton professor, Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield. who said not only was he the theologian of the Holy Spirit but he was pre eminently pre eminently the theologian of the Holy Spirit. And what's the reason for this. Why the label. John Calvin speak in tongues. Well the answer isn't very hard. You see Calvin's passion was soteriology or the doctrine of salvation. He majored in the application of what Christ has done for us on the cross and his resurrection. All of that applied by God, the Holy Spirit. You see, there's things that the spirit does that the other in a sense that the other members of the Trinity either don't do or leave up to the spirit to do. And there might even be some incommunicable things among the Trinity. For example, the Holy Spirit did not die on the cross. It was Christ who died on the cross. And it's the Holy Spirit who regenerates us. Special attention is given to that truth in the Bible. So the application of redemption particularly zeroes in upon the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. If you are a Christian, if if if you have a hearty faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are a Christian only because the Holy Spirit has done everything in your life. In fact, the Calvin's, the institutes of Christian religion are criticized by some as being much too subjective, too personal, not philosophical enough to experiential. Some say. Now, when I first began my pastoral ministry some 37 years ago, I was privileged to read his institutes of the Christian religion and its entirety. I say that and I'm not patting myself on the back here today. The day ever comes when I read the institutes in French and I read it in Latin. That'll be the time that I blow my trumpet before the congregation. And you'll also very quickly come to the conclusion that I'm the biggest liar west of the Mississippi, if I say that. But I'm telling you this because I read those institutes as a part of my morning devotions. In other words, the institutes are both experiential and very practical. They're where your Michelin tires rub against the highway. It's this practicality, this subjectivity, the emphasis upon godliness and piety and the personalism that earns Calvin the title of the theologian of the Holy Spirit. Now, you see this reflected in many of his disciples, such as your sinus in question number one of the Heidelberg Catechism at the very end, whereby by his Holy Spirit, he assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to serve to live on to him. Notice he he the Holy Spirit makes me. The Holy Spirit, you see, is a rocket on your back. He alone makes you makes us all of us to lie down in green pastures and leads us beside the still waters. It is the Holy Spirit alone who causes our cups to run over. You see, it was Calvin who systematically linked your salvation to the working of God's spirit. Who worked it all out, you see, in all of its glorious details and different stages. And these different stages have come down to the in the history of the church. They're known as the order of Saludis, the order of Saludis, meaning the order of salvation, the different things such as justification and and sanctification and glorification and so on and so forth. There's a certain order. So you see men in those days men before the Reformation, they were looking to the church as the trustworthy source of knowledge about God and about salvation. And they relied upon the church to communicate grace. The church was viewed as the middleman between God and man. In other words, the church became the mediator between God and man. The idea was the church dispenses grace, especially in the sacraments of baptism in the Lord's Supper. And so the church, you see, began to usurp the place of the Holy Spirit. And so the reformers with Calvin emphasized that a vitalizing knowledge of God is attained only by an inner working of God's spirit, God's spirit working in us, in our hearts and changing us. And that's why Calvin's motto was my heart. I offer to you oh Lord promptly and sincerely. That was the slogan of his life. He was a theologian of the heart as well. Now let me illustrate. Calvin often uses in his in his writings the term regeneration. Now, when Calvin used the word regeneration, he didn't always limit it to the new birth alone. Regeneration is very broad in Calvin. It covers the whole process of your experience in Christ. The power that saves us is God, the Holy Spirit. And, of course, even faith is a hearty trust that the Holy Spirit works in you by the gospel. The Holy Spirit creates faith in the Word of God and in the God of the Word. And so the acts of the apostles, for example, what are the acts of the apostles? Really, the acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles. And Calvin himself wrote this, he said, it has indeed already been clearly stated that until our minds are fixed on the spirit, Christ remains of no value to us because we look at him as an object of cold speculation, outside us and without a great distance from us. In other words, Christ, you see, is nothing but it would be for us would be a winter sun apart from the working and the warming of the Holy Spirit. It's the spirit who creates white heat in the soul of the Christian that causes us to have energy and serving Christ in this world. So you need God, the Holy Spirit to lead you to Christ. And until then, our hearts are like dry ice. Christ doesn't benefit you unless you pray for the spirit and you become indwelt. By the spirit. As Jesus preached, if you then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more so your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask. So today, let's examine the Bible's teaching about the Holy Spirit. Let's examine this proposition that Calvin was the theologian of the Holy Spirit, see if that's correct. But whether or not it's correct or not, the important thing is that we become theologians of the Holy Spirit. That's where the emphasis must be. Now, first of all, we're going today look at some of the titles of the Holy Spirit. And then secondly, we'll look at the works of the Holy Spirit. Let's look at his some of his titles. First of all, the Holy Spirit is referred to in the Bible as the spirit of promise. Just prior to Christ's ascension, Jesus comforts his disciples, he said to them, and behold, I send the promise of my father upon you. The Terry in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. Now, that power from on high, of course, was the promise of the Pentecostal spirit. And Jesus said, for John truly baptized with water, but he shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days hence. Now, when you hear such words, you're inclined to think that the Holy Spirit was sort of comatose sort of dormant in the lives of the Old Testament saints which of course isn't true at all. So how is it that the Holy Spirit's work is different in the New Testament period than it was then he was in the Old Testament. A very common answer to that question is quantity quantity. There are simply more of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament like the double portion of the spirit that came upon Elisha the prophet once Elijah was ascended up into heaven. But that answer really isn't good enough. Let me explain by a remark this remarkable passage that I read here in John 7 where there in John 7 Jesus says he that believeth in me as the scripture has said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. And then of course there is the curious very curious commentary from John about this. John said that this spoke he of the spirit which they that believe in him should receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given for Jesus was not yet glorified. Now does that mean that the spirit didn't exist or that he had no influence whatsoever upon God's people in the Old Testament era. Was the Holy Spirit missing? Was the Holy Spirit, M.I.A., missing in action in the lives of God's people, in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the great saints like David and others? Well, no, that's not the answer to that question. What then does this phrase mean that the Holy Spirit was not yet? Well, Calvin was one of the first to explain. That John 739 is what he referred to as a relative contrast stated in absolute language. Yes, there is a contrast between the spirit in the old and the spirit in the new, the spirit in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and in our lives. Yes, there is a contrast. And to to depict the this contrast, this to depict the contrast very starkly in a very stark way. Jesus speaks here in absolute terms. It's only a relative contrast, but the relative contrast is stated in absolute language as if the Holy Spirit wasn't even working in the Old Testament. You see, the contrast isn't merely quantitative. It is also qualitative. The key expression here in John seven is for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now, understand what that means. The difference is that you have the spirit of the glorified Christ. As I say, it's true that the Holy Spirit, that the saints in the Old Testament, they had the spirit of Christ. But now you have the spirit of Christ glorified. Christ resurrected, Christ ascending, Christ being seated at the right hand of God, the Father, the God man now who rules over all the entire universe. And so the spirit of the glorified Christ, that is the difference. So you see, Calvin was the theologian of the Holy Spirit because of Christ finished work, because he focused in upon this. And this means that you, too, should be theologians of God's spirit, because every Christian is a theologian. In fact, every human being in this world is a theologian as well, either for better or for worse. Our second title of the Holy Spirit is he is referred to as the spirit of adoption. We find this in Galatians, chapter four, and in Romans, chapter eight. Now, this doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is the one who adopts you. It means that God the Father adopts you by the son through the Holy Spirit. As Paul wrote, for you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry of a father. Now, if you're adopted, then, of course, You're assured of God's fatherly love for your soul. The work of God's spirit, you see, is on the inside of you. It's the Holy Spirit who who impels you to cry, Abba, Father, Father, Father. Now, when you do this, you're assured of God's love for you in Christ, you're assured that God cherishes you in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. To be God's son isn't just a proclamation from the lips but rather it is an exclamation from the heart of a father. You see that's the emphasis and this is good. This is the only way that we'll ever look that we'll ever crawl to God on our knees and beg for his mercy and enjoy his presence. It has got to be the power of the Holy Spirit working in us. And if you're in Christ then the Holy Spirit assures you that you're forever family. You are family part of the family of God forever. Now it's said by some that I think this is true that justification by faith is the Christians greatest blessing. But adoption into God's family by grace is your greatest privilege. You see, you're not only been pardoned so that you're no longer under the condemnation or the wrath of God, but you've been inherited, you become a part of God's family. That, you see, is the task of the Holy Spirit to do this and to assure you that you are family and that you will forever be family. That is good news. Now, the problem is our hearts are very deceptive. Not trying to be funny or cute here today, but our hearts are daisies. We wonder if God loves me, loves me not, loves me and loves me not. Every time we sin, we question the goodness of God. We become very tentative about coming before God in prayer and begging for mercy, thinking that somehow or another that our sins make it impossible for God to ever hear us again, especially when we commit the same sins. And so our hearts condemn us. Our consciences accuse us, Satan accuses us, the world accuses us. Our hearts tell us that we're that we're no longer worthy to be God, to be God, to be called God's sons. Well, the Holy Spirit's function is to tell us that the fatted calf is for us, the royal robe is for us, the best sandals are for us, just like the prodigal son. Our problem is that the good news of the gospel is too good. We don't believe it is too good to be believed every time we sin, we question our sonship. And so we need the Holy Spirit, you see, to assure us of the abiding love of God for our souls. And that happens when we cry out of a father. Well another title of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Christ as well. Jesus promises to send a comforter. Listen to his words in John 16. He says I will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he might abide with you for ever. And then he goes on and he says in John 16 some remarkable words. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Notice, not he will come to you, but I will come to you. You see the significance of that promise. The Holy Spirit, you see, is Jesus coming to comfort you. I will come to you. This helps us, you see, to understand the Reformation, does it not? You see, before the Reformation, it was believed, as it still is today by many, that Christ was that Christ is the head of the church in heaven. But the pope is ahead of the church on Earth. In fact, the word vicar is sometimes applied to the pope as if the pope is the vicar or the substitute of Jesus on the earth. But that's not true, that's unscriptural. Christ is the head of the church in heaven and on earth. And I can say that because Christ is present on earth through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is your advocate in the here and now. And this explains that Calvin's view, in fact, about the Lord's Supper, the Lord's Supper isn't just isn't isn't a banquet without a host. You see, Rome explained that the supper is Christ actually being bodily present. The Lutherans did something very similar to that. The scripture teaches that when you eat and drink the supper, you are in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ, who hosts the supper by his spiritual presence through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the Lord's Supper, you have real communion with Christ, not the spirit, but with Christ. The role of the spirit is to close the space time gap between heaven and earth and to bring Christ more of Christ into your lives. In fact, if the supper were only a memorial, as some would say, and went no further than that, then you could argue that the supper should be observed only once a year, like Fourth of July or something like that. But the supper is so much more than that. The supper is holy communion because you commune with Christ through the Holy Spirit. Now, then, let's look at some of the Holy Spirit's works. First of all, the Holy Spirit dwells with you and in you. Jesus said in John 14, verse 17, even the spirit of truth and the father cannot receive because it sees sees him not, neither knoweth him or whom the world cannot receive. He says, you know him, for he dwelleth with you and is in you. Now, the fancy phrase for this is the business of being with you and in you. The sanctified business is union and communion with Christ. He not Christ not only dwells with you, he dwells in you in he in dwells. Now, some even argue that union with Christ was the starting point of many, many of the reformers, including Calvin. The Christ outside of us is the Christ inside of us, Christ outside of us justifies us. He declares us to be righteous on the basis of the. Imputed righteousness of Christ, the Christ inside of us sanctifies us. And so the Holy Spirit empowers you to have communion with Christ in the heavenlies. Now, this is important for two reasons. First of all, the Holy Spirit won't leave you or an orphan. In this world. His indwelling isn't that of a spasmodic visitor. He's with you forever, Jesus says. And second, never forget that apart from the Holy Spirit, there is no church. The thought of a church without the Holy Spirit is a monstrosity. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? So Withdraw the Holy Spirit. And what happens? What remains? What do you have? You have a crowd. You have a country club. Maybe you have a preaching station or at worst, you have a synagogue of Satan. Now, to illustrate the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian, Calvin uses Psalm 133, a very interesting interpretation. Psalm 133, you recall, is the account about the precious the precious ointment that ran down the head of Aaron, the high priest. And in that particular psalm, the ointment not only ran down his head and ran down his beard, but it covered all of his body. Calvin says this is the Holy Spirit upon Christ and his body, the church. And also, the presence of God's spirit in the church answers an old charge against us. Very famous charge against us Protestants. How do we identify truth? How do we know that our creeds and our confessions are scriptural and that the preaching is true? Well, you see, the Roman Catholic answer is the infallibility of the church through its teaching magisterial, the popes and the cardinals. The idea of an inerrant church is supposed to settle the matter. Case dismissed. It's all over. And so that God's people simply rest in the bosom of the church. The scripture teaches that Christ's presence by the Holy Spirit is makes the difference. That's what makes the church the church. There is no church without the Holy Spirit, because we're all baptized by the by one spirit into the body of Christ. And because of the instruction of the Holy Spirit, we know what the truth is and we stand by the truth and we're willing to die for the truth and we preach the truth. Now, a second working of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit illuminates you. Our greatest need in this world today is to be illuminated. And we can't be illuminated because until the Holy Spirit enlightens us, our hearts are ebony black until then. In the words of the famous hymn of Charles Wesley, long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night, thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke the dungeon flame with light. My chains fell off. My heart was free. I rose. Went forth and followed the. The quickening ray in the dark dungeon, the Holy Spirit. Calvin wrote, Indeed, the word of God is like a sun shining upon all those to whom it is proclaimed, but with no effect upon the blind. Before we're converted, we're as blind as bats like Egypt, our darkness is so dark that it can almost be felt with our fingertips. And the light within us, Jesus said, is darkness. So what do we need? We need illumination. You see, God's word is foolishness apart from the working of God's spirit. This is why Paul wrote. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. And until that happens, The things of God are foolishness to us. This is why Nicodemus, a famous teacher in Israel on the Sanhedrin, who should have known better, but he didn't. He imagined that being born again meant to reenter his mother's womb and then to slide down the birth canal to rediscover Israel all over again. He didn't understand at all the necessity for the new birth, that man is dead in his sins and trespasses. The greatest proof of man's depravity, said Calvin, and I agree with this, is that we are dead in our sins and trespasses until we are quickened by the Holy Spirit. And, of course, this illumination is also inward. You know, there are two ministers. There is the inner teacher and then there is the outer teacher. Calvin taught that the preacher is outside and the spirit is inside. The preacher is the bow. The spirit is the arrow that flies from the bow. And so your inner teacher is the spirit, the spirit secretly waters your soul whenever he chooses to do so and makes you fruitful for Christ so that you bear love and joy and peace among suffering and self-control. The Holy Spirit is your inner spring. Christ preached to the woman at the well in Samaria, that the water that I give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. So you need to pray, as Paul did, to be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man, the inner man. All of us need an inner working. and inner watering by God's Spirit. And then, of course, the Holy Spirit, and this is our third point, he also mortifies sin. Romans 8 pits or contrasts the spiritual man with the Sarx man or the man of the flesh. The word Sarx there being the Greek word for flesh, and it teaches that you can only mortify sin by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is you can't kill a weed by a squirt gun. You can't kill sin by sin. But you can kill sin by the spirit. Paul wrote, if you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. Let me remind you that one of the vows, one of the vows that you took before before God, when you join this congregation. was that you would mortify the deeds of the flesh. Now, to mortify sin means that you kill it off. That particular verb to mortify today is most most famous among morticians, undertakers, those in the death business. Well, you're in the death business, too. Let me remind you of that. There's no peace, there can be no detente with sin. You are to crucify your lust and your pride daily. You're to hate evil like it's a den of deadly snakes, like vipers on the inside. Be decisive about killing sin. Sin is a snake. Kill it. Put it to death. Chop off its head. Don't be like Lot's wife who lingered and looked back at Sodom and became a pillar of salt. And Calvin especially condemned lust. He said, Quoting him, lust remains in a regenerate man, a smoldering cinder of evil which desires continually to leap forth to allure him to commit sin. So I exhort you today to redouble your efforts by the power of the Holy Spirit to put to death the lust of the flesh. Well, another working of the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit assures you of your salvation. Your assurance is sometimes called. In the Bible as a ceiling or maybe we could say a certification of the certification of the spirit. A full assurance of salvation depends completely upon God's spirit. Paul wrote that you're sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise and Ephesians chapter one, verse 13. This ceiling certifies your faith to be true, to be sterling, to be genuine, that you're not deceiving yourself. And Paul also wrote the spirit of self-bearer witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. You see, the Roman Catholic Church to this day continues to teach that assurance of salvation is a pipe dream and no Christian can ever have a full assurance of salvation in this life. But the Holy Spirit is greater than the church, because the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Godhead, and he is able through the preaching of the gospel and through the truth of the Bible to give you an infallible assurance that you really are in Christ. and that you really are elect in him. Well, of course, a fourth working of the Holy Spirit is that he regenerates you as well. The Greek word for spirit is pneuma. When we're reborn by God's spirit, you're not only a new person, but you become truly spiritual. You become a pneumatic man. Now, today we hear a lot about bionic men, about pragmatic men, about charismatic men, that when you become a Christian, you become pneumatic. You become pneumatic because you are indwelt by the spirit. That's why Jesus preached, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. If you're regenerated, then you your spirit, you are a spirit man, a spirit inhabited man. And your spirit, because you are born of the spirit. You see, none of us, of course, can make ourselves truly spiritual men. One misunderstanding of the doctrine of regeneration is that we have the ability within ourselves to make ourselves spiritual. And usually this is caused by a surface reading of Jesus' statement to Nicodemus. The statement is, ye must be born again. Now, that statement is not a command. Sometimes it said that Jesus said, I must be born again, and this means that I have within myself the energy to help it along. I can make myself born again. This is why there's a famous book still Available in the bookstores today called how to be born again. Whether or not. Dr. Billy Graham chose that as his title or his publisher did I don't know. But a reformed Christian would never approve of such a title rather the statement ye must be born again is an indicative statement not a command not an imperative. Christ isn't commanding you to make yourself born again. Rather, he underscores there our greatest need, a spiritual rebirth that can only come about by the power of the spirit. You see, a spiritual man is born twice. He hasn't he hasn't entered into his mother's womb a second time, but rather he's experienced a pneumatic rebirth. You see, this Focus destroys so much of the humanistic evangelism that we see today. I saw a bumper sticker a few years ago. Maybe you saw it, too. It was kind of a novelty in the bumper sticker said my first birth is good enough. Well, I must have known something about the working of the Holy Spirit to say that my first birth is good enough. The motion picture actor, late actor Gregory Peck, once said, I'm not a born Christian or I'm not a born again Christian. I'm a born Christian. Now, what did he mean by that? I'm not born again. I'm a born Christian. Well, John the Baptist was not really a born again Christian, because to be born again, you have to be born at least once before you become a Christian. John the Baptist was regenerated long before he was born. But Peck meant that a second birth is unnecessary. That your own physicality and your own self-engineered determination within yourself to make yourself new is good enough. You see, this shows blindness to our greatest need. Let's remember that rebirth in the Bible is a metaphor for resurrection. It's resurrection that's really fundamental. And when you're born again by God's spirit, you are resurrected by God's spirit. Resurrection, you see, isn't a metaphor for the new birth. Your new birth is a metaphor for the resurrection is by the resurrection power of Christ that we are born again. And then, of course, the scripture also teaches us that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. Who is the Holy Spirit, but the spirit of Jesus, his ministry from cellar to dome, that is, the spirit is to glorify the second person of the Trinity. Christ told his disciples, he shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. The spirit points away from himself to Christ. He came to magnify Christ, completed work on the cross and beyond. So if you're consumed by a study of Christ, If your chief interest in life is to be a disciple of Jesus, to read the book, the Bible, the inerrant word of God, your favorite topic is Christology, then you have an evidence that God's spirit is working in you. This is why he's called the spirit of Christ. Paul wrote, If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now, this explains Calvin's doctrine of the spirit. Why did it take the church so long to discern that Calvin's gift to the church was his formulation of the Holy Spirit? Well, there's one answer to that, at least. There's one, perhaps several good answers, but this is one of the main ones, because the Holy Spirit's work, you see, is like a searchlight, like a floodlight. When you when you're entertained these days more and more, it seems to be true in an art gallery. The thing that the person in the art gallery likes to do is to take the picture off the wall and to put it into a different room. And then they, they turn on the lights, like in a Kinkade painting of some sort. Put the painting on the wall as targeted by this illuminating light. And when the light is turned on, the blue of the seascape is magnified gloriously. All the textures of the crashing waves against the rocks. The translucent waves or whatever is involved there, the snow white sand on the beach is magnified, it's beautiful. No one thinks much about the light. The light doesn't get much glory. It's the art, you see, that gets the publicity and the glory, and that's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit, you see, floodlights the Lord Jesus Christ and his going to the cross to die for your sins. So all of us should be theologians of the Holy Spirit. If we depend on the spirits working in us, what insanity it is for us to minimize his work and to think that we can do it ourselves. And so you should rely upon God's spirit more and more and more. Well, the final thing the Holy Spirit does is the Holy Spirit resurrects. If you're truly a pneumatic, a pneumatic man, then the finale of the Spirit's power is future. It occurs on the day of resurrection. And is this ever good news? The Holy Spirit, His last job is to resurrect you from the dead. As Paul wrote, To the Romans, if the spirit who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit who dwells in you. Think of it. The same spirit that caused Jesus to cry out when he lived on this planet of a father is also in you. And the same spirit that resurrected Christ from the dead is in you. Your resurrection is A slam dunk, a no brainer. God will never fudge on that promise to resurrect you because his Holy Spirit is in you. You have the guarantee, you see. What great comfort this is for us. So make the Holy Spirit your priority, don't grieve the Holy Spirit away. It was David's. This was David's great fear in Psalm 51. David, you remember, he did not he did not want to become a carbon copy of Saul. God withdrew his spirit from Saul. And when that happened, Saul bombed spiritually. His life became a scandal of sin. And so David prays in Psalm 51, cast me not away from my presence and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Also, you need to depend upon the Holy Spirit to quicken you if your heart is spiritually dead or dying. If your heart is drier than Gideon's fleece, seek the secret watering of the Holy Spirit. If your prayer life is dead, remember that it's the Holy Spirit who makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. When Spurgeon preached, he would often recite the words of the Apostles Creed as he walked up to the pulpit. I believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Holy Ghost. Well, you need the Holy Spirit just as much as Spurgeon. As Paul wrote, Likewise, the spirit also helps our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Just one, just think of it, just one of the spirit induced groanings. has more weight with God than all of the canned prayers of the ritualist. And so expect the Holy Spirit to come when you pray in faith, when you diligently seek his help. God will not turn a deaf ear to you if you diligently pray for the Holy Spirit. God won't give you a stone or a scorpion or a serpent. If sinful people like ourselves can give good gifts to our children whom we love, how much more so will God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. And so ask God for his Spirit. Amen.