Well, first of all, I'm going to have you turn to Job 33 as we begin this morning. You do have a handout there in your announcements for this morning. We're going to be taking a look at the names of the Holy Spirit. This is just the first part of the names of the Holy Spirit. In fact, we're really just taking a look at the Spirit. There are at least 25 different names used in Scripture in speaking of the Holy Spirit. And understand that names have more significance, they had more significance in the day of Bible times than they do today. People will name their kids something that sounds good to them, rather than a name that means any particular thing. I know that there are some that look at what the meaning of the name is, but by and large, people are looking for, well, I like Marcia, so I'm going to call my little girl Marcia, or I like James, so I'm going to call my son James. Normally, they don't think about what what is behind that. But that was not the way it was in Scripture. The names were more significant in Bible days than they are today. We find in these names a really wonderful revealing of both the person and work of the Holy Spirit. So, let's begin. We're going to take a look first of all this morning at just the Spirit. Simply, in fact, this is the simplest name by which the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Scripture. And the name is also used as the basis of many of the other names that's combined with other words. of the Holy Spirit that we'll see. And we know from both the Hebrew word, and it's in the Old Testament, and the Greek word in the New Testament that were translated spirit. They are translated this way, they literally mean breath. or wind, breath. Both thoughts are in the name as applied to the Holy Spirit. I want to take a look at a couple of things regarding the breath and the wind. First of all, we see here in Job 33, in verse number 4, Job says here, he says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. If you know anything about Hebrew poetry, first line and second line are saying basically the same thing, but it is just spoken in a different way. So when it says, the Spirit of God made me, the breath of the Almighty hath given me life, that's a Hebrew poetry expression there. that the book of Job is considered the oldest book. The oldest book of the Old Testament. And that's where we find the Spirit of God mentioned here with regard to breath. We also see it in the earliest recordings of history regarding the Spirit and regarding God having created the world. Genesis 2 and verse number 7. Remember Genesis 2 7 says the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Breathed and breath. He breathed in his nostrils the breath of life. Psalm 104 and verse number 30 says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created. Thou renewest the face of the earth. Now I want you to turn to John's Gospel, chapter number 20, and we're going to see a New Testament section here. I just want to make a few comments here in John 20 and verse number 22. John 20 and 22. I want to back up and read beginning at verse number 19. This is right after Christ has been crucified and He's resurrected now. The disciples really haven't understood that yet. Mary Magdalene came and told them that she had seen the Lord. And there in verse number 19 it says, evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side, Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you, as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, catch that, he breathed on them and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them. Whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained. But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. Now I want you to think about it. Thomas was not assembled with the rest of the disciples. The other disciples are together. They're assembled here. Jesus comes and shows himself to them. You know, we miss out on things when we're not with the assembly. God wants us to be with the assembly so we don't miss out. Here he missed out on the Lord Jesus breathing out here and giving this symbol of what was to come later. This is a picture. I believe that he empowered them right here, but it was just a temporary empowerment until the Holy Spirit came to indwell them forever. What we see here, he was not there with them, and notice the other disciples therefore said unto him, verse 25, We have seen the Lord, but he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the prints of the nails, put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." We know that Jesus did appear to him later again, and Thomas was there, and the Lord kind of used His own words on him. He said, you know, come put your hands in. Reach your hand in my side and be full of faith. Don't be unbelieving. Don't be faithless, but believing. But we see here, what is the significance of this name from what we see in these passages? We see he breathed on them and said, receive ye the Holy Ghost. Well, here's the significance. It is that the Spirit is the out-breathing of God. The Holy Spirit is the very out-breathing of God. It is God's inmost life going forth in a personal form to enliven or to give life. I mean, there when man was formed of the dust of the ground, had no life in that form. He had to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life. Man became a living soul. It was more than just air. This was more than just mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, mouth-to-nose resuscitation, however you want to put it. But listen, when we got saved, The Spirit gave us life. The Spirit gave us life. At the same time, we began to be indwelt by the very same Holy Spirit of God. He took up residence within. And that's an awesome and overwhelming thing to think about if you think about it. Think about it this way. We receive the inmost life of God himself to dwell with us in a very personal way. You can't get any more personal than that, can you? I mean, when you're with somebody and they're in close approximation to you, you say, you know, sometimes people can get too close to you. You know, they're invading your personal territory, right? Don't like my personal territory invaded, but when you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He is in your life in the inmost way. When we truly take time to stop and think about what it means to have the inmost life of that infinite and eternal One whom we call God dwelling in a personal way in our lives, that thought ought to make such a difference in the way that we approach life, the way that we think, and the way that we live. So, think about breath. Breath. The very out-breathing of God. Now, turn to John, chapter number three. John's Gospel, chapter number three. And we're familiar, most of us, I think, with the story that's going on here with Nicodemus coming to Jesus by night. And we're going to see in this passage, the word translated in one part of this passage is spirit, and the same word is translated in the other part as went. Now, let's take a look. I want to get the context of it, so let's go from verse number 1. John 3, verse number 1. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, He cannot see the kingdom of God. Born again, born from above, born of the Spirit. We're talking the same stuff. Look at verse number 4. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? He's confused about this matter. The Lord Jesus is using a picture of physical birth to try to explain spiritual birth. And Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, that's the first birth, and of the Spirit, there's the second birth. You know, when a woman has a child, the water is broken, right? They've got to come through the water. Except be born of the water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And then he says, that which is born of the flesh, there's the first birth, is flesh. And that which is born of the spirit, there's the second birth, is spirit. So the watery birth that he's talking about is the flesh. The spiritual birth, being born of the spirit, is the second birth. He says in verse 7, marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again. And he says, the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, whether it goeth. So is every one that is born of Now, we'll leave off reading there, but we see the full significance of this name as applied to the Holy Spirit when we talk about the wind. It may be beyond us to fathom, but we can at least see a few things here. Number one, the Spirit, like the wind, blows where he wishes. Look at John 3 there in verse number 8 again. The wind bloweth where it listeth. In other words, it goes where it wants to go. There are none of us who can dictate to the wind. You can go out there and yell at the wind all you want to. You're not going to stop it. You're not going to change its direction. You're not going to increase the speed or decrease the speed by going out there and yelling at the wind. It's just not going to happen. It's going to blow when and how it wants to blow. These folks that we just talked about over in South Africa that had this cyclone come through. I'm sure they would have loved been able to do something about the wind that came and hit them and to cause such devastation, but they were powerless to do anything against the wind. I mean, when you think about it, we're going to have a, from what the newscasters tell me anyway, and they don't always get it right, but I'm going to assume they're correct. On Tuesday, we're supposed to have a nor'easter blow in. and it's supposed to get kind of nasty for Tuesday and Wednesday. But when the wind is blowing cold air from the north, we may long to have it blow from the south, warm air from the south, but it doesn't matter. All the belly aching, crying in the world is not going to change it. I prefer the warm wind myself, not the cold wind. But we can't change the direction. We can't do anything about it. When the winds of a hurricane or tropical storm are blowing, we might rather that they would go in a certain direction. weather channel or you get on the news broadcast and you try to follow the path of that storm as it comes. And they don't have any idea really. I mean when you take a look at the Kona concern, when that thing first starts and you see where it actually hit at, Most of the time it hits outside of that cone of concern. They should have been concerned a little bit farther. Either to the left or to the right or to the north. You just don't know. But all the desire and all the want in the world cannot change the direction of what it does. All the weather forecasters can tell you is they can tell you where it is at this particular time. They'd say, well, we're predicting that it's going to go this way, and this, and la, la, la, la. And they'd get it wrong. The last hurricane, when my mom passed away, when we were in Brunswick, Georgia, her house for the hurricane, we had gotten, before she got so sick, we had gotten reservations over in Vallosta. We were going to go to Valdosta and stay in a motel over there. Well, where we got a motel at was right where the storm went over. It brushed Brunswick with the right-hand side. The actual eye of it went right up where we were going to be at. It was different from what they had told us before. If a meteorologist can't get it right, what hope do we have of trying to get it right? What we're saying here is that the Spirit, like the wind, blows where He wishes. Think about it. The Holy Spirit is sovereign. You can't dictate to Him, can you? Can you dictate to the Holy Spirit? You can desire all you want a particular spiritual gift. But you know who gives the spiritual gifts out? It's the Holy Spirit. In fact, 1 Corinthians 12, 11 says, But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. It's up to his will. He may decide that you've got three gifts or four gifts, or you may decide you only have one gift. You can do all the bellyaching you want to, but somebody else has got more spiritual gifts than what I've got, or they've got a better spiritual gift than what I've got. Why don't you just take the spiritual gift God has given to you and serve the Lord with all your might, with the spiritual gift that you have. A lot of folks will just complain about what they don't have rather than using what God has given to them. But the Holy Spirit is sovereign. We can't dictate to Him regarding spiritual gifts or regarding anything really. But listen, we can learn. The laws that govern winds motions and can learn things, can't we? Men have looked at how wind works and they've come up with some things and made wind work for them. By bringing ourselves into the harmony with the laws of the wind, we can even get the wind to do our work. Some examples, sailboats and windmills, amen? We live in a time now where they are trying to make electricity. Well, they are making electricity from these gigantic windmills that we saw whenever we were out. in Arizona. There's a lot of wind farms and all out in that direction. But you think about sailboats. A sailboat is nothing but harnessing the power of the wind to drive that boat. And you've got to know something about how the wind works in order to do that. In the same way, though, listen, we can't dictate to the Holy Spirit, but we can learn the ways of the Holy Spirit and bring ourselves into harmony with His ways by submitting our wills absolutely to His sovereign will. And when we do that, God's will is accomplished through us to the glory of God. So the spirit, like the wind, blows where he wishes. Second thing we see here is the spirit, like the wind, is invisible, yet he is perceptible. Notice verse 8 again. So the wind bloweth where it listeth, and here it is. And thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whether it goeth. We may hear the sound of the wind blowing, right? Anybody ever seen the wind? You've seen the results of the wind. It's kind of overwhelmingly awesome when you take a look at the other day when they had the really bad tornado in Alabama. Some people took pictures of that. What you were seeing was not the wind. What you were seeing was the results of the wind stirring up a dust cloud. But you can't actually see the wind. We may hear the sound of the wind as it blows and we may see at times the mighty results of the wind that's blowing and we may even feel the breath of the wind on our face. We've been going biking a lot this past two weeks with the grandkids. They like to get out on their bike and sometimes you'll be out there with the wind either blowing you from the front Slowing you down, you've got one from behind you. You're pushing your own. You can feel it, but you can't see it. We cannot see the wind itself. The wind itself remains invisible. Now, the word translated sound there in John 3.8, thou canst hear it, the sound thereof. It comes from the same word that is translated voice elsewhere in the scriptures. Sound, voice. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, we not only hear the sound or the voice of the Holy Spirit, we can feel His breath on our souls. We can see the mighty things that He does. But listen, we cannot see Him. and he's invisible but he is real. The Holy Spirit is real and he is perceptible. He's perceptible. Have you ever sensed the unseen yet awesome presence of God's Holy Spirit? I had the privilege of growing up in a Bible teaching and preaching church, Sterling Baptist Church in Brunswick, Georgia. I remember taking part in some real revival services where God was actually moving and working. A lot of the services today, you may have good preaching and all, but you don't see the same thing that we used to see. Has God changed? No, people have changed. People have changed. The Word of God can still do but people resist the Holy Spirit, they resist His working, and so you don't see a lot of the revival. There are some places where you will see some revivals, and we'll talk about that in just a minute, but none of us has seen the Holy Spirit at any time, but we have sensed His divine presence and or witnessed His divine power And knowing that there is no doubt about his reality, some folks will say, well, I don't believe in anything I can't see. Well, that's a lie. Do you believe in air? We breathe it all the time. Can you see air? No. You can't. These folks that say they don't believe in anything they cannot see, they're not being honest. None of them have ever seen the wind itself. They've only seen the results of the wind, and yet all of them believe in the wind because they've felt it and seen its effects. In the same way, we, beyond question, have felt the mighty presence of the Holy Spirit, We've witnessed His mighty workings, though we have never personally seen Him. We know He's there, and we can sense when He's there, but you're not going to see Him. He's invisible, yet He is perceptible. A third thing we see here is the Spirit, like the wind, is mysterious in His workings. Back to verse number eight again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit. You can't tell where it's coming and where it's going. Wind is very mysterious in its nature, isn't it? I used to like to get, I know a smaller version of what a tornado is, but the dust bunnies. You ever been outside and one of those stir up and you could just go out there and run in the middle of it? It's kind of a weird feeling, really. But I remember being a kid, you could see one of those stir up and we'd try to go run and get in the middle of it just to see what it felt like. But wind is very mysterious. Sometimes it blows in one direction. Sometimes it blows in an entirely different direction, and sometimes it may even whip around from multiple directions. Now, that was always fun at our family barbecues. We had family barbecues on Christmas Eve every year. Daddy had a big old diesel tank that had been cut in half. It was raised to the top of the thing with a boat crank. Big surface to surface probably about the size of that track table there to barbecue on and it had it was on wheels And so we would try to direct that thing to when we opened up the lid That the wind wasn't blowing us in the face blowing smoke back in our face. You understand me But sometimes the wind was crazy you know you sometimes that we'd be blowing away and and you think you had it right and you crank that lid up and all of a sudden it changes direction and back in your face comes that smoke. I remember that very distinctly because it was every Christmas Eve that we had to figure out the wind. And you can't figure out the wind. You try to do the best you can. But even more mysterious is the Holy Spirit and His workings. I didn't get an opportunity to go to the Burlington Tent Revival meetings. A few years back now, I think it was 2016 is when those were. The people that had the opportunity to go to the Burlington Tent Revivals, they talk about, you could sense the presence of the Holy Spirit there and Him working. That meeting lasted 11 weeks. It was supposed to be a one-week meeting at a church. The crowds got so big that they had to move outside the church, put up the big tent, and they had another ten weeks' worth of meetings. Not just the crowds, but the Holy Spirit was working in those services. A lot of people got saved. A lot of people got right with God. Kind of reminds me of what I heard about the meetings. Reminds me of what we... I've been in an extended meeting. A meeting that was supposed to only last a week and wound up being extended a week. Extended another week. I think up to three weeks. I saw that as I was growing up. There also was the Bristol revival meetings, which I think was last year. It lasted four weeks, but four weeks is still unusual for revival meetings to take place, and I think it probably would have lasted longer if they could have They didn't have the ability to stay in the venue that long. They were limited to four weeks where they were at. What I want you to get from this is we can't tell where the Holy Spirit is going to display His mighty, gracious, and glorious power next. We don't know where it's going to happen. Because the Spirit, like the wind, is mysterious in His workings. And then, I want you to see that the Spirit, like the wind, is indispensable. It's indispensable. Look at verse number 5. Back up to verse number 5. Jesus answers, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, of the breath, the wind, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. You know, without the wind, don't you think about how terrible it would be if the wind did not blow. It makes a hot day even hotter, doesn't it? When you have no breeze. Whenever I was going to Tennessee Temple, Susan and I had only been married about a year whenever we left to go to Chattanooga, Tennessee. There was a missionary friend that was out of the church that we came out of, Sterling Baptist Church. He was going to school there to go to Canada as a missionary. God had called him to Canada. While he was going through school, he had a grass-cutting business. I picked up a job working with him during the hottest summer, I think, that Chattanooga had had on record at that time. We're talking about extended temperatures of 105 degrees. No breeze, and we were down in a bowl, you know, you got the mountains on all the sides. Nothing, no blowing of the wind at all. You talk about miserable, especially if you got to cut grass. Push mow. That's what I, I push mowed, is what I was doing. It was hot. But listen, without the wind, without air in motion, it's difficult for life to be sustained. I mean, can you imagine if there was never any wind? What it'd be like? If it was to absolutely cease to blow, that would be very catastrophic, wouldn't it? Without the Spirit of God having worked in us and giving us His spiritual life by birthing us into God's family, listen, we would not and could not have eternal life. Have you turn to one more place? Ezekiel. Book of Ezekiel, chapter number 37. Those of you that were with us back on our Soup or Bowl Sunday, the first Sunday of February, we had the back-to-back services and we saw one of the fellows that was involved, in fact, the preacher of the Burlington Revival and the Bristol Revival both, C.T. Townsend. He's an evangelist. And this is the passage that he spoke from. And I want to share something from here that is applicable, especially when we get down to verse number 8 through 10. I want us to pay close attention. But I want you to note that it's only when the wind blew the breath of God's Spirit here that these bones came alive. Let's read from verse number 4. And it says, again, he said unto me, this is the Lord talking to Ezekiel the prophet. He said unto me, prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. He said, God's the only one who can do that. The only one that can breathe breath into something that is that dead and it live is the Lord. I know we have mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but those people aren't dead yet. They're in the process of dying. Once they die, ain't no amount of blowing that's going to cause breath to enter into them. It's not going to cause them to come back to life. Look at verse 7. Verse 6, I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live. Now you notice the living part is when he puts breath in. Put breath in you and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Verse 7, So Ezekiel says, so I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a shaking. And the bones came together, bone to his bone. Man, what a sight that must have been. Can you imagine? Kind of like, I need to get out of here. But no, he's sticking with it here. The bones came together. And they came together in the right way. You know, the hip bone connected to the leg bone. Bone to his bone. Where they were supposed to be at, they all shook up and they went to where they were supposed to be. Verse number 8. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above, but notice here, but there was no breath in them. It's kind of like when the Lord formed Adam from the dust of the ground. He was flesh, he was bone, he had muscles there, but he didn't have the breath of life in him, did he? God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. There's no breath in here, so there's no life. You've got bones, and you've got the sinews, which is the tendons and the muscles, and you've got flesh covering that, but there's no breath. Verse number 9, Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind. And he says, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and notice, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say our bones are dried, and our hope is lost, and we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves." Now, I want you to think about this. Here's a picture of the rapture, really a picture of the rapture, and this is what God's going to do. He said, Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, cause you to come up out of your graves. and bring you into the land of Israel. You know, the Lord's going to bring Israel into the land one day. Verse 13, And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and have brought you up out of your graves, and shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live. So the wind, picture the Spirit, the breath of God, He said, I shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then shall you know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord. So I want you to note here that it's only when the wind blew the breath of God's Spirit that they came alive. This reminds us of a couple of verses in the New Testament. Let me share them with you quickly here. We're running out of time. But John 6, 63 says, It is the Spirit that quickeneth. The Spirit that quickeneth. The Spirit that gives life. He says, The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, Jesus said, they are spirit, they are life. So the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, who is the author of the Word of God, uses the Word of God to blow the breath of life spiritually into our lives to spiritually quicken us. 2 Corinthians 3.6. Says, who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. Listen, you know, God can take the vilest, most wicked sinner among us and bring him out of his death by his spirit. I don't know how many people you've been able to observe in your lifetime. I know we all run into all kinds of people, don't we? And when you are in a position such as mine, you run across some very wicked people at times. And Ephesians 2.1, you have to quicken who were dead in trespasses and sin. Listen, we all were wicked. We all were dead. You know, dead is dead, isn't it? Dead is dead. I mean, you can have extremes of wickedness, I know, but if you're wicked, you're dead, and dead is dead. You can't get any deader than dead. And the Apostle Paul acknowledged. He said in verse Timothy 115, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Paul looked at himself as being the chiefest of sinners. No matter how wicked someone is, no matter how far away from God their living and their life has been, God's able to quicken them by His Spirit. Spirit can breathe life into their life, spiritual life. and quicken us who are dead in trespass and sin. And I'm glad for the day that He quickened me and brought me out of my death. Amen. And you have the testimony of the same thing. All right. Well, that's all we have time for this morning. and just right on time. Amen. We'll take a look at another name of the Holy Spirit. We're willing next Sunday and actually next Sunday I think we have a missionary. It'll be the week after that. So make special effort to be here next week when the missionary comes. Be here in the Sunday school hour. I trust that you'll do that and encourage others to do it. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the time we've had together. Thank you for, Lord, your spirit. Thank you for the life that he gives. Lord, we thank you for our physical life, but Lord, we thank you most of all for our spiritual life. The day that you breathed your Holy Spirit into our lives, took up residence within, that's the day we really began to live. Help us to realize that. We thank you that that Holy Spirit is there with us forever. What a blessing that is in our lives. Be with us now as we enter into the morning service.