Okay, we are starting our new class on the Holy Spirit. We had a great time this summer. I wanna say another thank you to everybody who helped teach through Rosaria's book. I found that to be very encouraging and just a good reminder of all the great teachers we have in our congregation. After the class on the Holy Spirit, and I'm not making any promises about how short this is gonna be. But after we're done with this, we're gonna be looking forward to a class on parenting. And so you can be thinking about that and passing along any resources you'd like me to consider in thinking about that class. But we are gonna be spending some time here this fall studying the doctrine and the person of the Holy Spirit. So I wanna talk about why we should do this class. None of you are gonna argue that we shouldn't do this class because that would be, I mean, you'd feel silly. But I wanna argue why this is genuinely important, genuinely practical. So I put up some Bible verses here. I'd like to have volunteers read these verses for us. And we'll just think a little bit about who the Holy Spirit is. But specifically, why should we spend a few months considering who this person is? So let's take some of these verses in turn, and we'll begin by hearing Genesis 1-2. Who's got that one? Thank you, Christina. Go for it, yep. Okay, we'll come back to this verse later this evening, but the Holy Spirit is in the second verse of the Bible. We meet the Holy Spirit before we meet Jesus. That's not a statement of importance, but he's right there at the very, very beginning. All right, Psalm 51, verse 11. Who's got that? Jeremiah, thank you. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not Okay, this is David's great psalm of repentance. And he considers the presence of the Holy Spirit to be the mark of God's mercy. Don't cast me away from you. At the same time, don't, in parallel to that statement, take not your Holy Spirit away from you. He considers the Holy Spirit to be the presence of God to him. Luke 11, verse 13, who's got that? Zachary. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father All right, that's a great verse for lots of reasons, but specifically, God gives the Holy Spirit, we're expected to ask for the Holy Spirit, and it's a good gift that God gives. So we should consider what this gift is. All right, John 14, verse 26, Sam. But the helper of the Holy Spirit from the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring your remembrance all. Okay, we'll surely come back to John 14 in our class on the Holy Spirit, because it's incredibly important, but he teaches us all things. He is the one who imparts to us the true knowledge of God and the true knowledge of the word of God. Galatians 5, 16, Josh. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Okay, that's a whole powerful passage. The fruit of the Spirit's in Galatians 5, walk by the Spirit, is the summation of what it means to live as a Christian, to walk by the Spirit. It's been a while since I've heard a Reformed Christian say, I'm really trying this week to walk by the Spirit. My argument is, as we come to this class, that this area of doctrine, this area of the Trinity, I probably don't need to convince anyone, but this is a hugely neglected topic in modern Reformed churches. It's not a neglected topic among the Reformers. Interestingly enough, if you were to pick up Calvin's Institutes and read Calvin's Institutes, you would quickly find out why he was called the theologian of the Holy Spirit. That was just his nickname, which if you have to have a nickname as a theologian, that's a pretty good one. But we have, for many possible reasons, we've not kept that up. Perhaps the rise and the prevalence of charismatic theology and Pentecostalism over the last 12 decades or so has really caused us to retreat. It's caused us to be defensive about our doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The fact that there's so many, that the Pentecostalism is so huge around the world, makes us feel like we have to defend what we believe rather than simply enjoying who the Holy Spirit is and getting to know him through the Word of God. We will talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and charismatic things, but that's not gonna be our focus. Our focus is gonna be on what the Word of God tells us about the Holy Spirit. So that could be one reason that we haven't, made this a part of our joyful experience of Christianity. So this is why, that the Bible is full of the Holy Spirit, and the Bible puts the Holy Spirit at the center of our faith, at the center of our relationship with God, and we neglect it, maybe because it's harder to understand in some ways, it's a little more mystical, it's a little harder to define, he's a little harder to get to know, but we neglect it to our detriment. And so we want to pick it back up and turn to the Word of God over the next few months to find out who is this Holy Spirit and how do we know Him and how do we walk by the Holy Spirit. As it happens in any of these types of theology classes I teach, I'm not making things up. I'm not gonna come up with a whole, with all the things I say. I'm gonna steal from people. I figure it's okay if I tell you who I'm stealing from, this is who I'm stealing from. Primarily, I'm gonna be teaching, This book, The Holy Spirit by Sinclair Ferguson, is the best I've read on the topic. If you wanted to really dig in and follow along more deeply, you could buy this book and you'll see I'm just stealing from Sinclair Ferguson and just teaching you what he says. I'll tell you what I'm actually quoting from him, but you can assume that I'm following his outline and things like that. It's a great book. But there are other really good books. Edwin Palmer's book, B.B. Warfield, down in the bottom right-hand corner, is a shorter book, a collection of sermons. about the Holy Spirit that's really wonderful. Some other books there. I included there John Calvin's Institutes because it's full of good stuff about the Holy Spirit. So this is who I'm stealing from. Therefore, it's not plagiarism. It's just, you know, just wisdom. Okay, so what is our goal for this class? What's my goal for this class? As much as we might get into some technical aspects of theology and try to define some difficult things, my goal for this class is more simple than that. To not simply know more about the Holy Spirit, but to know the Holy Spirit. That's my goal for this fall, that we would genuinely finish this class knowing the Holy Spirit better. And knowing about the Holy Spirit is an important part on that road. But we wanna think, as we go through this class, some of it is gonna be pretty dense and heavy theology, and I'm totally okay with that. But I'm gonna try every week to bring it to a point and to bring it to application of how do we get to know him better? How do we walk by the Holy Spirit? So that's my goal for this class. I dare you to argue with me. Okay, so here's a news article that came out If you don't follow the Babylon Bee, you should. Just leave it up there. There's enough good articles there, I'll probably be quoting from them like every class. We are gonna talk tonight about who the Holy Spirit is. How do we define that? How do we even begin to talk about the Holy Spirit? And this is kind of funny, but at the end of it, you're probably gonna be saying this is still kind of true. because it is harder to talk about the Holy Spirit than it is to talk about Jesus. It's harder for a multitude of reasons. So we'll just begin and kind of dive into it. We can talk about the Son because we have sons, or we know people who have sons. We can talk about the Father because all of us have a father, for better or worse. We know what a father is, and we can make analogy, we can understand by analogy what is it to be a son, and therefore Jesus is the Son of God. What is it to be a father, therefore we begin to understand who the Father is within the Trinity. But when we say the Holy Spirit, what is that? What is a spirit? And as soon as we begin to try to define it, we find ourselves tongue-tied, we find ourselves in a place where we aren't nearly as able to use analogy to help us understand things. So, let's start with the first word. A little bit easier than the second word. What does holiness mean in scripture? Set apart. Okay, so that's the root word of holiness is set apart. It's spatial language. It has to do with how close something is to something else, something that's been set apart from something. It's spatial language that's used metaphorically in scripture. So it doesn't simply mean set apart geographically now. When we refer to the spirit, we don't mean he's not here. He's set apart spiritually, set apart metaphorically. In other words, we say that the Holy Spirit is other. He's other. Other than what? He's other, right? So the Holy Spirit is holy in the sense that God is holy. He is other than us. He is higher than us. So that's what holiness is. It will help us to get to the words that the Old Testament and New Testament give us for spirit. I know we have some scholars here. So, David Carr, what is the Hebrew word for spirit? Ruach. Ruach, okay. Who knows the New Testament, the Greek word for spirit? Pneuma, with a P. Pneuma, this is where we get pneumatology, we get pneumonia. And both of these two words, it is significant that both the Greek word and the Hebrew word for spirit also mean what? Breath. It's also interesting that both the Greek word and the Hebrew word are generally considered to be onomatopoeia. Right, which means that they sound like what they are. If you say ruach, the right way, the breath is, it just sounds like what it is, ruach. Pneuma, a little bit less, but still it's considered to be onomatopoeia in a way that it's a word that sounds like what it is. So in both Testaments, the word for spirit is drawn from the word for breath, ruach and pneuma. Their sound and definition both give a sense of what we're talking about. We're not simply talking about the literal breath of God. We're talking about the energy of God, the power of God, the outgoing life of God. Again, this is not easy to define. We're diving in. In the Old Testament, when we get to the word ruach, the focus is not so much on the immateriality of God, of the Holy Spirit. It's not simply that we're saying that he's breath as opposed to something solid. But we're saying, by saying that he's ruach, we're saying that he is energy and activity. The Holy Spirit is breath in the sense that he is the energy and the activity of God. Yahweh, this is a quote from Sinclair Ferguson now. Yahweh's ruach is the blast of God in the Old Testament. The irresistible power by which he accomplishes his purposes, whether creative or destructive. God extending himself in active engagement with his creation in a personal way. There are three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Typically, we have to be careful, but typically when God is interacting with this world, we call that the economic trinity. The ontological trinity is God as he is within himself. But when God extends himself to this world, we call it the economic trinity. And generally speaking, when God extends himself to interact with this world, it is the Holy Spirit that he sends. We already confessed in Ising Cree tonight that the Father and the Son are both sending the Holy Spirit, not just sent once, but constantly sending the Spirit as their representative, as their person who is bringing the power and the energy of God into this world. That's not to say that you don't have a relationship with the Father or with the Son, but it is to say if the Spirit wasn't here, you wouldn't. He is, that means that He is that which ties us to the Father and to the Son. Okay. Questions about, I hate to say that because I won't be able to answer them, but questions about The idea of breath is important. The idea of holiness is important. Do you have anything you want to add to that? Holiness, when we talk about the holiness of God, it always includes moral purity. But generally speaking, when we talk about God's holiness, we're talking about his otherness or his transcendence, primarily, which maybe a subcategory of that would always be his moral purity. That's a good question. Yes. God is a spirit, and the Holy Spirit is spirit. But the Father is not the Holy Spirit. He is spirit, but he's not this person in the Trinity. That's all I got. I'm gonna be careful here, yeah. Right. Right. That's right. We do have spirits. I agree with that. And by extension, that would mean that the more we get to know the Holy Spirit, the more we understand what it means to be made in the image of God and to have a spirit. Because as you hinted at, it's very difficult, not only to define the Holy Spirit, but even to define my spirit. What is that? It's a spirit, right? Okay. It does not show up in biology class. It does not show up in biology class, that is accurate. Okay, well then. And to build on that, we do even use language like, that blessed my spirit. And what we mean by that is that connected with me in a way that was much beyond just convincing me that two and two is four, or changing my gastrointestinal system. That was healthy food. I think we all, deep down, we instinctively know that there is an immaterial part of us. We know that and we speak in ways that hint at the fact that we know that and we feel that. And we know that the Holy Spirit testifies to my spirit. We know when that happens, it's just hard to put a graph to it, which is fine, that's okay. Okay, so let's talk about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The spirit is more clearly revealed in the New Testament, of course, just as God is as a whole, but we do meet the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The nature of progressive revelation is such that we would expect references to the Spirit to be present in the Old Testament, but to be increasing in number as we head toward the New Testament. So as we've already seen, we see the Holy Spirit on page one of Scripture, but you don't see him on every page of the Old Testament. Not like you do as often or as deeply in the New Testament. So we want to acknowledge that it's a little more, it's a little more shadowy in the Old Testament. But the more we see the Spirit in the Old Testament, the more we'll be able to understand who He is in the New Testament as well. We believe, according to the Old Testament, that the Spirit is divine, because every time we read of the Spirit of God, we are seeing Him do something that is divine. He's doing the works of God, or he's receiving the praise of God. So there's no real question in the Old Testament as to whether or not he's divine. There is a question, according to the second line here, on whether or not, when the Old Testament refers to the Holy Spirit, whether we are referring to what theologians call the hypostatic spirit. So, does God have a spirit that's not necessarily only the Holy Spirit. So Zachary already pointed out that God is spirit. Therefore, it's conceivable that when the Bible speaks of God's spirit, we're not necessarily talking about only the Holy Spirit. The word hypostatic means personal, of a person. And so when we talk about the hypostatic spirit, we're talking about the spirit as distinct, not separate, but distinct from the Father and the Son, three persons and one God. So in the Old Testament, there's a question that theologians argue about a lot, which is, are we dealing with the hypostatic spirit or just a general sense of the spirit of God in sort of a non-Trinitarian way? Just like you have a spirit, God's spirit, all three persons in one God, that's spirit. So that's a question that theologians debate about. The answer is a little tricky. It has to do with our progressive revelation. Surely, we would think that the answer should be yes, because the Holy Spirit is given by the Father and the Son. But at the same time, there is an incompleteness to the revelation of the Spirit in the Old Testament. His personal nature is only hinted at in the Old Testament. You will have a hard time finding a reference to the Holy Spirit as distinct from the Father and the Son in the Old Testament. You will find lots of references to the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, but it won't necessarily be like, You wouldn't be able to read that and say, oh, the Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son like you can when you get to the New Testament. You get to the New Testament and you read the Great Commission in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, okay, we've got three persons. In the Old Testament, it's just not that clear. That doesn't mean we can't learn anything about the Holy Spirit from the Old Testament, but it does mean that we're learning, sort of in a general way, some things that will apply more specifically when we get to the New Testament. So that's why I have a question mark there, because I don't know the answer to this question. Are we looking at a hypostatic spirit of God or at just a general spirit of God? Probably more we're looking at the general spirit of God, but there's always a shadow of the hypostatic, more Trinitarian spirit of God still in the Old Testament. So I'm not afraid to talk about the Spirit of God and His person in the Old Testament. But at the same time, when you read it, you might be thinking, I can't tell how this passage is showing me that the Spirit is different from the Father, because it just might not be. It might not be thinking or presenting that just yet. Does that make sense? That's right. Right, so in that verse, there's two lines there. We always think about the second line, but what's the first line? Cast me not away from your presence, and the parallel line is do not take your Holy Spirit away from me. So David considers the presence of God to be the Holy Spirit, but it would be difficult to argue that David had a fully formed Trinitarian theology in his mind. But he knew that God is spirit and that God's spirit was with him and he didn't want that to be taken away. Correct. Yeah, they believe a coming Messiah if they still believe, but not necessarily will they read their Bible and come away with the Holy Spirit is different from the Father. If all they have is the Old Testament, they might not get that. They should, but they might not, yeah. Did you raise your hand, David? The Bible is the word of God. It's not David's thoughts that he wrote down. So, I mean, he did write it down, but you didn't have to understand it totally in order to write it down. So Progressive Revelation, we understand later in the New Testament what he really meant, where it's kind of immaterial, how clear his understanding was. I wouldn't say that it's totally immaterial, but I would agree that. It's less important. Yep, I agree with that. So what we're saying is, with that question mark, we're saying when we look at the Old Testament alone, when we go to the New Testament and we allow the light of the New Testament to shine backward into the Old Testament, it becomes more clear. And we can read Psalm 51 and realize David might not have had that fully formed, but God did. And now we can surely sing Psalm 51 in specific reference and hypostatic reference to the Holy Spirit. So this question mark is not about the reality of the whole Bible, but simply the Old Testament by itself, right? And so they understood God, they understood God was spirit, they understood God had a Holy Spirit. They didn't have the clear Trinitarian theology of the New Testament, but now we do. And it was true in the Old Testament, but just in a shadowy way. But now we can read the Old Testament in the light of the New Testament, which is how we're supposed to do it. Okay, so let's go on and see what else do we find out about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. First of all, we see that he is a creating spirit. Again, there's a big argument because of that question mark about Genesis 1-2. When it says the Spirit of God, the breath of God was hovering over the waters of creation, was that the Holy Spirit? Yes, I mean, the answer is yes. It's the Holy Spirit, right? But there are a lot of people who like to argue about things like that. The Spirit is the one who was sent out by the Father and the Son to be, in a way, the power of God in creation. It is significant that in Genesis 1-2, the Spirit is hovering over the waters as creation is coming about. And then, what do we read in Luke 1 and Luke 2? What happens to Mary? Who is it that comes and hovers over Mary? It is the Holy Spirit. He comes and hovers over Mary for the bringing about of the new creation in Jesus Christ. And so that, of course, is significant. That doesn't mean that Jesus has nothing to do with creation. The spirit is present, but Jesus Christ is the word that's spoken. He is the word of God spoken in creation. He's the wisdom by which God created. But it's always in conjunction with the Holy Spirit who is hovering over the waters. It's a beautiful poetic phrase that says as much as I think we can say. I can't explain to you what it means that he was hovering over the waters, but I can say that faithfully, right? He was hovering over the waters at creation. Okay, so he is the creating spirit. We sang Psalm 104 at the beginning of creation. The spirit is involved in creation. We see it in the book of Job. Let's go to the book of Isaiah. Let's go to Isaiah chapter 63 together, because we'll pull a few things from this passage. I'm gonna begin reading Isaiah 63 in verse seven. I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness of the house of Israel that he has granted them according to his compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love, for he said, surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely, and he became their savior. In all their affliction, he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them, He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old, but they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. Therefore He turned to be their enemy and Himself fought against them. He remembered the days of old, the days of Moses and his people. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of the flock? Where is he who put them in the midst? Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit, who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name, who led them through the depths? We'll keep going. Like a horse in the desert, they did not stumble. Like livestock that go down into the valley, the Spirit of the Lord gave them rest. So you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name. Going back to the question now of whether we can see the Spirit as distinct from the Father in the Old Testament, this is a passage where if you wanted to argue you could see the Spirit as distinct, you can argue that. Because you see God sending His Spirit into the people. You see two persons there, right? The Father, in a sense, sending his spirit into them. There's lots of things we see about the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 63. We see that not only is he the creating spirit, but that he is the governing presence of his people. He's the one who's there ruling over the people, comforting them, and doing good things in their midst. So keep your finger there. We're gonna turn to a couple other places as well. So not only was the Holy Spirit the power of creation, He is also the governing presence of God. Ferguson says the divine ruach is the mode of God's power presence. That's a hyphenated word, God's power presence among his people. Let's look up at a couple words here. Would somebody read for us Ezekiel 39, 29? Ben, you got that one? And somebody else get ready to read for us Genesis 41, verse 38. Genesis 41, 38, so listen now to Ezekiel 39, 29. And I will not hide my face anymore from them when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel. Okay, oh, sorry. So in the Old Testament, often the face of God or the presence of God is equated with the spirit of God. When God says, I won't hide my face from them, in the next sentence he says, I will pour out my spirit. My spirit is my face. It is the way I relate to my people. It's the presence of God among his people. We see that in Isaiah 63, in verse 11. Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit? Would somebody read for us Genesis 41, verse 38? and Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of God? Okay, who is he talking about? Okay, can we find anybody in whom is the Spirit of God? What is it that happened to Joseph that made Pharaoh see the Spirit in him? He was able to just tell them what the dreams were. I can tell you the dreams and I can tell you what they are. Clearly the Spirit is in him. So not only do we see the Spirit in general in the Old Testament just being among the people and sort of ruling them, we see the Spirit imparting gifts. Where else can you remember in the Old Testament that the Spirit is present and making somebody more than they were in order to do a particular job? Samson, the Holy Spirit came upon Samson, gave him strength that he didn't have, right, to do this particular job. Saul, Saul the prophet. Saul, the Spirit rushed on Saul and caused him to prophesy, even though he was an unbeliever, he still, the Spirit was able to use him in that way. Does it mention the Spirit? That'd be good, look it up, see if you can find it, that'd be a good reference. A holy ab and Bezalel who are they? They were the craftsmen that God set apart to do what? To make the tabernacle and all the stuff and when how did he enable them to do it? He put his spirit on them It says in the book of Daniel that Daniel especially was given the Holy Spirit so that he could rule, so that he could do his job well. So in the Old Testament, the Spirit is there. He's guiding the people in a general way, and sometimes, Helping by giving individuals abilities above and beyond their normal ability and their normal wit, their normal power of mind. So the Spirit is in the Old Testament, not just generally with the people, but often helping specific people so that they could lead or do something good for the people of God. So that's what we mean when we say the governing presence of God is the Spirit in the Old Testament. But not only is the Spirit responsible for creation and for generally governing the people of God, the Spirit in the Old Testament also does moral and redemptive work. And this is a good distinction. We've seen that the Spirit creates, He leads and guides and helps, but we also see in the Old Testament that the Spirit changes people. He doesn't just add to people like He did to Daniel and Samson. He goes to people who are sinners and He makes them righteous. The Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is responsible for changing people. We see this in Isaiah 63, that the Spirit is the one who is grieved, he's the one who's sent, and eventually transforms his people. Look at verse 17. O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribe of your heritage. God, return to us. This is all, again, this is all speaking of the Holy Spirit. Return to us so that we would be, here he's doing the opposite. He's hardening the hearts of the people, but they acknowledge that the Holy Spirit could come and could soften their hearts. We also see in this passage that the Holy Spirit is the one who executed the exodus. He is the one who went among the people. And so if we have to make a decision, was it the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit who was in the cloud? No, that's the Spirit. According to Isaiah, that's the Spirit that was sent to be among them and to lead them out and to keep them. We see in the book of Ezekiel especially that the Spirit is spoken of as the one who changes He's the one who's spoken as those who goes and brings them to new life. In the book of John, Jesus meets a man named Nicodemus, and he tells Nicodemus, you must be born again. What was Nicodemus' response to that? You can look at John 3 if you want to cheat a little bit. Say it louder. Right, so he's confused, he doesn't understand what Jesus is saying, which sometimes has given rise to the question, were people in the Old Testament born again? In other words, if Nicodemus is confused about this, maybe it means that Jesus is introducing a new idea, and Nicodemus has never heard the idea of being born again, so maybe it's not in the Old Testament, right? What's the answer to that? Verse 10, Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not. It is in the Old Testament. If you knew your Bible, you'd know that the Spirit does bring new life where he goes. He doesn't simply help. He doesn't simply create, but he changes. He recreates. He brings new life where he goes. So this is, again, we're dealing in the Old Testament, so we're dealing in shadows and things that will become much more clear in the New Testament. But here, even in the Old Testament, we see these wonderful things about the Holy Spirit. Let's go to just a review a little bit then. We also see in the Old Testament that the Spirit is the one responsible for the Word of God itself. This we see much more clearly in the New Testament. What does the New Testament tell us? Somebody could just quote for us 2 Timothy 3.16, but what is the Word of God according to 2 Timothy 3.16? God breathed. Not only is that a nice picture of how we get the Bible, but that's where we get the Spirit, too. It's God, Theopneustos, it's God breathing, it's God, the Holy Spirit. What does 2 Peter tell us about how we have the Word of God? 2 Peter 1, verse 21, if anybody wants to look it up, or maybe you just know it. What does 2 Peter 1, 21 tell us about how we came to have the Word of God? Well, I just want to write about those men carried along by the Holy Spirit. That's it. Men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So, did Peter and Paul invent the doctrine of the Spirit inspiring the Word of God? No, it's an easy answer. Where do they get it from? All right, so somebody look up for us Jeremiah chapter one, verse two, and eight, and 15. Anyway, Jeremiah chapter one, verse two, and eight, how about that? To whom the word of the Lord came in the day, to Josiah the son of Ammon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, verse eight, do not be afraid of him, Brian, Okay, let's keep going to verse, let's see, verse 15. Okay, I'm gonna look for one more. So in Jeremiah, along with many of the prophets, it's clear that the Lord is putting his hand on them. It says the hand of the Lord was there. The word of the Lord was what their oracles were. So this is how Sinclair Ferguson continues to develop this. Jeremiah records what is the paradigm for information in chapter one, verse nine. God's words in Jeremiah's mouth. Isaiah goes on to give the same idea in Isaiah 59, verse 21. As for me, says the Lord, this is Isaiah 59 now, my spirit who is on you and my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouths of your children. So Jeremiah says, the word of the Lord was on me. And Isaiah makes it a little more clear, the Holy Spirit was on me. And let's read one other verse that helps with this, 2 Samuel 23, verse two. 2 Samuel 23, verse two, who's got that one? Oh, we should read verse one and two, this will really help us. Now these are the last words of David. The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is on my tongue. I'll read verse 3 too, I can't stop. Yeah, so David says in verse two, the spirit of the Lord spoke by me. He's the one who controlled my tongue. And at the same time he says the Lord himself. But this is where Peter and Paul got their doctrine of inspiration. They didn't make it up. They looked to the prophets and they looked to David and they realized the prophets believed that they were being led and carried by the Holy Spirit of God. They believed that and they taught that. And so that's just what Paul and Peter are clarifying. How is it, according to God's word, what does the spirit do to produce scripture? We've covered these two verses. The spirit breathes scripture, all scripture is God breathed, and the spirit carries men and women along, he carries them along, so that what they produce is the word of God. That's about as much as we know. The spirit does what he wants. He inspires scripture so that it is inspired and fallible. Ferguson says the authors of scripture display an interest in the product rather than the process. We're told more about what the word of God is and how it came about. But we're told enough that we can believe that it is the word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. So let's bring it to a few points of application. Based on what we've talked about tonight, what is your relationship to the Holy Spirit? He made you. He is your creator. He guides you as he guides God's people and always has guided them. He helps you by giving you strength to do things you could not or would not naturally do. And when you need it, he changes you. He changes you. So that's just a few thoughts about your current relationship to the Holy Spirit. How then can you improve your relationship to the Holy Spirit? You can acknowledge him more often. You can recognize his presence with you. You can find ways as you pray and read the word of God to rely on him more, to seek more of his help, to seek more of his guidance and more of his change. You can improve your relationship to the Holy Spirit by reading his word. And this is gonna be the big difference between how the Reformed Church tends to think about the Holy Spirit versus how more charismatic churches think about the Holy Spirit. We relate to the Holy Spirit primarily through the Word of God. If you wanna know the Holy Spirit, you open his book and you hear him speak. If you want to know him, you know him through the Word of God. That's how we experience and know him and hear him. Along with that, you can pray for His help. Sometimes the question comes to pastors, can we pray to the Spirit? The Bible tells us to pray to the Father. Jesus told us to pray to the Father. The example was our Father who art in heaven. Can we pray to the Spirit? Can we pray to Jesus? I think the answer is yes. I think to pray means you have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. You are more than allowed to talk to Him. Right, and isn't that what praying is? And so by all means, talk to the Holy Spirit, especially when you're asking for things that you know often come through the Holy Spirit. When you need assurance of salvation, talk to the Holy Spirit about it. And when you need more of the Holy Spirit, talk to the Father about that, because the Father sends the, so yes, I think it's more than okay to pray to the Holy Spirit. I think the general pattern is to pray to the Father in the name of Christ, by the power of the Spirit, but it's certainly okay to talk to Jesus. it's certainly okay to talk to the Holy Spirit because you have a relationship with each person of the Trinity. So these are simple. Acknowledge Him, read His Word, and pray for His help. But if we were to do those things and more consciously try to understand that He's with us, recognize in our prayer life that He's with us and that we need Him, I think our relationship with Him will continue to improve. Our relationship, we'll get a lot more into this over the next couple weeks, but our relationship to the Spirit does not take away from our relationship to Jesus. Not only is it one God, but getting to know the Spirit is always going to help us get to know Jesus better. And we'll talk why that is a lot more next week. So don't be afraid that focusing on the Spirit or getting to know the Spirit is somehow going to detract from your relationship to Jesus. That's not how the Trinity works. Any final questions or thoughts before we pray? Okay, let's pray. Lord in heaven, we thank you for your word given to us by the Holy Spirit. We thank you for revealing to us who you are, that you are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And to whatever extent we have grieved the Holy Spirit by not walking according to him, we seek your forgiveness. Not only that, we seek your help. We seek, as Luke promised, or as Jesus promised us in Luke, that you would give the Holy Spirit to those who ask, and that's what we want. Lord, this class is really worthless if you don't give us the Holy Spirit, and if you don't teach us how to relate to you in that particular way. So teach us who you are, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teach us how to walk by the Spirit, to pray by the Spirit. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would bear fruit in our lives this week as we seek to walk more closely with you. And we pray, Lord, that you would bless this class, that you would keep us within the confines and the bounds of your word, teaching us who you are according to your scripture. We thank you for it, in Jesus' name, amen.