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Okay, I'd like you, if you would, turn in your Bibles, please, to the Gospel of Luke, chapter three. Luke chapter three. And, uh, while you're turning there, I want to just, uh, thank the, uh, uh, camp, uh, committee for inviting me to be the speaker this year. It has been an enjoyable time for me. I hope it has been for you, and I hope, uh, by the time we're done, uh, today, that you will have learned at least two things. Uh, one is that doctrine is both practical and devotional. It's not dry, dusty theology, but it's very important. And secondly, that perhaps all of us will leave here with a fresh appreciation of our indwelling heavenly guest, the Holy Spirit, and, uh, live our lives with more conscious awareness of him.
I think that would be very valuable. So, Luke's Gospel, chapter three. our topic this morning is the symbols of the Holy Spirit that are given in the scriptures, and, uh, this one we're gonna begin with is the symbol of the dove, and so we'll bring- begin reading in verse thirty— uh, verse twenty one, sorry, of of Luke chapter three. It says, now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus, also being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, thou art my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.
It is interesting in Bible reading, I think we've alluded to this more than once, that sometimes you can read through the Bible and, uh, read it many times, and then all of a sudden you notice something that on the previous occasions you had just completely overlooked. And for me, uh, this, uh, section twenty one and twenty two, and particularly verse twenty one, there was something that I had missed in my reading that really jumped out at me, and I want you to notice again verse twenty one. Now, when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also being baptized, and here's the phrase I want you to notice, and praying, the heavens were opened and the Holy Ghost descended, uh, in a bodily, uh, shape like a dove upon him.
And it never really struck me before, uh, the other accounts don't mention this, uh, of the baptism of the Lord Jesus, but Luke points out to us that the beginning of the public ministry of the Lord Jesus begins with him praying. Being baptized, because this was the beginning of his ministry, and praying. Just to hold that thought for a moment and look with me to Acts chapter nine, and I want you to see another interesting thing. Acts nine, and this is uh, Saul of Tarsus and his conversion, and uh, Ananias has been sent to uh, convey a message to Saul, and it's, we'll break in in verse ten of Acts nine.
It says, and there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias, and he said, behold, I am here, Lord. And the Lord said to him, arise and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he prayeth. And again, I, I just want to suggest to you that this is the beginning of the ministry of what we know as the Apostle Paul, and where does it begin? Prayer. Isn't that interesting? I'd just not seen that before, and now I see it.
I'm seeing something. I'm seeing an important message that if the Lord Jesus, and and and he's portrayed in the Gospel of Luke as the dependent man, as the, as it were, the last Adam, he's portrayed in this way, and and what we find is that he his ministry begins in prayer and also begins with the descent of the Spirit. And so what we would say is that the ministry of the Lord Jesus on this earth as the dependent man, his ministry was a, a, a, a life, the dependence of God in prayer and dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit. And, and again, I want to encourage you, if you want a homework assignment, to read Luke's gospel and observe the references to prayer in the life of the Lord Jesus and to dependence on the Holy Spirit in the life of the Lord Jesus.
And what you'll come to terms with is this: if the Lord Jesus, as the dependent man, saw this incredible need of dependence of his on his father in prayer and dependence on the Holy Spirit, who do we think we are to think that we can live the Christian life without that? See what I'm saying? I mean, this to me is such an a a kind of a one of these, uh, what you say, epiphany moments where you see this and you say, wow, this is what I need. I need to live that kind of life if I'm ever gonna live a fruitful Christian life. I must be a man of prayer, and I must be dependent on the Spirit of God.
And so, again, I'm getting sidetracked from the major theme, but I, I want you just to see that. But it does say the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape upon him like a dove. So I want to think about the dove as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. So let me just ask you to turn to some scriptures. Let's start in Genesis one uh, to begin with, and verse two. and I'm going to read it to you in the King James Version, and then I'm going to read you the Jewish Talmud and how it translates Genesis one verse two. uh, but let me just read it in the King James Version, uh, Genesis one two, it says, the, the earth was without form and void, the darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
That's the first reference we have in the Bible to the Holy Spirit moving over the waters, and, and this is how the Jewish Talmud translates the same verse, and it says this, the Spirit of God, like a dove, brooded over the waters. The Spirit of God, like a dove, brooded over the waters. Now look at Genesis eight. Again, we're just thinking of this picture of the Holy Spirit described in terms as, uh, that of a dove. Genesis eight, and this is, uh, Noah after the flood.
He- he's still in the ark. He's waiting for the waters to recede, uh, from off the earth. Uh, the, uh, the- the sin, uh, ladened earth has, in a sense, been cleansed, uh, by this incredible flood that has just washed, uh, the place clean from, uh, the devastation of sin. Uh, but, um, we read, uh, we'll break in in verse eight of, uh, uh, of Genesis eight. It says also, uh, he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned to him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth.
Then he put forth his hand and took her and pulled her into him, uh, him in- into the ark. And he stayed yet another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark, and the dove came into him in the evening, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off, so Noah knew, uh, that the waters were abated from off the earth, and he stayed yet other seven days and sent forth the dove, which returned not again unto him anymore. Now, I just want to give you this, this picture. The dove is sent out looking for some clean place in which it can land.
Remember this, just imagine the devastation after the flood, the, the silt, uh, everywhere, you know, just all the consec- and he's trying to find a clean place to land. He comes back, uh, brings an olive branch. Of course, we use that terminology today about making peace with somebody. We, we kind of offer an olive branch, right? And of course, the peace symbol, of course, the dove is always connected with that. But then this third time he sends it out, and the dove does not return. And so there's this kind of idea of a where is it? Where did it go? It doesn't come back again, and and could it be that the dove is looking for some play clean place to land? And then we find in Luke's Gospel chapter three, the dove descends in bodily form and lands upon the Lord Jesus.
Finally found a clean place where he can land. And could I just say this from a practical standpoint? Uh, we've been thinking about the Holy Spirit's work in our salvation, and he convicts us, and once we're born again, we're cleansed, we're cleaned up, and then the Spirit comes to live within us because he will not come into a dirty place. We have to get saved, cleaned, regenerated, as it were, and then he comes and takes up his residence in us because we're clean. Now let's look, uh, at- at Matthew's Gospel, chapter ten.
And again, I just want to think about this idea of the dove, um, in terms of the Holy Spirit, and he says, uh, Lord Jesus says, behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The reason I- I'm bringing this scripture to our attention is this, that we started out our study together with this concept that many of us are afraid of the Holy Spirit, right? We're scared of the Holy Spirit because we- we've seen extremism that scares us, and it's had an effect on many of us, and it's- it's maybe filled us with fear on this whole matter of the Holy Spirit, and yet the Bible would affirm that the picture of a dove is this: he will never harm you or hurt you.
Right? Why would you be scared of a dove? Right? And so the idea is this: let's recognize that the Spirit of God, his intent for our life is only to do us good. There's no reason for any of us to be afraid of the person of the Holy Spirit, right? Harmless as doves. Also, um, another aspect of a dove that the Bible refers to, look at the book of Isaiah now, Isaiah the prophet, chapter thirty eight. And we've kind of, again, alluded to some of these things. This is going to tie a lot of different things together, uh, but Isaiah says in, in, in chapter thirty eight, verse fourteen, Isaiah thirty eight fourteen, like a crane or a swallow, uh, so did I chatter.
I did mourn as a dove. Mine eyes fail with looking upward, O Lord, I am oppressed. Undertake for me. And so the prophet describing himself, and he, and he says, I am mourning like a dove. And there's something about the sound of a dove. I don't know if you've ever heard a dove, but it does have a very mournful sound to it, uh, as it, as it makes, and I won't try and imitate the sound at all, but uh, but it does have that mournful sound. And, and again, just yesterday we talked about this battle in us, where the Holy Spirit, instead of flowing through us and out to the world, oftentimes has to be moving, as it were, towards us to convict us of the things that we've done in grieving him.
And, and I believe that the Spirit of God mourns when our love relationship with the Lord Jesus is not what it ought to be. Remember we looked at that verse in James chapter four uh, about the, the, the Spirit yearning jealously, uh, within us. Uh, and, and the idea is this, that he wants you, he wants me to be so in love with the Lord Jesus that when I'm not, when I'm sidetracked, when I'm distracted, he's mourning. And of course, the dove, part of the reason the dove mourns is that it's very loyal to its companion, and whenever there's a separation, the dove mourns for it.
And so the idea is this, that the Holy Spirit wants us to be in love with our heavenly bridegroom, the Lord Jesus, and when we're not, he is yearning jealously within us, he's mourning until we get that relationship right. And so there's that beautiful picture in scripture of the Holy Spirit, uh, as a dove. And then another picture that the, uh, Bible uses, uh, for the Holy Spirit is the picture of oil. There are many examples in scripture. Uh, one of my favorite ones is in the book of Zechariah, where there's a big, uh, lampstand, like the Jewish lampstand in Zechariah chapter four.
We won't take the time turning there. I just want you to get- bear it in mind. You- you've seen, anybody who's ever seen pictures of Israel, you've seen this, uh, you know, that one of their symbols is this menorah, right? The th- the the seven-branched lampstand. And and the New Testament tells us that that lampstand is actually now a picture of the church, right? The seven lampstands in the book of Revelation refer to the seven churches. And so the idea is this, that that the church is meant to be a bright light for God in its community. Wherever it is, it's meant to be shining as a light in the darkness.
But prior to the days of electricity, these lampstands were oil dependent, right? If there was no oil, you wouldn't have any light. You can have the most beautiful lampstand, all made with gold, all carved beautifully, but if there's no oil, there's no light. And so the picture is this, that the church, in order to be a light for God in our world, is dependent on oil. It's dependent on the Spirit of God, and we get that, don't we, repeated, uh, that the Spirit is the one that, that provides the power for testimony after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall be my witnesses.
So again, I just want you to think about that picture of oil, but, but there's more to it than that. There's more than the lampstand picture. Uh, it, the oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit in many places. The reference for that, by the way, Zechariah verse, uh, chapter four verse six uh, i- in the Old Testament and Revelation one. Uh, I, I think it, let me just tell you exactly where it is. I think it's verse nineteen where it tells us that the seven churches are the seven golden lampstands. Let me just make sure I've got that right. No, verse twenty. Revelation one verse twenty. In the Old Testament, um, when a man was anointed to some, uh, act of service, uh, for instance, if he was a prophet or if he was a priest or if he was a king, God would set him apart for that service by anointing him with oil.
There would be an a special anointing oil that was primarily made of olive oil, but it also had some other ingredients, some spices in it as well. But but whenever somebody was set apart for some act of service, uh, the the person that would be responsible for that would pour oil upon them. And so it was an idea, uh, the the the idea is this anointed one, the anointed one, the one who has got the oil of God upon them. And it was symbolic of the fact that the Holy Spirit was going to come upon these individuals. So the oil was a picture of the Holy Spirit, i- in order to enable them to do the work that they had been given to do.
So let's look at some examples. Look at Leviticus, for instance, the book of Leviticus concerning the anointing oil, which is symbolic of of the Spirit coming upon a man in order to enable him to do some aspect of the work of God. So Leviticus twenty one verse ten, And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head nor rend his clothes. He's not allowed to tear his garment.
He can't take off, uh, his bonnet that has been made for him. It says, neither shall he go in to any dead body, nor defile himself for his father or for his mother. Neither shall he go out of the sanctuary, nor profane the sanctuary of his God, for the crown of the anointing oil of his God is upon him. I am the Lord. Now, I want you just to, to just think with me for a moment about what I've just read. What God is saying is the high priest can't just live like any other man. If his parents die, he, he can't just leave the high priest office and nip off and see his dead parents.
He can't do it, right? There's things that there are restrictions to what he can do because the oil of God is upon him. He can't just live like anybody else. Having the oil of God upon somebody sets them apart for service for God, and they just can't do what they want to do anymore. We're going to see in the New Testament that you are anointed. You have the oil of God upon you. You're indwelt by the Spirit of God. You're set apart for God. You can't just live like other Malaysians. You can't just do what you want to do anymore. You- you're not your own. You've got the oil of God upon you, and it should affect your conduct.
You can't go where other people go. You can't do what other people do. You are set apart for divine service. The oil of God is upon you, and that should grip us, that should affect us, right? This is the picture that's given here. Uh, it's not just for the priest, it was also for the king. Look at First Samuel chapter twenty four. First Samuel twenty four and verse six. First Samuel twenty four verse six, it says, uh, and he said unto his men, the Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed, to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the Lord.
Now this is David, and he's been hunted by Saul, and now he's got this opportunity. Saul is in a very vulnerable position, and David's men are saying, this is your opportunity, let's kill him, right? Just ram him through. And what is David's response? I can't do it because the oil of God is upon him. He's the anointed. You see? I have to be careful how I treat somebody who is anointed of the Lord. Now let's again make that practical for you and I. Be careful about what you say about your fellow Christians.
Right? Because the oil of God is upon them. You gotta be careful. Don't attack them. Don't attack the people of God because they have got God's spirit living within them. And we have to be careful. And David recognized that for all Saul's faults and Saul persecuted David, hounded him, right? Uh, and so, you know, we justify lashing out at people because of how they treat us, but David didn't do that with Saul. He said, because I recognize he's the anointed of the Lord, I can't just do that. Well, if we would just recognize that, wouldn't that make a huge difference?
I- I can't lash out like that because this person is the anointed of the Lord. They've got the oil of God upon them, and that will be true of every Christian. And then prophets, uh, First Kings nineteen and verse sixteen. And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Ebel Meholath, shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room or in your place.
So Elijah is to not only anoint Jehu as king of Israel, but he's also to anoint Elisha to be prophet in his stead or in his place. And so what we're seeing is that in the Old Testament, you had prophets, priests, and kings who were anointed of God. And in the New Testament, we learn that God, through the work of Christ, has made us kings and priests unto God, and in our generation, we are the people like the prophets who speak for God, in that sense, right?
So, so really this anointing idea is now communicated to us as well. But I want you to see the true example of the oil of God and the anointing. Look at Luke's gospel now and chapter four. Luke chapter four. because I don't know if you realize this, but the term Christ that we use so often, the Lord Jesus Christ, the term Christ literally means the anointed one. That's what it means. It's the anointed one. So let's look at it at the Lord Jesus, uh, Luke four verse eighteen.
He's in the synagogue in Nazareth, and this is what he says. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down, and the eyes of all that were in the synagogue were upon him, and he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
And so the, the Jesus Christ is really, the Lord Jesus Christ is the anointed one. He is the one in all these offices, prophet, priest, and king, are really going to find their ultimate fulfillment in him, and that's exactly what he's saying. Uh, he is saying that he is God's anointed one. The oil of God is upon him, as it were. The spirit of God has come upon him, and he is the Messiah. Now look at Acts chapter ten. And again, I want you just to see this reference again and again to Jesus being the anointed. Acts ten verse thirty eight. Acts ten thirty eight. Stephen, uh, uh, oh, sorry, uh, sermon here by Peter in Cornelius's household, and it says, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him.
Now, I want you to notice that what the anointing was with here. The, in the Old Testament, kings, uh, had oil poured upon them, symbolic of the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to the Lord Jesus, Peter tells us, uh, concerning him, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth, not with the symbol, oil, but with what the symbol symbolized. He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power. So, in other words, that symbol of oil is now finding its fulfillment in the spirit, in the person of the Lord Jesus, setting him apart as God's Messiah. Let's look at one other reference in Hebrews chapter one.
Hebrews one and verse nine, Speaking again of the Lord Jesus, thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Remember we said there was nobody more full of the Holy Spirit than the Lord Jesus, because there was nobody more fully yielded than the Lord Jesus was, right?
And so the idea is this, that he I have anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows, more than anybody else. He is the one in whom, uh, he's fully yielded. The Spirit has been given to him above measure. Now, look at second Corinthians. second Corinthians, chapter one and verse twenty one. Now he which establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who has also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
And so, again, now Paul is talking about us, and he is saying that we, we are now anointed. We have the oil of God upon us, right? He has done that by his Spirit, putting him into our hearts. And so we're, we are anointed of God. Look at First John chapter two, First John chapter two, just to see the number of references that there are to this idea of us now being anointed of God. First John two verse twenty, It says, but you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things.
That word unction there, it's still the same word anointing. You have an anointing from the Holy One. Verse twenty seven, but the anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you of all things and is truth and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him. So, again, he's emphasizing that we have the anointing, right? We have, in other words, you as a Christian, you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the oil of God is upon you, and and then he says you don't need anybody to teach you. So, well, why did you come here this week if you don't need anybody to teach you?
Why is John writing the first epistle of John to teach Christians doctrine if you don't need anybody to teach you? So it's not saying we don't need Bible teaching. Clearly, the word of God says we need Bible teaching. But what it's saying is this, and we emphasized this last night, that you have already a teacher living within you. Okay? And you can understand your Bible. You can. As you read the Bible, you do have a divine instructor in your, in you already, and he can help you to understand the truth of God.
And as you read your Bible and pray for the Spirit of God to give you insight, he will teach you, and he will, uh, lead you into truth and help you. And it is an amazing thing how the Holy Spirit does teach us. A child of God has an inbuilt protection, uh, to discern between truth and error because he has the Spirit of God within him. And so again, just realizing that, recognizing that. And, and so you might hear some teaching, again, as a young Christian, newly saved, I was whisked along to charismatic meetings where people were falling all over the place, uh, where, uh, everybody was speaking in tongues at the same time except me, and where I was absolutely scared stiff.
I mean, I just thought, this is weird. What's going on here? And I just read in my Bible a simple verse, God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. I couldn't argue against what was being taught, but I knew this much. God is not the author of confusion. This place is filled with confusion, and I don't have any peace, right? And I said to my wife, we're out of here, and we left. I'm a new Christian. I- what do I know about all this stuff? What I do know is, as a new Christian, I have the Spirit of God living within me, and he can help me to discern very early on as a Christian from one verse.
God is not the author of confusion. This is really confusing, and he's the author of peace. How come I don't have any peace? How come I'm scared to death in this place? The hair is standing up on the back of my neck. This is not of God, and I walked out of there by the grace of God, and I'll tell you, it was because, because as a Christian, I have the anointing. And so do you. I have a friend, and as a young Christian, he, the Seventh-day Adventists really got hold of him, and they were trying to bring him in, and he was only at one meeting, and he had, uh, again, just this inner, inert discernment to know that this was not of God.
He didn't, couldn't have explained it, couldn't have fought against it, couldn't have articulated, he just knew it wasn't of God, and he walked away, never went back, ended up in an assembly. Praise the Lord for that, right? And so there is that sense of it as a, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, because we have the oil of God upon us, because we are anointed, part of that is that he does teach us, and he does instruct us, and he does protect us from erroneous teaching. I'll just say one more thing about the oil, and that is this. If you don't get anything else out of this little discourse on the oil, get this much. Because the Spirit of God is living in you, you can't just live as you please anymore.
You get that message? The priest couldn't just act like any other man. We can't just act like any other person. You now, your body is the temple, right, of the Holy Spirit. So that's gonna affect you. It's gonna, it- it- in a- in a sense, it's i- i- i- if we really grasp that, it's gonna make a difference in our lives. What I watch, where I go. Do- am I happy about inviting the Holy Spirit to watch this with me? You know how a good test of whether this is really a God or not to watch this thing?
Would you be able to pray easily after you've watched it? Would you be able to worship immediately after watching this thing with ease? Would you be able to stand up and sing a hymn easily after watching this thing? And if not, why not? I know why, because the Spirit of God is grieved about what you've just done, and you don't have that freedom. So they're good tests, right? You have an indwelling heavenly kiss. I hope that that you will never be the same again because you recognize the oil of God is upon you. You can't just live as you want anymore. Some ways, light brings responsibility.
The more light you have, the more responsible you are. You leave here, hopefully you're going to leave with a whole different mindset because of who you are. Now, another symbol that's used in the scripture, as well as oil, is that of fire. And, um, I'd like us to look at Acts chapter two. and, uh, we've already, uh, discussed this a little bit in terms of the baptism of fire, uh, which we clearly saw as a baptism of judgment, but, but clearly, uh, fire is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. You'll see often, I think the Methodist denomination have a cross with a flame behind it as their symbol, and so the idea is preaching the cross in the power of the Spirit, I guess, is what their thinking is.
And so it definitely is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and um, so uh, Acts two verse three and four It says there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, again, I want us to think about this. These Jewish disciples in the upper room, because at this point everybody's Jewish. There are no Gentiles in the church yet in Acts chapter two.
So all these Jewish individuals are looking at each other in the room, and everybody they look at has the appearance of a cloven tongue of fire on their head. Wouldn't it be, it'd be nice, wouldn't it? You know, you'd really be able to, like, in your meeting, if the real Christians had cloven tongues of fire and the phonies didn't, it'd kind of make it really easy, wouldn't it, in your church to be able to discern between the wheat and the tares. It'd be kind of dead easy, wouldn't it? Be a giveaway. We don't have that luxury. But on that day, when they looked, each person had this. So what, what would be the thought in their mind when they witnessed this?
What would it bring to their mind, I wonder, when they w- they saw this? Can I make a suggestion to you? In the Old Testament, there was this amazing c- construction called the tabernacle. We've thought about the tabernacle, uh, and Bezalel last night. Now, how did a Jew know that God was home in the tabernacle? When he looked out of his tent on the morning, and he he opened the tent door, and he looks because all their tents were were around the tabernacle, and and the house of God was right in the middle, as it were, and when they opened their tent, how did they know God was home?
Well, during the daytime, there was a pillar of cloud, and if they would open the curtain at nighttime, maybe couldn't sleep so well, and and they open the curtain, what would they see? A pillar of fire at nighttime. And what that would indicate to them was that God was dwelling, his presence was dwelling between the cherubim in the tabernacle. So here are these Jewish individuals, and now they see these cloven tongues of fire on everybody's head. What is that telling them? Is it a suggestion that God has now found a different dwelling place? He used to live in the tabernacle, but now he has found a new dwelling place where he lives, and he is letting everybody know he's now at home, right?
This is the evidence now, and so it's, it's really telling them God is at home, God is present, that now, as we've said again and again, their bodies have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so it's, it's a, it's a picture to them of the presence of God, and, and it's referring that, and it's letting them know that the Spirit of God is now taking up residence in them. We've talked about another symbol, and we've, we've mentioned it several times, and that is water. And it's amazing how this, this symbol of the Spirit is clearly seen in John four, the Samaritan woman, uh, drink of this water, you're going to thirst again, uh, but I can give you water, and if you drink of it, you'll never thirst again.
And so again, he's talking about the life of the spirit that would come to her if she believed in Jesus. And then Luke, uh, John seven, uh, our passage, our keynote verse, in a sense, for this whole series, is that he that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And so clearly water is a symbol of the spirit. Now look at Isaiah forty four, Isaiah forty four and verse three, for another reference where we get this picture. Isaiah forty four verse three, it says, for I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.
I wonder if this was in the mind of the Lord Jesus in John seven, right? Uh, I will pour water upon him that is thirsty. The Lord Jesus says, anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink. Out of his, as the scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water. The word rivers also floods, same word, upon him is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my spirit upon thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring. And so again, water and the spirit clearly symbolic of each other. And and again, I, what I'd love to do, and I again, I, uh, we've run out of time, but maybe at GIC we'll get chance to do this at some point.
I'd like to, I'd love to spend an evening with you talking about spiritual revival. Spiritual revival. Because there are times in the history of the church where there have been extraordinary times of the Spirit working in, in amazing ways amongst the people of God. And, and, and uh, changing Christians, and through the Christians being revived, bringing an awakening to the, to the lost. And, and I just want to say this, the biggest reason that people do not come to Christ is Christians. That's the biggest reason.
You know what they'll say? You Christians are a bunch of what comes next? Hypocrites. You ever heard that before? So revival is when the Christians stop being hypocrites and start being real, and the world suddenly loses its excuse for not believing in Christ, because the Christians are really living dynamic Christian lives, which are incredibly attractive, and and then there's usually a corresponding awakening after the Christians are revived, and I'd love to spend an evening on that topic, but we don't have time now. But it's it's like this picture here about pouring my spirit upon thy seed, my blessing upon thine offspring, times of tremendous awakening, uh, in the wider community because the Spirit of God is once again giving given presidency amongst the people of God.
Okay, one more, uh, symbol we'll deal with now, and uh, and that is the symbol of wind. And uh, let's uh, look first of all in the book of Ezekiel, and I want you to see three different times that wind is used as a symbol of the Spirit. Um, one of the occasions here in Ezekiel thirty seven, it's to do with the national rebirth of Israel. Ezekiel thirty seven and verse nine. Then he said unto me, Prophesy unto the wind. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, uh, an exceeding great army. And of course, what he's speaking about is the nation of Israel and how, in a sense, they'd been buried amongst the nations for centuries. After AD seventy, uh, there was no evidence of them i- as a national entity, uh, from AD seventy until nineteen forty eight. All those centuries, they were, they were, they they were buried in the graveyard of the nations, as it were, and and it said their bones were very dry. I mean, in other words, it's been a long time.
And he says, prophesy to the wind. Ezekiel had some unusual assignments, didn't he? Prophesying in a graveyard. I know sometimes it feels a bit like that when we're preaching in churches, right? Uh, prophesying in a graveyard, you know, kind of the dead in Christ will rise first, all that kind of stuff. But anyway, prophesy in a graveyard, and then he, and then he says, prophesy to the wind. And, and the wind here is symbolic of the spirit moving to bring this nation back to life again after it's been dead for centuries. And so it's to do with the national rebirth of Israel. But then if we look at John chapter three, we want to see that it- it's also connected with the birth of an individual, the new birth of an individual.
As the Lord Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, and he explains to Nicodemus about what is going to happen and how somebody is going to be born again. He says, Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. He said, the wind blows where it wills. Thou hear the sound of it, but you cannot tell where it's coming from and where it's going. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit. And so the idea is this, that when the Spirit's working, although you can't see him, because although he's a real person, he's a spirit, right?
And a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones as you see me have, right? The Lord Jesus said. So, so you can't see the Holy Spirit, but you can see like the wind, you can't actually see the wind. What you see is what the wind moves, right? So, so when we were living in Florida, we just moved there, and uh, uh, been growing up in England, we didn't know what hurricanes were, and we didn't know what tornadoes were, and a- apparently you're supposed to go into the bathroom in the mi- and lay in the bath in the middle of the, the house because it's safe, and but we, we were curious, ignorant Brits, I guess, and we, uh, you know, uh, we just wanted to watch this.
So we're looking at the window, which is apparently the most dangerous place to be. There's fifty tornadoes going through the state. The palm trees are kissing the ground. I mean, it was an amazing thing to witness. And what we saw that night was what the wind was doing. We didn't see the wind, but boy, did we see what it was doing. There were roof tiles flying off, there were s- you know, plant pots being taken up and thrown, and it was just an amazing multicolor experience watching what the wind was doing. We can't see the Holy Spirit, but I'll tell you, we can see when he's working. I remember doing evangelistic Bible studies, and as the word of God was being taught to these Catholic people, you can just see conviction coming upon them, their faces going ashen white, and then all of a sudden the lights go on, and they see it, and they believe, and their whole countenance changes, and we could see people being born again.
We couldn't see the Holy Spirit, but boy, could we see what he was doing. And it was a thrilling thing to watch, to watch the Holy Spirit at work. And so for Nicodemus, how am I going to be born again? And he says, well, it's going to be the Spirit that's going to be working, and you might not see him, but you'll see the impact in your life. And then one more, Acts chapter two, verses one through four. Acts two, When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
There appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. So what we've said is national rebirth of Israel. It's to do with the wind, the activity of the Holy Spirit causing this nation to come to life again after being dead for centuries. Individual new birth, the Spirit working in the heart of a Nicodemus, convicting him, as we heard- heard earlier, o- of- of sin and righteousness and coming judgment, working to transform a person's life, and then the birthday of the church.
When the church come- came into existence, the same wind of the Spirit was blowing on that day. And so these are some of the, the pictures in the Bible of the Holy Spirit. So we're done. What I want to say in closing is a very simple thing, and that is this. As you leave here, my question to you is, what are you gonna do from now on? I hope that you will never ever again be guilty of neglecting the third person of the Godhead. That you will be so aware of his presence, so sensitive to his indwelling, so eagerly listening for his promptings, so conscious of not wanting to grieve him, not wanting to quench him, that you'll have this new super sensitivity to the indwelling heavenly guest that lives within you.
And I suspect that that would have life-changing consequences to your life, because it has mine. I am so thankful two years ago, after years of living a Christian life, reading John seven and it just jumping off the page and saying to me, Mike, is this you? Are you, is your innermost being, out of it is f- is it really flowing rivers of living water? And it's good to ask us those ourselves those questions, isn't it? That's what God intends for us.
He wants us to be a refreshing stream of the Spirit of God to a dry and barren and thirsty world. And we can be. The Spirit is still alive and well living within you, but you can't ignore him, or if you do, you pay a price. A price of dullness and deadness and, and just spiritual exhaustion of trying to chop down trees with a chainsaw that's not connected to the power. Let's pray. Our Father, we're so grateful for the, even the pictures we've seen today. We're thankful for the dove. We're thankful that we don't have anything to fear from the Spirit of God.
Father, we're thankful that when we are not in love with the Lord Jesus like we should be, that he mourns and he, uh, works within us jealously, trying to bring us back in love with our heavenly bridegroom. Uh, Father, we're so grateful too for the picture of oil, that that we we having the Spirit of God within us, being the anointed, just can't live like other people anymore. Well, I pray that each person might have that conviction that that they've been set apart for divine service, that they are one day going to be kings and priests on the earth, and even now they are to intercede for lost humanity.
They're to be God's spokesmen on the earth, and they need the power of the Spirit to do these things. Father, we're thankful for the fire, for the, the evidence of the indwelling Spirit of God, and even though we can't see that, uh, o- on, on each other, we know by faith that we are now indwelt by the Spirit of God and the temple of the Holy Spirit. We're thankful too, Father, for the wind, and we're asking that the wind indeed would blow in a mighty way in JIC and in all of our hearts, and that although we can't see the Holy Spirit, that we'll have abundant evidence in the days ahead of his amazing activity, and we'll be so quick to give you the glory in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen. Thank you.