The Holy Spirit and the world. We often think of the Father and his interest in the world. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. We often think of the Lord Jesus and his relationship to the world. He gave himself, came into this world that he might live here and die for us and so on. But the Holy Spirit has a very definite interest in the world. One, his concern for lost humanity. In Genesis six and verse three, he strives with man. It says, My spirit shall not always strive with man. Now, strive means to wrestle with. So the Spirit of God in the days just prior to the flood was striving with people. And when you read that the earth was filled with violence, that men had corrupted themselves upon the earth, you can see why there was strife between the Holy Spirit and the very unholy people on this earth. Incidentally, he says as the days of Noah, so shall be the days of the coming of the Son of Man, And we're certainly seeing a lot of the same things happening in the world today. Now the Spirit of God is concerned about man. A. Everywhere. Psalm, a hundred thirty-nine and seven. Whether shall I flee from my Holy Spirit. And B. With individuals. In First Samuel ten and verse six. He said of a very ungodly young man, Saul, he said, the Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee. Now Saul died shortly after consulting with a witch at Endor. He had turned totally away from God's things. There's no indication that he ever knew the Lord in any personal way. Yet the Spirit of God was working with him all his lifetimes. And he works with us. Now, secondly, his concern for lost humanity is illustrated by his brooding over creation, Genesis one and two. It says that the Spirit of God, how does it read, the Spirit of God moved. Yeah, moved, that's the word I want. over the face of the waters. But the word is literally brooded. It's the same word that's used of a bird over its nest. So this shows that the Spirit of God is concerned about conditions here on this earth. And the third thing is that this is illustrated by our Lord's parable in Luke fifteen, eight to ten. Actually, it's one parable, the whole fifteenth of Luke. The first one illustrates the son's concern for the lost sheep because he's the shepherd. And the last one illustrates the father's concern for the lost son, the prodigal son. So the middle one, the woman sweeping the house to find the lost coin, we believe must be illustrating the Holy Spirit's concern over the lost coin. Now the sheep was lost out on the mountain. and the sun was lost in the far country where he'd gone in self-will. But the coin was lost in the house, which is a pretty good picture of religious people lost in the professing church. Anyway, the Spirit of God is concerned about lost humanity. Now, our second division has to do with sanctification unto salvation. We've already studied this, so I've not given you too much of an outline here. Number one, in sympathy with God's foreknowledge. You will notice in reading these two passages, second Thessalonians, two, thirteen, first Peter one and two that I have appended here, you will notice that it was according to the foreknowledge of God. That is God who knows everything, knows where the men are, who will be willing to believe. Number two, his sanctification and salvation is leading unto a belief of the truth, B, sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, and see salvation now the belief of the truth second Thessalonians two thirteen he says comes as a result of the spirit of God dealing with men he leads them to the belief of the truth and it said that he has chosen you to salvation through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Jew. Well, this is a process by which we are brought to salvation. While in First Peter one and two, he says, through the sprinkling, no, through the sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And sprinkling of the blood, of course, goes back to the Old Testament when they sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat. Now, this results in salvation. However, number three, this may be resisted. Acts seven, fifty-one. Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost. As your father's dead, so do ye. God never saves anybody against their will. He never invades your privacy, even as a believer. If you don't want to spend time in fellowship with the Lord, he won't intrude upon your privacy. This is a very solemn thing for us to remember. Or, A, he may be obeyed. First Peter one and two. Excuse me, A, he may be resisted, and B, he may be obeyed. First Peter one and two. All right, the third section, enlightening through the word. This word enlightening is a scriptural word which is used in Hebrews chapter six. I think it's a good word to tell what happens in the work of the Spirit of God in a human soul. Number one, he inspired all scripture. When the Spirit of God teaches you scripture, remember he is bringing to you scripture which he himself inspired, some of it thousands of years back. The book of Job goes back to at least three thousand five hundred years, maybe longer. inspired all scripture second Timothy three sixteen all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable now whenever you choose a modern speech version or some other version rather than one which is standard always check that scripture that's a good that's a good test text if it says all scripture that is inspired is also profitable if you know very well what they're getting at they're trying to throw a question as to whether it is all inspired it's very properly stated in the King James Version all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable now this includes a prophecy second Peter one nineteen and twenty one holy men of God spake as they were inspired by Spirit of God. And it includes the gospel. First Peter one, twenty-two to twenty-five. He calls it in that passage the truth. He calls it the word of God. And he calls it the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. So the Spirit of God brings the gospel before a person when he enlightens him. I'm very disturbed when I hear somebody preach and he's supposed to be preaching the gospel and he never really states the facts of the gospel. I'm very disturbed by this. You cannot be said to have preached the gospel if you do not tell the people that Christ died for our sins and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. It isn't enough to say God loves the world and he'd like to fix your life up if you just let him come in. That really doesn't mean a thing. It isn't enough to say that the Lord Jesus died on the cross. So did two other people the same day and thousands of others before and after. But if you preach the gospel, you have to say Christ died for our sins and was buried and rose again the third day. because if he isn't a risen Savior you don't have a Savior you see now the Spirit of God always does this if he enlightens now secondly he calls and sends men with the word a specific man Acts thirteen and two the Spirit of God said separate me Barnabas and Saul under the work wherein two I have called them. Now there were several other men there, I think seven of them altogether, able teachers, preachers. But the Spirit of God arbitrarily chose two men for a special job. The Spirit of God calls specific men. B, he calls them with a specific message. If you'll read the rest of Acts thirteen from verses sixteen to forty-four, you will see that the message is definitely the gospel message. Now I have no objection at all to anyone relieving human suffering. I spent a good bit of time at that myself and children's home for the third of the century. But there's something terribly wrong about substituting a social gospel. for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's something terribly wrong about thinking that because you educate a man and fill his stomach and give him respectability and a better house to live in, that he's going to be a Christian. I heard of a man who was in the penitentiary and the woman felt very sorry that this young man was in there. He was there for moonshining. She said it was because he wasn't very well educated, came from a poor part of the country, and so she spent a lot of time helping him while he was in prison to get a high school education. And when he left there, she said, no, son, you don't need to get back into things like this again, because now you're able to earn your living. In six months, he landed right back there again. She said, oh, don't tell me you've gone back to bootlegging again. Oh, no, he said, I'm not here for that. He said, I'm here for kite and checks, for ready for forging checks. He said, he's educated now, he said. He didn't have to make liquor. He could forge checks. You've got an educated sinner now. Remember this. There's a specific message, and that message must be preached, or nothing's going to happen this worthwhile. Now, the third thing is, they were sent to specific places. In Acts sixteen, verses six to twelve, they were told where not to go and where to go. Now the third subdivision is that he enlightens men as to, eh, the heavenly gift. I would like you to spend some time studying this sixth chapter of Hebrews because it's a favorite text. with those who believe that you can be lost again after you're saved. And you'll notice that the Spirit of God led people to understand the heavenly gift. That's Hebrews six and four. He enlightens men as to the heavenly gift. Now the heavenly gift is Christ himself and life in Christ. See, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. The gift of God is eternal life. in Jesus Christ our Lord. So the heavenly gift concerns Christ himself and life in him. And then he enlightens men as to the good word of God, Hebrews six and five. The good word of God. He shows them that this is dependable, that this is trustworthy, that this is God's word. And see in the same verse, He enlightens them as to the powers of the world to come. Now the powers of the world to come have to do with the work of the Spirit of God himself, has to do with the miracle of the new birth, and it has to do ultimately with our being taken home to be with the Lord. Now a person may be enlightened as to all of these things and not saved at all. Enlightening a person doesn't make him a Christian. So, D, they are responsible to accept or reject. And if you will read what follows from verses six to nine of this same passage, Hebrews six, you will find that he uses a little illustration there about the rain falling on the grounds. Now he said, some pieces of ground bear thorns, and it's only fit for cursing. But then he said other pieces of ground bring forth herbs, meat for the person who is farming that piece of ground. And so he says it is with people who have been enlightened by the Spirit of God. There are some who believe the gospel and their lives show it. There are those who reject the gospel and their lives show it. This is the work of the Spirit of God. He enlightens people. Now, section four, he is reproving or convincing the world. One of sin. John, sixteen, eight, nine. I want to leave out a line there and take number two of righteousness, John sixteen and ten. And skipping over to number three of judgment, John sixteen and eleven. Now this is not judgment to come, it's judgment. The Spirit of God doesn't need to convince people of judgment to come. that if you make a blister you'll have to sit on it. Anybody knows if you make the dead you'll have to lie. Anybody knows the wages of sin is dead. You don't have to have a conviction of the Spirit of God to tell you that. Anybody knows that if you burn your lungs out with cigarettes you've asked for a cancer. But the Spirit of God convicts us of judgment. Now let's see what these are. Go back to number one again. The Spirit of God convicts us of sin. And in this passage he says, because, put this under in the little space that you have there under between one and two, because they believe not on me. That is the greatest sin. Now I could convince a man of burglary if I caught him breaking in a a house or a store. I could convict him of burglary. I could say, I saw you burglaryizing that house. And he couldn't argue against it. But only the Spirit of God can convict men of the greatest of all sins, which is not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. When you're dealing with a soul, don't waste your time talking about how many bad things that person has done. It really doesn't make any difference. Somebody wants to tell me how wicked they've been. I just say, well, let's just leave that. It doesn't make any difference whether you've got thirteen sins or thirteen million. It takes the brother of Jesus Christ to cleanse from all those sins anyway. Let's don't talk about the sins. Tell God about them, but don't tell me. I don't need to know them. And you're better off if you don't talk about them. The sin is rejecting Christ. Now take the second one. He convinces the world of righteousness. Now what is true righteousness? Well, it says, because I go to my Father. You see, the Lord Jesus, having died for our sins and raised again from the dead, went back to the Father, which tells us that he has righteously answered for sin, and that God is righteously able to forgive us. That's what we studied when we went through the subject of justification, remember? God is justly able to justify sinners. Because this is the true righteousness. Because I go to my Father. Now what about judgment? It's not judgment to come. It says because the prince of this world is judged. Because the prince of this world is judged. That's the root of sin. Now it doesn't say because he's going to be judged. Satan has already been judged. And in the twelfth of John, the Lord Jesus said, Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world cast out. That's at Calvary. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, the whole world was condemned. And Satan was judged by that very act. That's what it means in the proto-evangel of Genesis three in verse fifteen. Thy seed shall bruise the serpent's head. And this is what happened to Calvary. The Lord Jesus Christ forever damaged Satan beyond repair. So this is the judgment. It's not judgment to come. It's judgment because the prince of this world is judged. And if you take your sides with him, then you're under judgment. The only way you can get out from under judgment is to receive the Lord Jesus. There's no judgment of them that are in Christ Jesus. So this is how he convinces or reproves the world. Now, number four, the world responds in one of two ways. A, by believing. Or, B, by hating. You get both of these in the seventeenth chapter, the next chapter, where the Lord Jesus prays for his own And he prays in this way. He says, Father, I don't pray for the whole world. I pray for those whom thou hast given me out of this world. Now all believers are given to the Lord Jesus by the Father out of this world. By the very act of believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are taken out of the world. Now the Lord Jesus said, you're not of this world. any more than I am of this world. But he said, I'm going to send you into this world. As the Father has sent me into the world, even so send I you. So you and I, who are saved, have been taken out of this world. We're not of it. And the Lord has sent us back into it as his ambassadors. Now, if you think of it that way, you're not going to be so wrapped up in it that it becomes all important to you. You're just here, and your home is really there. In contrast to those who believe on him, in this same seventeenth chapter, John, in verse fourteen, he says to the Father, Thou hast given them to me, but the world hath hated them, because it hated me. That's the other side of it. There are some who believe, and there are some who do not believe. You will always have these two divisions. of the human race. A banker would divide them up according to how much money they had. An educator would divide them up according to how much schooling they've had. And a doctor would divide them according to their health. But God divides them according to what they do with his son, for either saved or lost, depending on their attitude toward his son. Now let's take this last section, effecting the new birth. or producing the new birth. Now what we've said so far has to do with his setting them apart. Well, first of all, his concern for us. Then setting them apart to salvation, enlightening them through the word, and convincing them by his own work in their spirits. Now we come to the new birth. Without this, The rest means nothing. You may be enlightened. You may be convinced. But if you are not born again, you're still dead in your trespasses and sins. So, number one, the new birth is needed because, A, men are dead to God. Now, they're not slightly dead. All unsaved people are dead to God. Ephesians two one they were dead in trespasses and sins Colossians two thirteen you being dead in your sins and B the flesh produces only flesh and we're not talking about the meat on your bones now but the evil nature the fallen nature the depraved nature in John three in verse six He says, that which is born, Jesus said to Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And in the seventh verse, he says, don't be surprised, marvel not, that I said unto you, you must be born again. I had a cousin when I was a boy. We were in school about the same time. He'd had good teaching. His parents were Christians. One day he was not behaving very well in school, and the teacher said to him, what in the world is a matter of you? And he said, I guess I was just born wrong, which was absolutely true. He was just a little punk, you know, by second and third grade, but he learned that much anyway. I guess I was just born wrong. And this is true. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That's why you have to be born again. Now, you can't improve a dead man. You can improve his appearance. and people make a great deal of money at this. Morticians spend a lot of time improving the appearance of a dead person. And it's very expensive, but they're still dead. And preachers are spending a lot of time improving dead people in their churches, but they're still dead. Now, number two, the new birth is produced by means of a the word of truth James one eighteen where it says of his own will begat he us by the word of truth and be the word of God by the gospel first Peter one twenty three to twenty five he says we are born again not a corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever. And then he says, this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. So if you want to see the new birth take place in the sinner, you've got to see to it that he gets the gospel. Now number three, the new birth is effected in those who, A, receive Christ. John one, twelve and thirteen. Please tell people that they've got to receive Christ. Don't tell them to pray. Don't tell them to let Jesus come into their hearts, whatever that means. Don't talk about things that really have no real meaning. Tell them that God is offering his Son to them to be their Savior. And they are responsible to either accept him or reject him. You see, if you're going to have a marriage, and you know that marriage is used as a picture of the union between Christ and these people, if you're going to have a marriage, there are certainly two things that have to happen. The man has to say that he'll take the girl, and the girl has to say that she'll take the man. The rest of it is trimmings. It can be very expensive and very pretty trimmings. But it's all trimmings. The marriage is really the agreement between two people to take each other as husband and wife. And the same thing is true in conversion. A lot of things may lead up to it. Your experience will be different from my experience. How you feel will be different from the way I felt. But the thing that really counts is, do you take Christ as your Savior, and does he take you to be his own? Well, now he says, him that cometh to be, I will know why he's cast out. So there's no question about his side of it. But there is question about the side of the sinner. Is he willing to receive Christ? and be to believe on his name. In first John five and one it says, He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Now the Christ means the anointed one, the one who was sent of God to do a work. And if you believe that he is the Christ, that he came to do a job, and he did that job for you, then you have believed on him as the Christ. And so this is what God expects you to do. Now, to believe on does not mean to believe about. To believe on is the same as rely upon, or depend upon, or lean upon. When I sat down in this chair, I didn't hold myself up halfway by you know holding on to something else I relaxed in the chair because I trusted this chair and you have to trust Christ by depending totally upon him now number four this is incomprehensible to unbelievers John three verses eight to eighteen read that whole section and notice that after the Lord Jesus had told Nicodemus that he had to be born again Nicodemus said how can these things be and right away he started talking about going back to his babyhood again oh no the Lord said that isn't it at all and he gave him an Old Testament illustration which you do well to look up in Numbers chapter twenty one and read that section and see how this poor man who was a preacher, a ruler of a Jews, a leader of the synagogue and probably a member of the Sanhedrin, just didn't comprehend. He just didn't understand it at all. Now my last point, John two, twenty-three to twenty-five, number five, avoid producing false professions. Let the Spirit of God do His work and don't produce false professions. Modern psychological methods ignore the Holy Spirit.