Dennis Tuuri

That is a beautiful song and a beautiful thought as we consider the work of the Holy Spirit in the march of the gospel. We take as our text again this Sunday Acts 16:6-12. We read here the march of the gospel to Europe having conquered cities in Asia Minor. The gospel now goes to Europe through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. Please stand as we read from God’s word. Acts 16:6-12.

Now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. After they were come to Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia. But the spirit suffered them not. And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.” And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.

And therefore, loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day to Neapolis, and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia in a colony, and we were in that city abiding certain days. Please be seated. We thank God for his word.

Let’s pray now that he would illuminate it to our understanding. Father, we do indeed thank you for this word and we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who takes this word and writes it upon our hearts. We thank you that we have an unction from him and we know all things. Help us, Lord God, to know and understand this piece of scripture and its relevance to our lives. Help us, Father, to the end that we might praise your Holy Spirit and thank him, Lord God, and not grieve him, not quench him, and not sin against him, but rather that we should indeed have our vision dictated and directed as Paul and his companions did by the Holy Spirit guiding and directing.

We thank you that this is a fact. Help us Lord God to believe this fact and to live our lives in obedience to it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

An account just now for the second time in the book of Acts and it is a historical account. This is true history. The scriptures are history and much of the history is given over to consideration of history. The scriptures in Acts are no different. In particular, the book of Acts is a history of the march of the gospel. It is a history of the work of Jesus Christ. It’s a history of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing God’s people as they conquer the then known world. It moves progressively from Jerusalem, the opening chapter, to Rome at the final chapter. The gospel conquers all the world.

We have a stopping point here at Philippi. And we’ll talk about this in a couple of weeks. As most of you know, next week, Reverend H. will be here with us. The following week, I’ll be up in Seattle preaching at the church up there. So it’ll be three weeks before we return to this. And the next account we read in the book of Acts will be at the city of Philippi which is in a way analogous to the day of Pentecost in that it serves as a model for the city of Rome. We read in our text that it was a colony of Rome. Well that’s true and it did have a colony of Roman soldiers in it. It was a colony of Rome thoroughly. So Philippi is a model of Rome. All the Roman colonies were little miniature Romes.

And so Philippi was important for that aspect. It was the march of the gospel, not simply into Europe, not simply as we’ve read before of the gospel in Asia, not simply in Samaria, but unto the uttermost parts of the earth and to the very center of the empire that had been raised up as great Antichrist that declared that through Augustus Caesar alone, salvation would come to mankind.

When Augustus Caesar would come, when the Caesars would go to a town, the roads would be leveled, the hills would be filled up, the mountains, the higher things leveled down for ease of entrance for Augustus Caesar as he rode triumphantly into his regions bringing salvation and coins of the realm at that day said salvation comes through none other than Augustus Caesar.

Well now we have the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his resurrection and ascension power he directs his church that he is truly the only means of salvation and he comes in a triumphal entry into Philippi, converting women, converting jailers, casting out demons, which we’ll see in three weeks.

And so history is recorded for us in the book of Acts, and it is the history of the true salvation of all the world, going from city to city, conquering as Alexander did before him into Europe now, but not as Alexander did with the power of the physical sword, but rather through the power of the preaching of the gospel accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so our consideration today, as it was last week, is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, it’s very important that we understand that this history is a model for us of the history of the church for the last 2,000 years. This does not end in Rome. The Holy Spirit does not stop when Paul gets to Rome. The spirit does not depart the world, nor does Jesus Christ’s presence through the spirit. Rather, he continues with his church for 2,000 years.

And we are part of that history. History should be understood from the perspective of God and his word and his purposes for mankind. And to that end, we hope that he will enlighten our hearts today in understanding that we might know that history is guided and directed by the direct work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men.

We’ve talked last week about the presence of the Holy Spirit and the march of the gospel here certainly from Asia to Europe and then on to Rome. But we spoken about this presence of the Holy Spirit as a very important doctrine for us to remember and consider not just in this ancient historical account but in the lives of every believer today.

Jesus promised his people. He promised us that he would not leave us comfortless. He would not leave us as orphans. As much as we may feel like that at times, our feelings are dead wrong. Our savior has promised that he would send the comforter and we would not be orphaned. Believers have a particular need to understand the presence of the Holy Spirit. That our lives are not filled with emptiness. Our lives are filled with the love of our Father mediated to us through the work of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing, assuring, comforting with the knowledge of his presence.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit and his presence in our lives is an extremely important one for us and it’s one that must be reiterated time and time again in the context of our world because we live in the context of a group of people in America that want to obliterate every notion of Christianity from the public arena. They want to shove it back to the home. And when you walk out into the public arena, when you go to your job tomorrow or you turn on your TV or your radio, whatever it is, unless you listen to Christian radio, I’m not so sure there’s much presence of the Holy Spirit in that very often.

But if you listen to most radio or TV shows or go around driving in the city of Portland, you’ll see precious little signs of the presence of God in our lives. We were watching some show yesterday. Let’s see what was it. I can probably remember if I think hard enough. Well, maybe I can. It was an old movie and it was an enjoyable old movie as old movies are. You know, AMC—the American Movie Classics. They have some good movies on there, but you know, all those movies even for the most part are secular, totally secular. You watch the movies that are on TV or the series, whatever they are, and behind everything else, whether the content is good or bad or moral or amoral, whatever it is, the overarching theme is no relevance of God to our lives.

Unregenerate man tries to empty his world of the presence of God. And so all around us as we live in the world today in America we are reinforced in the belief that we all received direct training for most of our lives in school—that is if you’re fairly young still—15 years probably—of education that told you over and over and over that God is not present in the world around us. Denial of his presence.

The world for all too many—for most people in America today—is a world of emptiness. Emptiness of the presence of God. Emptiness of meaning is the result. But the scriptures declare just the reverse. The Holy Spirit is a present force in our lives. And not just at special occurrences, but day by day, moment by moment, the spirit has been sent to us by the Son to leave us not as orphans, not with emptiness, but rather surrounded with the great love of God the Father. The love that he has for his beloved Son given to us on the basis of our covenantal union with him.

So the presence of the Holy Spirit is taught to us both in this text and throughout the scriptures as a very important fact. The presence of the Holy Spirit is not simply upon believers. However, the presence of the Holy Spirit is also upon those who reject him. The spirit comes, we’re told in John chapter 14, and does not leave us as orphans, but we’re also told as we read in our responsive reading that the spirit is also given by Jesus Christ to judge the world to bring conviction to those who reject him.

The scriptures say that they don’t see me. Jesus says they reject me materially. Materialism is not something new. It was 2,000 years ago talked about. It’s been prevalent in our culture in the fallen world in America for around 100 years at least. And in the presence of those who reject Jesus Christ because of its materialistic humanism, he promises the Holy Spirit is nonetheless present with such a nation and such a people judging them, convicting them of sin and of righteousness and judgment.

So the Holy Spirit may be denied by men, but nonetheless, he is a real force in their lives bringing condemnation and judgment to them. The Holy Spirit is given to guide us into all truth. We just read in that responsive reading. So he’s present with the believer to guide us into truth, but he’s present with the unbeliever to bring condemnation, judgment, and damnation into his life.

And so the emptiness that they attempt to accomplish in their lives is indeed part of the mediated judgment of the Holy Spirit, giving them over to their own version of hell, a denial of the presence of God. And that vacuum left in their culture must be filled with alcohol or drunkenness, drugs on the other hand, sex, titillation, whatever it is, because their lives are empty to the true source of happiness and joy, the Holy Spirit blessing them and guiding them into all truth.

So the presence of the Holy Spirit is very important for us. And Nick’s text reminds us of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the geographical movement of the apostle and his company as they fulfill their work in ministry of preaching the gospel.

Well, we’ve said that while the Holy Spirit is present, he is a sovereign presence as well. So, first, he’s present. Reviewing last week. Secondly, his presence is a sovereign presence. It is not man-centered. It is God-centered. He doesn’t come to bring blessing to all humanity. He comes to bring glory to God. And he comes as a we to achieve glory to God by bringing blessing to those and guiding those who are of Christ and of the race of humanity. That is a spiritual race, those who are called elect by God sovereignly to salvation.

He guides them into truth and so manifests glory to God. But he also brings God’s justice and judgment to bear upon unbelievers and so also glorifies God through the judgment and damnation of those who reject God.

Now God’s presence then in the Holy Spirit is comforting. But it is also an awareness. It brings us to an awareness that in our lives the primary purpose is not simply to bring us comfort but rather that we might be led into truth that we might serve the King of Kings and so bring glory to him as well.

The model for this demonstration of the presence of the Holy Spirit sovereignly in the affairs of men is remembering the work of the Holy Spirit with King Saul. A man who was not amenable to the dictates of God’s will. A man who sought rather to slay David, the anointed of the Lord. A man who thought it more important to have peace with the kings around him than to fulfill God’s word that said to slay such men. No, he wanted to be friends with the conquered king. He wanted to keep him alive as a good humanist would and as a man of power, which is to keep another man of power alive.

And God judged him for that. Saul is not pictured for us as a good godly man. He’s pictured for us as an ungodly man. And yet a man who the spirit comes upon and overpowers and causes him to prophesy in a state of nakedness or humility or abasement to God as he sought to pursue David for evil purposes. God overcame Saul. And so God’s sovereignty is pictured for us in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of Saul and in his prophesying.

The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal influence, but it is also not a totally displacing power. It is rather a person. We think of the Holy Spirit in terms of its manifestations, but our primary concern must be with the Holy Spirit as a person, not simply as influence upon our lives. The Spirit is very God of very God who manifests in his person and power the determining will and sovereignty of the triune God.

And so emphases in the spirit today that are all too common stress both the effects of the Holy Spirit upon our lives only instead of the person of the Holy Spirit. And they also stress that Arminian position that somehow brings this spirit to come upon us. You know the Phrygians who are mentioned in the text that we just read that they’d gone throughout Phrygia as an ancient people.

The Phrygians believed in ecstatic utterances as well. They believed in a totally casting off of the laws of God and therefore bringing in order. The Mardi Gras festival that continues in our culture to this day in New Orleans is an example of an ancient chaos festival that sought to overturn all order and so bring about God’s will so to speak. The powers of the universe are then chained to man as he overturns all things and then sets them up anew—a new order to come out of that destruction and blood and chaos.

The Phrygian cap was read as a picture of the blood necessary to bring about the blood of man and chaos necessary to bring about order in the world round about us. And all too often those who emphasize the work of the spirit are more Phrygian in character than they are biblical. Seeking to throw off all restrictions of God, seeking to have ecstatic utterances, some kind of great supernatural occurrence of the Holy Spirit that has nothing to do with our lives, but rather is an intrusion into man’s life.

Well, the scriptures say quite differently than that. The Holy Spirit comes upon man for his purposes and his purposes are to bring about skill and craftsmanship for vocational calling. The Holy Spirit is present in our lives. The Holy Spirit is sovereign God. He is God and he is a person of the third person of the Trinity and he is sovereign and determining in the affairs of man for his purposes and bringing glory to God the Father, not for our purposes.

And third, he does this by bringing his people into a knowledge and understanding of all things. As I said in my prayer, 1 John 2:20, we have an unction from the Holy One. That is the Holy Spirit and we know all things in principle in God the spirit. All knowledge is to be understood on the basis of his instructing us through the scriptures and through the application of biblical principles.

I want to read here a quote from R.J. Rushdoony. As I said last week, much of what I’ve said last week and will begin today as a result of my studies and his systematic theology. Rushdoony wrote this about the days gone by as well as its relevance today to ourselves in terms of man’s failure to correctly and biblically comprehend the work of the Holy Spirit.

God’s knowledge is never abstract. This is the knowledge that the Holy Spirit brings to us. It is God-centered and kingdom centered. The sectaries of the 17th century English scene wanted to replace all book learning and study by an experience in the spirit which would open up by revelation all knowledge. The university preachers on the other hand closed the door on the spirit and stressed their logic and reasoning. Both were wrong. The spirit gives us the key to all knowledge and he opens the doors of our understanding. He does not thereby implant in our minds the mathematical times tables nor the elements of chemistry. He does enable us to use their meaning and to see it as none other can—to see that meaning in other words as related to the establishment and furtherance of God’s kingdom on earth.

And so either way is sin to either cast off all human learning and rationality etc in the guise of some sort of jump into a spirit-filled ecstatic state and on the other hand deny the work of the Holy Spirit and to simply stress man’s logic and rationality and reasoning without the spirit’s relevancy of all those things to the kingdom of God and the application of God’s law in that particular sphere. Either one is a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in man’s life.

So the Holy Spirit is present. He is present. He is sovereign. He is present not simply in believers but in unbelievers. He’s present in all the world. He is sovereign and he brings guidance and knowledge to the end that the kingdom might be established. And as we said, many scriptures contrast the darkness of the world outside of Christ to the light that the spirit brings to our understanding. And so to walk in the light is to walk in a knowledge of the holy spirit applying that knowledge to all things.

As an example of this, I’ll read again from R.J. Rushdoony. He said to say that the wages of sin is death is very simple and it is a necessary forecast of things to come to develop its implications fully and specifically. This is the implications of the phrase the wages of sin or death specifically in relation to prayerlessness, inflation, ignorance of scripture, and especially of God’s law in Deuteronomy 28, its relevance to politics, family life, business, the arts and sciences, and all things else requires the spirit of truth. Even more, it requires that we glorify Christ even as the spirit of truth does.

In other words, the spirit of truth guides us into all knowledge by helping us to see the implications of plain fact of scripture that the wages of sin are death. The implications of that in the death of men and its manifestation in economics in the fine arts in social relationships and geopolitical realities etc. The Holy Spirit guides us in applying that truth into all areas of life.

And so the Holy Spirit is a spirit of knowledge and guidance. And then also the Holy Spirit—this is the fourth point again from last week. The Holy Spirit comes that we might exercise vocation or ministry under God. The Apostle Paul and his co-workers have the gift of the spirit that they might fulfill their ministry or vocation. Paul is most Paul when he is exercising vocational calling in the power of the Holy Spirit.

You are most who God created you to be when you’re submissive to the guiding and leading of the Holy Spirit in your particular sphere of calling as a churchman, certainly as a citizen in the community, but primarily in terms of your vocational calling. The Holy Spirit comes upon men in the Old Testament to prepare them to work fine work in gold and silver and woodworking etc. Craftsmanship. The Holy Spirit doesn’t bring a lack of control to people’s lives. The Holy Spirit brings a yielding over of control to our lives and taking hands off of ourselves and using our vocational callings finely and excellently and expertly in the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the promulgation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the manifestation the kingdom of Christ in our particular sphere and calling.

So the Holy Spirit is present in your lives day by day. And particularly, I want you to think of it in terms of your vocational calling, whether it’s at home teaching your children, preparing food at home, cleaning the house, or if it’s off doing drywall, selling groceries, preparing cabinets, whatever it is, the Holy Spirit you should see every day as a chance and an opportunity to follow the dictates of the spirit as he guides you into knowledge in terms of your vocational calling, applying biblical principles, guiding, directing hour by hour, moment by moment as you seek to glorify God in your vocational calling.

So the Holy Spirit comes upon us for that purpose. Now we said also before we move on to our next point that in terms of that ministry and vocation that you must keep in mind of the work of the Holy Spirit, the relationship of the spirit to the law of God.

Remember we talked last week about the man who had his father’s wife, his stepmother and we said that Hajj says and most many commentators would agree that doesn’t mean some sort of illicit relationship in terms of outside of the marriage bond. Rather Hajj said that indeed this was talking about a man who had married his stepmother. Paul is just helping us to understand by the application of this particular case how to discern things spiritually. He takes the law of God and he applies it as the spirit writes it upon our hearts in terms of its relevance to that situation.

How many churches in America today would bring disciplinary charges against a man who had married his stepmother? Let’s assume that person has a stepmother that’s young, his father is older, the father dies, and now the person marries his stepmother. On what basis would most New Testament churches in our culture today bring sanction against such a man? But the Apostle Paul had no problem bringing sanction at all, did he? In fact, he was astonished that the church at Corinth had not exercised discipline and excommunicated such a man. You see why? Because the Apostle Paul understood the relationship of the spirit not in contradistinction to the law but in relationship to the law of God.

The spirit comes—the Old Testament prophesied his coming that he would do what? That he would write the law, the Torah, the statutes and the judgments the scriptures say upon the heart of the believer. And so we see that happening in our day and age today. Increasingly, there’s a movement in the church of America today to understand the relationship of spirit and law, not in contradistinction to each other, but rather working together the spirit writing God’s law upon our hearts.

Again, to quote from Rushdoony, we see thus that St. Paul is emphatically making clear in the story of the Corinthian man. Emphatically making clear the connection between the Holy Spirit, the law of God and the spiritual man. Thus, where the Holy Spirit is at work, the law of God is the delight of the spiritual man. And where men resist or despise the spirit, they resist and despise the law given by that spirit.

And we would make another correlation. When men despise and reject the law, while they may not be intending to, they are despising and rejecting the Holy Spirit whose job it is to write that law upon our hearts and to bring a grateful submission, a joyful submission to the law of God as he applies it to our lives in terms of sanctification.

The contrast in the scriptures is never between law and grace. It’s never between the spirit and the law. It’s between the spirit of bondage as opposed to the spirit of adoption. The spirit of fear and sin and rejection of God as opposed to the spirit of love and adoption that the believer has upon him in his life.

I heard a great song. Next time one of you come over to our house, I’ll play it for you. I videotaped it. I mentioned one of this man’s song—Richard did I guess mention one of this other man’s songs before. “You’ve got to go to sleep, sleep alone.” We all have a relationship with God that is in a sense individual. We must at night go to sleep alone whether there’s somebody in the bed next to you or not. And we must when we die go into that sleep alone as well and meet our maker alone. A very important truth.

This man also has a song about a train coming and the train is judgment at the last song and it’s quite a moving song. A little powerful crescendo sort of effect driving sort of a song and then the last phrase of the song talking about how everybody has to get on this train. It’s going to come right at the time appointed. Of course, sovereignly by God is what the implication is. You must get on. You don’t need a ticket, but you’re going to have to meet the train. And the train, he says, is either love or fear. It’s either love or fear. The refrain goes on and on several times at the end of the psalm.

Well, those are the two spirits abroad in the world. The spirit of bondage and fear, the spirit of love. And when we meet our maker, if you die on the way home from church today or next coming week or whatever it is, you will either be filled at the sense as you move toward that death of fear and apprehension because of your rejection of the Holy Spirit or love because you’ve received the spirit of adoption, the one who comforts us. Those are the two contrasts in scripture, not the spirit and law.

Well, a lot of review, but I think these things are extremely important. You know, I was thinking about this I got a lot of positive comments in my sermon a couple of weeks ago from speaking about Timothy. Very easy to apply material in that sermon. This stuff may be somewhat more difficult to apply, but you know, this work on the Holy Spirit that Rushdoony has done and that we’ve talked about for the last couple of weeks. It’s bedrock sort of stuff. This is stuff that we hopefully as a congregation will be developing its application and implications for months and years to come.

This is bedrock material on the third person of the trinity that I’m trying to lay down here. And what we try to do in this church is to take this material, digest it, move it on. I to this day remember Richard preaching about wisdom from above and wisdom from below. Bedrock material that God works then into our hearts week by week, month by month, and year by year. And I hope that’s the same thing that can be said of this study through the Holy Spirit that we’re engaging ourselves in.

Okay, I want to just now move to a couple of final points in terms of the application of this text and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And the last two final points is what we’re going to talk about today. This has all been reviewed so far. Presence, sovereignty, knowledge, ministry or vocation in relationship to that law. Those are the four points so far and we got two points in closing really.

One point is that the Holy Spirit comes and his work is one of recreation. And then finally after we talk about that for a little bit now I’m going to talk about sins against the spirit specifically grieving the spirit, quenching the spirit and the unpardonable sin that our savior talks about relative to the spirit.

So first of all the spirit comes in a spirit of recreation. What is the spirit doing? What is the purpose of all this stuff? Why is the spirit moving in terms of Paul and the apostles by closing doors here and opening doors there. Why is he doing this work in your life? Why are there days, weeks, months, maybe years when doors seem closed and you seem alone and yet you hold on to the faith once delivered that no, the spirit is with me guiding, directing as you wait for the door to open. Now the doors have been closed by the spirit. What is the purpose of all this in our lives?

The first thing we’re told in the scriptures, Genesis 1, opening chapters of Genesis, verse 2. You know, it’s very important for you to read on a regular basis the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. It really sets the rest of the scriptures unfold what is given there in miniature form repeatedly. And here is no different. We read in Genesis 1 that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.

The first thing we’re told about in reference to the third person of the Trinity, the spirit of God, is his work in creation, hovering over the formlessness and void of the creation and bringing order to pass. The spirit is a spirit of creation. And as he hovered over the waters at creation, so he now hovers over all things. This is the work of the spirit, hovering over things and bringing order to the world around us.

There’s a relationship between the creation of the world and the work of the spirit in it, the recreation of the world, particularly the incarnation of our Lord, and then the application of that in our own regeneration, our own new birth by the spirit. And then the result of all that is the expansion of this new creation, the new heavens and the new earth throughout the created order and throughout time and space.

The work of the spirit moves in that direction. The creation model is given to us at the first. He moves in terms of recreation or regeneration through the incarnation of our savior and the regeneration of those who are believing in him and who are called and elect by God to then bring about the implications of that the new world the new heavens and the new earth to come as a result of the work of the savior.

Commenting on this a commentator named Sweet quoted by Rushdoony again in his systematic theology says this: “In this act, the spirit is seen presiding over the beginnings of a new creation. As in the beginning of cosmic life, as in the first quickening of the higher life in man, so at the outset of the new order with the incarnate—which the incarnation inaugurated—it belonged to the divine spirit to set in motion the great process which was to follow. In the new world, in the new man as in the old, life begins with the breath of God.”

And he is talking here about the incarnation of our savior. The birth of our lord is not represented by the canonical gospels as in itself miraculous or attested by any special signs of divine power. The miracle lay in the conception and not in the birth of Jesus. Birth followed after ordinary conditions. It was however preceded and followed by another outburst of prophecy.

It’s interesting. I thought of Jav Brooks when I read this quote for the first time. He talked we’ve talked about Christmas services over the late years and how there are elements of the church I believe the eastern church that celebrates instead of Christmas their great celebration is in remembrance of the conception of Jesus Christ that his birth and if you think about it that’s in terms of its relationship to creation and recreation the work of the Holy Spirit that’s a very good emphasis the conception as this commentator says the birth of Jesus Christ is not seen as somehow miraculous rather it is the conception of Jesus Christ, the work specifically of the Holy Spirit, right?

That is stressed in the scriptures as being the great miraculous event whereby the spirit now brings to pass a new heaven and a new earth through the work of the savior.

The Holy Spirit to quote Rushdoony himself now is present at every step of the incarnation with Zacharias in Luke 1 and with John the Baptist in Luke 1:80 with Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1:39-56 and in the miraculous conception of course in Luke 1:35 at the first creation when God made the heavens and the earth the spirit was present and active. Now at the beginning of a new creation in a new humanity in the person of Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit is again present and active. The spirit thus is basic to both creation and recreation to in either case we have God’s miraculous power at work with the spirit as the great mover.

Now the implications of this for us are very important. So we’ve talked about creation. We’ve talked about recreation and relationship of the spirit to the incarnation of our savior. And then we read in John 1:12-13. “But as many as received him, that is Jesus Christ, to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe in his name which were born.”

This is speaking of us now. “Not of blood nor the will of the flesh.” What could be clearer in terms of God’s election and the new birth, “nor of the will of man, but of God.” We’re born of God. The scriptures say, and if you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you have received him in the sense of believing on him, that he is the son of God, that he died for your sins, was raised for your justification, that it’s only through him that forgiveness of sins is offered, and you have relationship with God.

If you’ve come to that saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the scriptures say that you have been given power to become the sons of God, not of the will of man, born of the will of God the Father. We have a place in this new creation. We have been made a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You remember what we said about circumcision. Circumcision or uncircumcision avails nothing, the apostle writes, but rather a new creation. The picture of what circumcision was all about. You can’t have progeny for the savior through physical means. Rather, it is the birth that is the new birth. That is the work of the spirit in recreation and new creation in us that is at play. And so the Holy Spirit’s work and purpose in us is to bring about a new created order and a new humanity.

Again quoting Rushdoony, our Lord through the Virgin Mary has a continuity with the original creation and with the original humanity of Adam. However, by his conception through the Holy Spirit, he is also a new creation. John writes with this in mind in a clear reference to the virgin birth. Jesus Christ was born not of blood nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. John then compares the regeneration of all Christians to the virgin birth. It is not of man. It is the miraculous creation of a new humanity be a people of God’s new prince, his new Adam in Israel.

This regeneration of man is totally of God as was the virgin birth. Our Lord stresses this in John 3:5. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and the spirit, he cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” God. The spirit’s work is recreation. It was creation. It was recreation in the incarnation of our savior. And it is recreation and bringing about a new creation in our hearts and in our souls as well. We are a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the purpose of this new creation? Quoting again from Rushdoony. “Turning again to the Virgin Mary, we see both in the annunciation and then the Magnificat why it is that the birth of our Lord is heralded as the beginning of a great overturning. The mighty of the old world of Adam one, Jesus being Adam 2, are to be put down from the seats of power, and those whom the world despises as base, and low are to be exalted. Thus, the great regeneration of all things is begun by the Holy Spirit with our Lord’s virgin birth, and is continued in and through us.”

God declares through Isaiah, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.” And through John, “Behold, I make all things new.”

The purpose of this recreation is the great overturning in history that comes with the Savior. The Magnificat titled the great reversal by many throughout history tells of this great reversal that all those who use positions of authority and power for their own purposes will be brought low through the manifestation of the Savior, through the regeneration, the recreation that is occurring in the world, and through the action of the Holy Spirit through believers, through you and through me.

Those who exalt themselves against the knowledge of Christ will be abased. Those who trust in him and are humbled by him will be lifted up. All those who use their economic resources for something other than the kingdom will be removed. They’ll be made poor and the poor will be made rich in the Lord Jesus Christ. Men who exercise dominion calling, vocational power, and financial resources and their intellectual understanding not for the Lord Jesus Christ will be brought down.

And those who see every aspect of their being, their money, their mind, their calling to rule in their various spheres of authority, whether it’s the family, your own individual self, your dominion calling at work, whatever it is, or in the civil government, those people who would use their money, their time, their resources, their dominion calling, their intellect, and their vocational pursuits for the Lord Jesus Christ shall be exalted in time.

And that’s why Paul marches to Europe. That’s why he marches to Rome to proclaim the gospel of the Savior. That Caesar shall be brought down in time in history. He shall be removed from power if he fails to bend the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ as Psalm 2 asserts. And that’s why we move into this week with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit has made you a new creation to proclaim the great reversal and to affect it in history and to inform those who do not use lose their vocational calling, their intellectual endeavors and their exercise of authority for the Lord Jesus Christ that they shall be judged and condemned by him.

The Holy Spirit brings judgment as well as establishment. He brings in a sense decreation as well as recreation. Scriptures call the Holy Spirit paracletos in the New Testament word with reference to—as Rushdoony says—an advocate or legal assistant in a court of law. Such a person as a comforter, one that is accused. However, now this is not stressed in most churches today, the legal assistant in the court of law is also a prosecutor of the guilty.

The Holy Spirit is a comfort to those whom he represents, but he prosecutes the guilty in the court of God’s law as well. The Holy Spirit plainly then functions as both comforter and advocate of Christ’s members and also as a judge and persecutor of Christ’s enemies. He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

As Rushdoony says, we get a funny picture if we don’t understand that at the time of the coming of our savior, Jerusalem was a pretty moral place. There wasn’t a lot of immorality going on. These were scribes and Pharisees who were trying to tithe mint and cumin and stuff. Now, of course, we’re making big mistakes, neglecting the weightier aspects of the law, but as Rushdoony said, there is a sense in which it was the best of the pagan world and the best of the pagan world crucifies the Savior, hates the Savior.

We live in a time of great morality where smoking is outlawed here and there. Drunkenness, you drink a glass of beer and drive on the road, you’re going to get thrown in jail if they pull you over. Great morality going on in our time. But a morality that would kill the Lord Jesus Christ and does regularly persecute those who speak on behalf of him into the culture.

Again quoting Rushdoony, “The world may daydream about a new paradise, but in all its being and actions, it works to recreate the old Babel and the new hell. Then and now, the world’s best and worst cry out, ‘We shall not have this man to reign over us.’”

The world would like to forget about Christ. And a sleeping church seems all too ready to help the world forget him. And all too many people in churches, any law but the law of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall not have this man reign over us. Our affairs won’t be dictated by his law. We’ll pit the spirit against the Lord Jesus Christ in his law. And we’ll follow the spirit and loving actions and a failure to discriminate.

And so the church fails in its mission. And what do we have around us as a result? We have a culture that fails to discriminate. We have a culture whose whole mark of morality is to say we don’t want to discriminate. The only thing we won’t tolerate, as John S. was telling me last week, is intolerance. See, all discrimination is seen as evil. Why? Because the church says so. Because the church fails to discriminate.

I heard a pastor say this last week. The only people that should be excommunicated are those who are obviously unregenerate. We know are unregenerate. Those are the only ones the church should bring its sanction of excommunication against. What does that mean in reference to Matthew 18? Well, it means we have a church today in America that’s created the culture in which we live. And if that culture now judges us and persecutes and condemns us, it’s because God is behind that culture persecuting the church of Jesus Christ. It’s rejected his law and would not have this man and his law to reign over us.

The spirit brings judgment and right now the spirit is judging most churches in America. I heard a tape a couple of weeks ago by a fine Christian man who gave me the tape. Seminary professor well respected in certain reform circles. And this man said, “It’s always wrong for Christians to condemn the world or to condemn the liberal church. You build barriers to evangelism if you do that.” And so the sleeping church says, “We will not discriminate. We will not condemn. We will not prosecute the world on the basis of Christ at his kingdom and the power of the spirit.” And as such, the church removes the spirit from its life. It moves itself out of obedience to God.

And it then becomes the reason why this culture is so sin and so rebellious to the Lord Jesus Christ. Such churchmen have no liking as Rushdoony said for Calvin’s sentence. “Without judgment there can be no God.” They are determined on creating a judgment-free or justice-free society. And they are succeeding in the context of our culture except of course when it comes to conservative Bible believing Christians who do see the need to discriminate and to judge and make discernments and we shall certainly be the recipients of their wrath as we are the recipients of this seminary professor’s wrath as well who thinks that the only thing he wishes to condemn are Christians who have the gall to condemn the society around us for its sinfulness.

Well, the spirit comes and his forces are active in history. Now, whether we like it or not, it’s not up to us. He’s sovereign. He will do it with or without us. He’ll accomplish his work with or without seminary professors in the institutional church. He will create and continue to create a new humanity that bows the knee of the Lord Jesus Christ. He will continue to prosecute God’s enemies. The only question is on which side of that courtroom will we stand and sit?

Will we be on the side that he is prosecuting? Will we be on the side that he is being an advocate and defender of? That’s the only question. History is the march of the Holy Spirit and the march of the gospel. Now, this which is accelerated in the New Testament. The day of Pentecost is a picture of the acceleration of this new creation with the coming of the Holy Spirit in earnest in full upon men in a stronger and fuller sense, more active as it were because of the ascension to the right hand of the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The spirit comes in a recreative sense to create a new humanity. And he the announcement of this, the great announcement was the announcement at Pentecost that we spoke of many weeks ago, over a year or two ago now at the beginning of the book of Acts. The Holy Spirit now is in a fuller sense active in the context of the world brought about us. And so we see this spirit at work now and that spirit’s work again is to establish the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pentecost is the indication that the new Israel has been made in the Lord Jesus Christ and we now enter a period of time of the restoration of all things as we preached about from the early opening chapters of the book of Acts as well. The spirit the scriptures tell us at Pentecost is a spirit of great power. This power is an ability, a sufficiency in the face of all things. The Lord tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Paul will tell the Philippians, the church at Philippi that he will start here in the account of the book of Acts in 3 weeks we’ll read.

He tells the Philippians, “We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.” So the Holy Spirit demonstrated at Pentecost and the recreation of humanity is a spirit of power. This power, however, is to a particular purpose. That purpose is the triumphant worldwide witness of the Lord Jesus Christ. That again is pictured for us at Pentecost. It means as Rushdoony says not only total of dominion over all the earth but over every aspect thereof.

Thus our witness in the spirit is to all nations but not simply to all nations but to every aspect of life, work and thought. When the scriptures tell us to disciple the nations, it means to take the message of the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the spirit, apply it to all nations, but apply it to every aspect of every nation, life, word, and thought. The power of the spirit witnesses in and through us, in our homes, our work, and every aspect of our lives.

The power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated at Pentecost is for witness bearing. And obviously, that witness bearing is to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, in our reading earlier, he comes not to speak of himself. He comes to speak of the work of the Son. The Son himself had the spirit poured upon him by God. I want to read a couple of quotes here. First from the Old Testament and then from the New.

The book of Isaiah, we read this. “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of the vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.”