Section II – The Good Shepherd Feeds His Sheep (John 10-17)
Lecture 12, THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (John 16:7-15)
Scripture Text – John 16:7-15
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I gonot away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. of sin, because they believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more. Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.”
A. The Holy Spirit as Our Advocate
1. The Courtroom Motif
What John is doing here is presenting a courtroom type motif when he’s talking about the Holy Spirit who ministers to us as our advocate, our counselor, as our priest, as our lawyer. He is the One who pleads our case for us – the one who even prays through us, Paul says.
Here he stands between us and accusations as our witness on our behalf bringing us to the throne – standing in the courtroom of this world and standing along side of us and standing up for us and working through us for the glory of God. I’m glad that He can literally give us counsel and guidance and direction and strength and we can lean heavily upon Him.
2. An Historical Example – Jake Roberts in Florida
I’m reminded of this in a literal sense in a story that Brother Jake Roberts used to tell when he talked about one of the churches in Florida where he was pastor in the old days. He was very young in the ministry and they brought an injunction against the church for being too noisy and a lot of other things. They brought them up before the courts.
On the way to meet the court that day he knelt down by an old palmetto bush and began to pray. As he did he dropped his one dollar ninety-eight cent red-letter edition of the Bible and it fell open to one of the pages. He prayed on and then, after awhile, he picked it up.
The passage just seemed to leap out at him. It said, “When they bring you up before the magistrates and the courts think not what you shall say; but it shall be given to you in that hour of the Holy Ghost what you shall say.” He shouted around and around that palmetto bush for a while and went shouting right on into the courtroom.
They opened the case and the lawyer tried all kinds of “shenanigans.” They asked him such questions as, “Are you the pastor of that church where they turn the lights out and everybody gets on the floors and roll?” He said that he didn’t even know it was in the Bible but he quoted a scripture that he had never heard and didn’t know it was in the Bible.
He said, “The word of the Lord says answer not a fool according to his folly lest you come a fool like him.” Well by that time the Holy Spirit fell over the Church of God people in that trial and they began to rejoice and shout. They asked him one more foolish question and by that time the house fell down. The judge grabbed the gavel and started beating the desk and said, “Case dismissed. Get them out of here.”
Well I want to tell you that is a literal illustration of what John is talking about. He says, “The Holy Spirit will minister to you. He will be your counselor and when you need to know the way to go and you need advise especially spiritually, He will be that inner voice within you whispering in your heart. He will still the storm and He will guide you and He will direct you and counsel you. He will be your go between, your advocate between you and God. You will have perfect divine communion. You will be able to pray and touch the Almighty and move into the realm of the spiritual and there receive from God’s own divine hand the strength and the guidance you need.
B. The Holy Spirit as the Judge of the World
Then in the reading I read to you tonight, the picture changes somewhat because the Holy Spirit is seen then in His ministry to the world. Suddenly He changes roles in His relationship to the world. He has been the advocate, the lawyer, the counselor, the one who stands along side to protect. Now He becomes the prosecutor – the judge of the world in His ministry and His activity in relationship to the world.
Jesus said, “When He is come, He will reprove the world.” He will expose, He will clarify, He will confute the world and all of its wisdom and all of its methods and all of its plans. The Holy Spirit will work to convince and convict. He will work to uncover and expose. He will work. He Himself will be the one who bring condemnation upon this world.
Our obedience to God, our fullness of the Spirit is the greatest condemnation the world will ever see. The Holy Spirit working through us in a marvelous and glorious way is the greatest finger of condemnation that points toward this world. I sometimes get amused that these nitwits of people who try to explain away the Pentecostal experience. Out on the weekend the other day I saw in a little newspaper in a little town here in Tennessee somebody who didn’t have any more sense than to try to explain away the experience that you and I already have with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. You know what, that is a little bit ridiculous for a man to come up and tell me that I can’t get where I’ve already been. Amen?
I want to tell you now that the Holy Spirit working alive in the baptized believers somehow sheds a blanket of condemnation towards this world. Because the world hates God and hates the truth and hates the light. It’s the ministry and work of the Holy Spirit to
somehow uncover the darkness and uncover sin and present to this world the light of truth that shines that cannot be comprehended or apprehended, the light that cannot be put out or pushed back but the light that stands firm penetrating through any force, penetrating through any power of darkness, through any cloud that may roll in against our lives or against the church. Hallelujah! I’m talking about the power of the Holy Ghost that is at work in this world tonight, this very night
1. The Holy Spirit Convicts the World of Sin
First of all, He convinces the world of sin. Now He as prosecutor and judge, He lays heavy the indictment against the world of what sin really is. He said, “Because they believe not on me.” Unbelief – refusal to walk in the light, the rejection of the Son of God, rejection of light, refusing to believe Christ, refusing to believe the word – this is the greatest sin that anybody can commit in the whole world.
You read the list of apostates in the scripture – for instance, like in the book of Jude. There are manifestations of how people grow into apostasy end turn from God all the way from rebellious angels who left their first estate and who refuse dominion over them by the power of God all the way down to examples in history and even in the times in which Jude wrote. At the very fountain head and source of every outward act of rebellion and sin, there was the deep-seated sin of unbelief in their hearts. Even the Israelites could not enter the promise land because of unbelief.
I want to tell you, it is the most deceitful of all sins in this world to doubt God–to doubt His Word, to close your eyes to the truth, to close up your heart to the moving of God’s Spirit. It is the most deceitful sin that can ever get a hold of the heart of any man in this world. Here the Holy Spirit comes and He lays the indictment at the feet and at the hearts and the minds of the people of this world.
Now in a world where truth is preached, in a world where light shines, in a world where love flows from the hearts of men, in a world where transformed lives are witnesses to the divine supernatural redeeming power of God, in a world that has a witness through the lives of consecrated children of God, the power of condemnation falls in the heart and in the faces of people who reject God and reject the Spirit and reject God’s word. It is the ministry and office work of the Holy Ghost to convince and convict the world that they are sinners.
2. The Holy Spirit Convinces the World of Righteousness
The Holy Spirit also is to convince the world of righteousness, “Because,” He said, “I go to the Father.” What is He talking about? He is talking about His leaving – His going and the way He will go, by way of the cross. The Holy Spirit is going to make known to the world that the only way to righteousness is through Jesus and the cross. The way to be righteous is not by that legalistic form of the Jews – “If I can just keep nine hundred and ninety nine of the thousand laws so to speak, then I’ve got it made.”
That’s not the way to righteousness Jesus said. The Holy Spirit is going to convince every man who would try to dress up in his own robes of self-righteousness and every man who thinks he’s good enough within himself. It is the work and the power of the Holy Spirit to come and just simply refute such reasoning and say, “it is not so friend.” You’re condemned to die. You’re lost without Christ. There is no other way. There is no other name given among men but through Jesus Christ the Lord.
You know sometimes we preachers get a little upset and a little weary because we preach and we think somehow people should respond and repent. But after all, the Holy Spirit is there and He is doing His work and He’s zeroing in and you can’t force Him and
you can’t force people.
That’s one reason you have great difficulty in trying to get people saved on the spot every time. Because you can’t manipulate the Holy Spirit and it requires the work of the Holy Ghost to convict a man so that he feels guilty in his own heart. You can’t tell a man and help him get saved and tell him he’s lost unless the Spirit convicts him that he is lost.
Oh, it’s easy to get some people to make decisions that don’t last and to make efforts that don’t bear fruit – to make decisions and even to make testimonies that don’t last till next Sunday.
But oh, when a man gets arrested by the Holy Ghost and He comes to him and surrounds him with the light of truth and with the word of God and puts him under arrest and the man falls on his face and he says, “I’m a sinner. I’m lost and there is no other way unless God has mercy” – that kind of repentance and conversion will last and will hold on till death itself comes.
One of the great curses against the work of the church in these days is the lack of real genuine, authentic conversion. If somehow the Holy Spirit could minister in a greater way, there would be more genuine, authentic conversion repenting experiences in the lives of people.
3. The Holy Spirit Convicts the World of Judgment
Then He brings to light the fact and truth of judgment. Judgment is not just a day out in the future – although it is that. There is a judgment day. But judgment is a process that goes on in the world continually so that men who shun the truth and who turn away from God are already under the process of being judged by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus said, “The prince of this world is already judged.” His case is come up before the Almighty judge and he is weighed in the balances and found wanting. He is found guilty.
Not only that, but every man’s case is constantly coming before the high court. In that court there is no bribery of the jury because the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Godhead himself, stands as both prosecutor and judge to point the finger of charges and accusations and nobody can escape them.
Each person may offer excuses. He may present his arguments and complaints. He may say what he will. But when the final verdict comes, there is no deviation, there is no turning, and there is no hypocrisy. The light wins out. The truth shines through. The verdict reads pure.
The Holy Ghost is avenged and He stands as judge and prosecutor of all who would reject Jesus Christ and all who would reject the truth and reject the light. You hear me today! Unbelief and turning from God stands under the condemnation of the Lord God Almighty. The process of judgment goes on and on and on. Then on a certain day it just comes to find fulfillment.
C. The Holy Spirit as the Minister to the Church
1. The Holy Spirit Works Through Members of the Body of Christ
Jesus said, “He will guide you into all truth and He will show you things to come and He will glorify me.” If you will analyze those three statements carefully, you will understand fully what Jesus is saying.
You see, what Jesus is really saying unto these disciples is: “I’m going to leave you now, but I’m going to turn the direction of my church over to the Holy Ghost and He is going to come to you and abide with you and be with you and from here on I am going to direct the entire affairs of the church from where I am in the unseen through the Holy Ghost in you.”
That’s the way Jesus, the head of the church, runs the church. He runs the church and operates and directs the church through the Spirit in you and me. He bestows upon it gifts of all description and dimensions – ministries and callings and gifts of all kinds. He knows every kind of need that the church has and whenever there is a need for any one of these gifts to be manifested or any ministry to be performed, the Holy Ghost has the power and authority and ability to just simply call on a Holy Ghost filled person and work it through him. Hallelujah!
Any Holy Ghost filled child of God that is dedicated to God could very well expect God to use him at any time at any place to do anything that God has need to be done. Hallelujah! God wants to work through you and through your life. If you will open up your life like a running stream, He’ll pour it through you, hallelujah, He will. Amen.
2. The Holy Spirit Will Guide You
Look at these three statements, which also cover three groupings of great gifts and ministries in the church. First of all He said, “He will guide you.” That guiding of the Holy Ghost means the leading and developing and the completing and the making perfect of the whole body of Christ. It is to be equipped with the word and spirit and power and faith in order to do God’s work in this world.
Here’s where He as the great teacher unfolds God’s will and God’s word and equips the saints for their work of ministry. Some of you could have a bright and beautiful ministry unto God if you would pay attention to the Holy Ghost. Oh, I’m glad for the ministry of lay ministers. Every member of the body of Christ should be involved in this great spiritual work and I want to tell you, it is the ministry and work of the Holy Ghost in the church.
If the Holy Ghost has His way and He can pour out as He wills, He’ll have everybody on fire. He’ll have everybody working and praying and believing. He’ll have everybody being a flame of fire and being a teacher and being a preacher and a proclaimer of the truth, hallelujah, on some scale or another.
If He hasn’t started working like that through you, well just don’t quench Him and don’t grieve Him and He will. Just invite Him and welcome Him and He’ll come in and take over and the first thing you know your heart and your mind will explode and you’ll go sailing out somehow in the atmosphere of divine faith.
You’ll be seeing visions like you’ve never seen before, soaring on wings of faith, mounting up with wings as eagles, soaring above the troubles and worries. Your life will take on a new dimension and meaning of God’s Spirit and power.
3. The Holy Spirit Will Show You Things to Come
Jesus also said, “He’ll show you things to come and things about me He will bring to you and reveal to you.” He’s talking now about all those beautiful gifts, revelation gifts that come through the Holy Ghost.
My, I want you to know Pentecostals are far away ahead of any other group in this world because of the simple fact of that divine illuminating power of the revelation gifts of the Holy Spirit – the word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits, and the revelation that is involved in tongues and interpretations and prophesy. All those beautiful things, Jesus said, He’ll show you, He’ll reveal. “He’ll bring of mine and show it.”
Oh, I say in this day when a thousand voices are calling at us and a thousand things are plaguing us, I say, let’s tune them out. Tune in on the ministry of the Holy Spirit and let Him show us Jesus. Let Him show us the word. Let Him reveal to us what to say.
4. The Holy Spirit Will Glorify the Son
Finally He said, “He will glorify me.” That is to say that He will impart to the church the means, the ability, the gifts that are required to have perfect and pure worship to Christ in spirit and in truth. The deadest thing I’ve ever known is a meeting where people don’t worship God and the Spirit is not there. But the most exciting place in the world to me is where the saints of God gather in fellowship and love, get in the spirit and glorify Jesus Christ and worship Him. That’s where miracles take place.