Post #4 – The Helper – The Holy Spirit’s Ministry
Let’s take a quick review:
- The Holy Spirit is introduced in John’s gospel as partnering with Jesus in His ministry from the beginning and then is introduced as Jesus’ replacement upon Jesus “transfer” to heaven. Jesus introduces Him as the “Helper.” That tells me He thought the disciples needed help and ultimately that all believers would need help.
- His Help comes as a free gift, by grace, not earned. No one can earn what has already been freely given. Ever hear “God helps those who help themselves”? That is not in the Bible and God did not write it. We see His help the most when we admit we need it and ask for it. Then we need to obey His direction and get out of the way.
- Today we look at how He “helps” us through the unusual: signs, wonders, dreams, visions and gifts of the Spirit. You’ll want to read through Acts 2:17-18 and I Corinthians 12:1-11.
In Acts 2, Peter quotes a well known prophesy from Joel about the coming Messiah’s outpouring of the Spirit, saying it would be marked with visions, dreams and prophecy through men, women, young people and old. It helps to understand that the scriptures are a progressive revelation so the New Testament not only quotes but further explains passages from the Old Testament.
I Corinthians 12:11, “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.”
We know the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, or present everywhere, but He chooses to manifest His presence at times, as at the outpouring in Acts 2 in order to emphasize that He is there to help, a little like the siren of a police car lets us know a representative of the legal authority is present to help. He has willed to help and made His presence known with signs, wonders and the gifts of the Spirit through believers ever since Pentecost. Unfortunately, there have been those who thought the Holy Spirit stopped helping after that time, but that just isn’t a fact. Beside the rest of the book of Acts which speaks of many people who were not apostles being used by the Holy Spirit, there are literally multitudes of diary entries and letters written throughout the past 2000 years witnessing to His gifts continuing to be manifest, helping the Church throughout her history.
God chose the Day of Pentecost for this initial Holy Spirit outpouring. Another misunderstanding is that the believers in the upper room caused the outpouring on the day of Pentecost because of their “tarrying” but just as God had set the Passover to be the foreshadow of Christ’s sacrifice, He instituted the feast of Pentecost as the foreshadow of the coming outpouring that would cause a tremendous harvest of souls. He has chosen, as He wills, every outpouring date and period since. All of the outpourings throughout the Church’s history have been marked by this manifestation of the Spirit’s presence with unusual signs and wonders and accelerated evangelism and new births. You know when you are in a place and season of outpouring when you see these things manifesting. Conversely, you know you aren’t in an outpouring when these are not profuse. But the Holy Spirit is still present to help.
I need to add a side note here – when the Spirit is in manifestation, the flesh will show up and show off. That’s just the way it is. However it’s no reason to quench the Spirit, hindering the possibility of His manifestation. Instead we need to use these times to train the church. Brother Hagin often said, “Even cows know how to eat the hay and spit out the straw.” We can pastor the people to know the Spirit well enough to discern between Him and the flesh. I remember ministering in San Diego in February of ‘94, at a church with about 500 in attendance. One of the evident ways the Holy Spirit was manifesting His presence in that outpouring was the joy and laughter people were experiencing. It seemed everyone in the room was filled with this laughter. One man I started to minister to, stood frozen looking up and speaking into heaven. As I moved to another aisle to pray for a lady, a man came rushing madly at me and just as he got within an arm’s length, he flew into the air backwards and landed about fifteen feet away in a heap of chairs. We all agreed the Holy Spirit had protected me in the moment. The “ungifted” might have said it was chaos there, but I saw the order the Holy Spirit was moving in, following Him as best as I could and the fruit of that meeting proved it was His presence manifest there.
What if there isn’t an outpouring evident? Is the Holy Spirit still present to help? Between outpourings, like now and at other times in the Church’s history, the Holy Spirit has helped through His gifts ministered to and through believers for edification, exhortation and comfort. Most important He is present to help us help others. People won’t be set free through words only.
“…my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men but on the power of God.” (I Corinthians 2:4-5)
We desperately need the demonstration of the Spirit, the power of God.
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Post 3 – Rivers of Living Water
Please read John 7:37-39 Jesus prophesied an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that would be as rivers of living water. He did this during the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, when the people would build and live in booths for seven days, they thought, to be reminded of their wilderness journey, and how God’s presence “tabernacled” in their midst. However, God’s intention was to make them thirst for His Presence again. The Feast of Booths was celebrated in the fall (Sept/Oct) at the beginning of planting season. At this time, every seventh or Sabbath year and in the year of Jubilee, the word would be read to the people in the square of the Water Gate by the pool of Siloam. You can find this demonstrated in Nehemiah 8. Each morning at day break, the High Priest with a golden pitcher in his hand, would lead a procession from the Temple on Mount Moriah over to Mount Zion in the old City of David, then down to the pool of Siloam, fill the pitcher with water, then proceed back to the Temple where he would pour out the water on the great altar. This procession was accompanied with trumpet blasts and singing and shouts of praise. It was to remind them of 3 distinct things:
1) Of the Water from the Rock in the wilderness; God’s provision for the children of Israel in the desert
2) The promise of the forthcoming “latter rain” in the spring which brings the best harvest.
3) The prophecy of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the coming of the Messiah
So get the picture, the people are coming out of their booths where they are remembering and thirsting for the presence of God in their midst. They gather at the Pool of Siloam waiting for the priest to come fill the pitcher so they can celebrate God’s faithful quenching of their thirst, remember the promise of the latter rain, and the prophecy of the coming Messiah and His outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Of course these are types and foreshadows of God’s redemption plan. Now let’s read John 7:37-39 again with this picture in mind:
37 “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus (the Rock that poured forth the water in the desert(I Cor. 10:4)) stood (took the posture of a Prophet, the High Priest of God and the Messiah) and cried out, saying, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink (Lit., let him keep coming to me and let him keep drinking). He who believes in Me, as the Scripture (Is. 44:3; 55:1; 58:11) said, ‘From his innermost being ( Lit., out of his belly) shall flow rivers of living water.’ 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (Joel 2:28, John 1:33)
As He prophesied here, Jesus went on to finish the redemption work of the cross and resurrection, then ascended to heaven so He could receive the promise of the Father and as Messiah, POUR OUT THE HOLY SPIRIT. Jesus told the disciples to wait for the promise of the Father, which they did, gathered in the Upper Room. Guess where that Upper Room was in Jerusalem? It was on Mount Zion, by the pool of Siloam by the Water Gate. Could God make the picture of His plan any clearer? We read in Acts 2:1-4, on the day of Pentecost, Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit upon all the 120 there and the rivers of living water began to flow. Peter preached what this meant in Acts 2:10-41 (from Joel 2: 28) and 3000 were added to the church that day.
Just as The Rock that followed them in the desert was replaced with a springing up well (Num. 21:16-18), the Holy Spirit comes:
- To live in us as the well of eternal life, the very presence of God remaining tabernacled in our spirit for our salvation, quenching our thirsts for His life.
- To be rivers of living water upon us flowing out of us for the sake of others.
Revelation 1:15 says Jesus voice is “like the sound of many waters” and later in 19:6 the Church’s voice is as the “sound of many waters.” I know my words are not so completely overtaken by the Holy Spirit today but one day we will not only be as He is but our voices will actually sound like His.
The night I cried out to God and turned control of my life over to Him (“please take control before I completely destroy it ” were my exact words), I was awakened. I found myself sitting straight up in bed, raised there by some unseen hand, my eyes wide open. I glanced at the clock, 3:00PM. A mighty sound approached from the left corner of the room, like a freight train coming through the wall. The sound became a distinct awesome voice moving as in slow motion from the one corner toward me coming so close it had to have touched the end of the bed “Get out! Get out as fast as you can!!” the Voice loudly warned before receding back toward the adjacent corner of the room, exiting just as suddenly as it had come. The air lightened and the stilled room darkened again, becoming ever so quiet. Stunned and unable to move I sat wondering, “What was that?” The Voice had sounded so familiar yet I couldn’t place it. In spite of its awesome power, the manner reminded me of my grandmother’s voice, for it had the same unconditional love in it that had always made me feel safe and secure, especially in my trying teen years. But it couldn’t have been Mamaw, as we had affectionately called her. She had passed on eight years before. No it wasn’t her, but it was someone like her or maybe…someone she was like. Her voice had come so close to sounding like His, that I was able to recognize Him speaking to me that crucial night.
I hope, no I desire above all else, that someday my voice would be so full of the Spirit it would be “as the sound of many waters” to someone thirsting for Him. That His Presence in my spirit and the washing of the word will wash away every trace of the bitterness life can bring and only leave behind sweet quiet waters for others to find rest beside.
Post 2 – Baptism in the Holy Spirit
Continuing with our study on connecting with the Holy Spirit, let’s look in John 4 where Jesus spoke to the woman at the well. In verse ten, He says to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” He is speaking of the Holy Spirit who is also the gift of God, the gift of the Father (Matt 7:11; Acts 2:38; 8:20; 10:45) and of the water that He could give her, a type of the Holy Spirit, the water from a well of eternal life. Like a well, the Holy Spirit quenches the thirst of every human soul with His indwelling presence which gives new life to all who come to believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins and was resurrected to give us new life. The Holy Spirit indwells us from the moment we believe and confess Jesus is Lord.
At our recent Women’s Connect, I used a drop of food coloring in the bottom of a glass set inside a clear glass pitcher. When a little water was poured into the glass, the colored water appeared representing the Holy Spirit’s presence inside our hearts at our new birth.
John 4:14 “…whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.” This indwelling satisfies our hunger and thirst; the filling of that God shaped hole in every human heart.
But Jesus didn’t stop there, “…Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” He prophesied that this water would “spring up.” In Num 21:17, God’s people broke out singing: “Spring up O well” Do you remember that old song:
“Spring up, O well, within my soul; spring up, O well, and make me whole.”
Jesus wanted her to know that there is an additional dimension of this “Water” that was available to her. As John the Baptist said of Jesus in John 1:33, “He is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.”
Now there are at least three baptisms for believers in the New Testament. The following chart tells how each takes place:
Baptism In (subst) Agent Uniting Us In His:____
Water (Rom 6:5) Believers Death and resurrection
Body of Christ (I Cor. 12:13) Holy Spirit His Church
Holy Spirit (Jn. 1:33; Acts 1-2) Jesus His Essence & Power
As you can see the substance, agent, and purpose are different in each one. Focusing on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit we see that Jesus is the agent who performs this baptism. The substance we are baptized into is the Holy Spirit and this baptism unites us to His complete filling, His essence, presence and power. A look at the original word for baptism helps us get a clearer picture of this:
Baptismo: the process used in pickling or dyeing cloth:
1) In dyeing cloth, it meant to immerse the cloth until every fiber was permeated/ united with the dye and changed to the color of the dye.
2) In pickling – another word, Bapto meant to temporarily dip the “cuke” into boiling water, preparing it for change but our word, Baptismo meant to immerse in vinegar until a permanent change took place.
So to be baptized in the Holy Spirit means to be immersed until every part of our being is permeated and united with the Holy Spirit of Christ and we are overwhelmed with His fullness. The process of change is begun. As we continue to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) transformation will continue throughout our lives until we are thoroughly “pickled” in His Spirit!
2 Cor. 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…this is the ultimate makeover!
Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be My witnesses…
Acts 2:33 “Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”
Remember that glass in the pitcher? If we pour the water into the glass until it not only fills but overflows and even fills up the pitcher. The glass is not just filled but immersed in the water – that is Baptismo – that is what the baptism in the Holy Spirit is supposed to look like: Not just in us, but filling us and upon us.
Putting on the Spirit: He not only indwells us, but springs up from inside and clothes us with His Presence, His Person and His Power, becoming our constant source of Life and a source of life for others.
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Part I – Introducing the Holy Spirit
To begin this study please read Acts 19:1-6. Some of you know the Holy Spirit as your close friend but others may be like the disciples at Ephesus, saying, “We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” Today is no different. Growing up in Baptist Sunday school in the 50-60’s, I heard everything about Jesus and of course, loved Him. And when I began to attend adult church I heard about “GAWD”, hellfire, damnation, and repentance of sin which was the popular message of the day but nothing about the Holy Spirit or of faith toward Christ. It is no wonder to me then that no matter how many times I made that trip down the aisle to the front of the church in terror of punishment, asking for forgiveness, no new birth occurred.
When Paul preached faith in Jesus, (not fear of the punishment of sin), the Holy Spirit came and they were born-again. When he laid hands on them, Jesus baptized them in the Spirit. This happened many years after the Day of Pentecost in the Upper Room. It happened in Ephesus, to Gentiles who were not apostles. And it has been happening ever since for the past 2000 years to hungry and thirsting believers seeking the Lord.
I have to make this statement here: If you’ve received teaching on the Holy Spirit from other than a Spirit-filled source, there’s a good chance you are going to learn a lot more about Him through this study.
This summer our study is on the person of The Holy Spirit, His Gifts and Ministry and how to walk by Holy Spirit and experience bearing the Fruit of the Spirit. When you first meet someone you are interested in getting to know well, you want to know about them. There is so much to know about the Holy Spirit I’m not sure when we will finish this study. As you get to know about Him you will recognize Him more and more in your life and find Him the closest friend you can ever have. I’m going to keep posting these studies until He says to stop. Hopefully they will help you become intimately close to Him.
When Paul closed his last letter to the church at Corinth, he exhorted them,
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.”(II Cor. 13:14)
Paul wanted them to keep these three things uppermost in their hearts: the unmerited grace Jesus provided, the unconditional love the Father loves us with, and the intimate presence of the Holy Spirit in each believer’s life. The Bible tells us God wants to be our closest companion, to live in us and through us. He was able to walk with us in Eden for awhile, but after sin entered man, God could only visit but could not remain with us much less live in us. But since Jesus’ redemption and resurrection, for 2000 years, the Holy Spirit has been able to come and live in the born-again spirit of every believer. God in us! The Creator of all there is in me. “His fellowship be with you all” means so much: friendship, intimacy, partnership. We want to come to know Him personally, to connect with Him and enjoy His companionship, share with Him, come to know Him as our closest friend and to partner with Him in ministry.
John 1:14 says Jesus came and “dwelt among us” –“tabernacled” – brought His Holy of Holies into a human body and made it His “tent of meeting.” He stood among us and talked with men and women face to face. To be one of His disciples had to be amazing!!! To sit, eat and talk with Him – WOW! What would you have talked to Him about? Don’t we have the same access now with the Holy Spirit?
Let’s look at the book of John to see the Holy Spirit introduced right along with Jesus.
In John 1:32-33, John the Baptist said at Jesus’ baptism: “I beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him” The Spirit joined Jesus at the very beginning of His ministry. By the way, Jesus did not do any miracles or healings before He entered ministry here at His baptism. The Bible is the authorize voice of our God, the one book He has preserved and passed down to us with the witness of the Spirit upon it. All other books do not hold that position of authority in a believer’s life. We can only trust His Word or we will be deceived and sorely disappointment.
I think of Jesus when reading the Gospels but the Holy Spirit co-labored right along with Him and should be recognized and known through these accounts just as much.
Acts 10:38 tells us: “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was with Him.”
From the beginning of Jesus ministry, the Holy Spirit is pointed out. In fact John the Baptist went on to say of baptizing Jesus:
“And I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’
John the Baptist said God (He who sent me) told him how to recognize Jesus (whom you see the Spirit…remaining upon) and made a point of Jesus baptizing in the Holy Spirit. This is so interesting to me. I would have thought he would have been told of all the other things Jesus would accomplish. But God pointed John the Baptist to His final accomplishment of this age, that of giving the gift of the Holy Spirit and baptizing the Upper Room believers in Him on the day of Pentecost. Of course Jesus death was important and lots of people think that was His greatest act. His resurrection was just as essential and amazing, but we lose a lot of people on that one. And then His ascension was glorious but too many believers’ faith stops there. We have to read on to Acts 2. God declared His ultimate accomplishment would be His baptizing believers in the Holy Spirit!!
