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Hello, welcome to "The Final Word".
If you follow us, you know that on the Final Word
we take God's Word on a subject and we study it in depth
until we come to a final conclusion,
or the final word on that subject.
In the religious world,
there seems to be thousands of answers
to some of the most simple questions that man has.
And yet, God has given us His word
so that we can all come to the same conclusions.
He wants us all to be united in the Truth.
His Word teaches us the Truth, the problem is that
man has so often changed the word of
God or misused His word,
until it makes unity seem impossible.
But it is not impossible, and so at the Final Word,
we research the questions, from the Biblical perspective,
and we come to the answer that God has already given us,
in His Word.
Today on the Final Word, we begin a series of shows
that are very important in our understanding of God.
The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead,
has been the subject of many great discussions
over the years, and we believe that understanding
some of these fundamental principles will help us all
to know our God a little bit better.
Many questions come to mind when we start a discussion
on the Holy Spirit.
Things like, "What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit?"
and, "Does the Holy Spirit literally indwell a person?"
"Can we do Miracles today?"
"Can we blaspheme the Holy Spirit today?"
All kinds of questions arise
when people start talking about the Holy Spirit.
In fact, I once heard, "If you have 3 preachers
"sitting in a room discussing the Holy Spirit,
chances are you have 3 different opinions
about the Holy Spirit."
But, why is this topic so misunderstood?
Is it really that hard to understand the Holy Spirit?
Anyone who is involved in the Christian religion today
knows that there have been many false teachings
concerning the Holy Spirit.
Those false ideas do nothing but confuse sincere people
who really want to know the truth.
Yet, God says that He is not the author of confusion.
And since he is not the author of confusion,
that really leaves us, - Human Beings
as being the authors of confusion.
And indeed that is what has happened with the subject
of the Holy Spirit.
We have confused what the Bible teaches many times,
until it seems like a great task,
to even try to sit down and have a study on a subject
like the Holy Spirit.
Well, the Truth is, the Holy Spirit is not nearly
as mysterious, or confusing
as the religious world makes him out to be.
And this series is presented as the Final Word
on the Holy Spirit.
We have some of the brightest minds in the brotherhood
to speak to us on this very important topic.
Men like Glenn and Gary Colley, BJ Clarke, Charles Leonard,
Curtis Cates, Keith Mosher, Robert Taylor-
they will be leading us in our study.
I can assure you that these men will present lessons
that are easy to follow, and also will help to clear up
the many issues that the religious world
has misunderstood for so long.
One question that some have asked
concerning the Holy Spirit, involves his Personality.
Is he a person? I don't mean does he have flesh and blood,
I mean does he, just like God the Father and God the Son,
does the Holy Spirit have the same characteristics
that the other two in the Godhead have?
I once had a Bible teacher tell me,
that the Holy Spirit was just a "shared feeling"
between God the Father and God the Son.
Is that the truth?
Well, let us ask brother Glenn Colley to speak with us today
and answer from God's Word, just what is the Personality
of the Holy Spirit.
He will share the first part, of a 2-part message
about the Personality of the Holy Spirit.
We tend to study about God the Father and his personality,
and certainly we do the same with Jesus,
or the second person of the Godhead.
But what about the personality of the Holy Spirit?
There is much confusion out there today on that subject.
Most people would not even care to try to figure out
the personality of the Holy Spirit.
They would rather just have a "feeling" about him.
And yet knowing His personality will help us
to better understand our God.
We'll be back after Glenn finishes the first lesson,
to recap or review some of the teachings
that he has helped us to understand.
So we ask that you take your notebooks, and your pens,
and take notes as we consider
the Personality of the Holy Spirit.
Here is brother Glenn Colley.
Let's talk about the Holy Spirit today.
It's about time.
When you think about the Godhead,
and incidentally someone said to me one day, he thought it was
good to refer to the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit as the "Godhood".
He said, "Here's what I mean; when a young man developes
"the characteristics of a man, we say he's coming into manhood.
"That means he has those
"distinguishing characteristics of a man.
"And the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all have the
distinguishing characteristics which define one as God."
It's God.
And there are three distinct persons in the Godhead.
Why, when I was baptized into Christ,
my father referenced Matthew 28 and baptized me
in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and I was baptized in the name of the Holy Spirit.
In Matthew 3, when my Lord was baptized
by John the Baptist, we have a remarkable snapshot
of all three persons in the Godhead.
Why, you've got Jesus there being baptized by John,
and you have the Father in heaven saying,
"This is my beloved son. In whom I am well pleased."
And then there's the Spirit descending as a dove.
Three very distinct persons.
In Ephesians 4, begining in verse one and following.
When you have the list of seven things
of which there is only one, observe that three of those
are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Distinct personalities, and yet they are one.
But there is a difference.
I mean, isn't there?
There is a difference inside of us about the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
I mean, if I ask you, " Do you long to go to Heaven
and see Jesus?"
And we would say, "Well, of course I do."
And in fact, you have heard people say that all your life.
"I can't wait to go home and be with Jesus."
And sometimes you will hear people reference the same thing
about the Father.
"I can't wait to go home, and be with God."
Have you ever heard anyone say, "I can't wait to go home
and be with the holy Spirit"?
Probably not. Well, why not?
That's an interesting question.
I mean, he is God, you know.
And I'm very happy today to be here
and talk about the personality of the Holy Spirit.
Why do we feel differently about him
than we do the other two persons in the Godhead?
Why do we feel differently?
Well, you know, maybe it's because there has been
so much controversy about the Holy Spirit.
Why has there been so much controversy
over the Holy Spirit?
Well, you could point to more than one thing, I know.
I think one part of it is the fact that we don't like the way
the Holy Spirit has conducted his buisness.
You know, when the Jews looked at Jesus, the Messiah,
they knew the Messiah was coming.
Isaiah 7:14 had prophesied the Messiah.
They were looking for the Messiah.
But when he came they rejected him. Why?
Because they didn't like the way he conducted himself.
They expected something different.
And when the Messiah was who he was, and did what he did,
performed the way he did, they were dissatisfied.
Don't you think it's the same way with the Holy Spirit?
"You know, I just think he ought to let us
"speak in tongues today.
"I just think he ought to let us perform miracles today.
"I think we ought to be able to keep on doing it
until the trumpet blows."
And that is not how he works.
"I wish the Holy Spirit, I wish he would guide me
"into all the truth, like he did the apostles.
"And so, I think I have a miraculous working going on
inside me from the Holy-"
that's not the way he works.
Oh, the Holy Spirit speaks to us today.
How does he do it? Through the Word.
He does it through the Word.
"I don't like that."
And I think because of that, many people have caused
disunion over the Holy Spirit.
What is it?
What is it that makes the Holy Spirit different in our minds
from the other persons in the Godhead?
Well, I think part of it, in all fairness,
is that we have personal conversations with the Father
and the Son recorded in the scriptures.
I mean by "personal", conversations between the Father
and human beings.
Don't you just love, you read those passages about God
conversing with Abraham.
"Oh Father, if you find fifty righteous,
would you not destroy ***?"
You see God conversing, "Cain, if you do well,
you shall be accepted. If not, sin lieth at the door."
And you see these human conversations between diety
and human beings. And you see it with Jesus.
You think about Jesus conversing with Mary and Martha.
And haven't you ever thought about what
it must have been like to sit down at the supper table,
like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus did, with the Son of God?
Imagine what it would have been like.
And so we have some of these conversations recorded
between the Father and human beings,
and the Son and human beings, but not with the Spirit.
I don't know all the reasons why not.
I guess it's largely because of the role the Spirit plays.
He came to reveal God to us.
He came to reveal the Son to us.
And we don't have that human personification feeling
that we do with the Father and with the Son.
But I am here to tell you this morning,
that the Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit is God just as much.
Maybe it's because, maybe we feel differently
because we call him the "Holy Spirit".
And we, and the King James did this interesting thing
where they called him a "Ghost".
And we have this theatrical idea of a ghost
being some sort of a mystical, but God is a spirit too.
John 4:24 says, "God is a spirit."
Why the Holy Spirit is no more spirit than the Father is.
And yet, maybe that's one of the reasons
we feel differently about him.
But anyway, the point that I want to make is that
the Holy Spirit, ladies and gentlemen,
bears the attributes of personality.
And I want to give you five this morning.
Five attributes of the Holy Spirit
which demonstrate his personality.
I'm just tickled to death that I was assigned the subject
"The Personality of the Holy Spirit".
What kinds of things do you think about
when you think abut somebody having a personality?
What kinds of things are attributes of personality?
Well, here are five for the Holy Spirit.
Number One: the Holy Spirit has a mind.
He has a mind.
I mean by that, he is a thinking being.
In I Corinthians 12,
and I think this is just so interesting,
when you have those nine different spiritual gifts
with which the early Christians were blessed.
These miraculous,
oh, and I know we're going to talk about this some today,
and frankly, I wish I could just preach all the sermons today,
because I think all the subjects are interesting,
but I'm sure brother Mosher will do a good job
with what ever he does.
In the attribute, the different miraculous gifts
of I Corinthians 12, the first three are
faith, and wisdom, and knowledge.
Isn't that amazing?
But think about this, who is it that decides
who would get what gift?
Have you ever thought about that?
Who was it that was in charge of deciding about who got--
I mean how many people get the gift of tongues?
And how many get healing?
And how many get this miraculous knowledge?
How many-- who decides that?
The Bible says in I Corinthians 12 that
the Holy Spirit divided to them severally as he will.
What does that mean? That means he's got a mind.
That demonstrates, that illustrates the fact
that he's got a mind and he thought this through,
and using his mind, decided who would get what gift.
I'm so thankful the Holy Spirit has this mind, because,
where would you be without the mind of the Holy Spirit?
What do you know about God?
I mean, what do you know about the deep things of God?
If I didn't have the Bible I suppose there would be
some things I would know about God.
You know that Romans 1:20 says that the people
who don't believe in God, why, they're just without excuse
because the evidence around us is just so great.
But there is just so much I couldn't know about God.
I certainly couldn't know what God requires.
What do you know about God?
I want to tell you this, whatever you know about him
you can credit the Holy Spirit for it.
Because I Corinthians 2, beginning in about verse nine,
"Eye hath not seen, neither ear heard,
"neither hath entered into the heart of man
"the things that God has prepared for them that love him.
"But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches the deep things of God."
How do you-- well, what do you know about God?
Whatever you know about God, you learned
because of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Now ladies and gentlemen, what I'm saying is that demonstrates
remarkable attributes of personality, and that is,
the Holy Spirit has a mind.
A mind. But that's not all.
Number two: The Holy Spirit is God, who is a teacher.
He's a teacher.
Don't you love to think about the Father teaching us?
You could go on a number of different points of the Bible
that demonstrate how the Father teaches us.
One of my favorites is what he does for me
with regard to discerning good from evil.
How do you know what evil is?
I suppose one could learn evil by observation.
I mean I could look at others and I could see what they do
in their lives, and the consequence of bad actions.
And I could learn evil by observation.
I could learn evil by experimentaion.
Now, that's the way that most of the world does it, you know.
And you go back to the Garden of Eden, and the Devil said,
"In the day you eat there of, you will not surely die.
"God knows in the day you eat there of you will be as gods."
Knowing-- you will be like little gods.
"And you should be able to make up your own mind, and not God.
"And besides that, maybe you will like it.
"Eat the fruit, maybe you will like it.
"If you don't, then don't eat any more.
"If you do like it, then there you have it.
You ought to be able to decide for yourself."
And you know what? People can learn.
And people, lots of people are sitting under the shade
of that tree today.
You want to know what evil is? Why, just experiment with it.
You think about how many young people are doing that today.
But I want to tell you that God is a great teacher.
You want to know how to be smart about learning about evil?
Well, get it from the word of God.
See, Titus 2:11,12 says,
"The grace of God, that bringeth salvaton appeared
unto all men," watch this now, "Teaching us that denying
"ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live
soberly and righteously in this present world".
God is a teacher.
He teaches me so that I can live my life away from evil.
I love to think about God,
and all the ways that the Father is a teacher.
Jesus, you know Jesus is a teacher.
Why, you remember Nicodemus?
He said, "We know, Rabbi, we know
"that thou art a teacher come from God.
"Because no man can do the things that you do
except God be with him."
But ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you that
it's not just that the Father and the Son are teachers.
But the Holy Spirit is a teacher.
What kind of teacher is he?
Oh, I want to talk about this.
Here's John 14:26. He says, "But when the comforter",
which is the Holy Spirit, "when he is come", he says,
"he is going to teach you all things,
and bring to your rememberance all that I have said to you."
He is going to be a teacher for you.
I know that the Holy Spirit isn't a teacher in the same way
as my teachers were growing up.
When you were a kid, what were the characteristics
of your favorite teachers?
What were the characteristics?
Well, I wanted teachers who were kind to me, when I was little.
Well the Holy Spirit is a teacher who is described,
are you ready for this, as a comforter.
Those apostles, those early disciples were so concerned,
and naturally they were.
In John 14:1, because Jesus told them he was going to leave them.
"And how can you do that? You can't leave us!
"How can we carry this on without you?
I don't see how this--"
But Jesus said, "Let not your heart be troubled.
"You believe in God, believe also in me.
"I'm going to go prepare a place for you.
But besides that", John 14:26,
"I'm going to send you a teacher."
You know what his name is? His name is comforter!
What did you want your teacher to be when you were young?
You wanted one who was kind.
You wanted one who was, who would guide you.
And so in John 16:12,13,
you have the fact that the Holy Spirit,
who the Lord was going to send them, would be a guide.
He would guide them into all the truth.
I like that word.
But not only that, you want a teacher who was clear.
You didn't enjoy teachers who had this lofty--
You go to college and have teachers and profesors
that had lofty ambiguity about them.
And you try to take notes.
I wanted teachers who were clear.
I knew exactly what this person was saying.
Let me tell you something,
the Holy Spirit is that kind of teacher.
In I Corinthians 2, watch this now,
not in the word-- Paul says, "We didn't get this word that
"we are preaching to you through some human manifestation.
We got it from the Holy Spirit."
And he said, "I want you to understand something,
"it was not in the words which man's wisdom teaches.
But which the Holy Ghost teaches."
What's that?
The Holy Spirit gave the word of God verbally.
We've got verbal inspiration. He taught us in words.
It's got to be that way, because words are the vehicles
by which thought is conveyed.
He's a teacher, you see.
I'm telling you the Holy Spirit is a personality.
He has the attributes of personality.
Number one: he's got a mind.
Number two: he is a teacher.
And here's number three:
the Holy Spirit is God, who loves me.
Did you ever think about the Holy Spirit loving you?
Why not?
Let's open, swing open the door to this room of thought,
and let's ponder this.
Because I know that God the Father loves me.
I've thought about this, and enjoyed this all of my life.
"For God so loved the world."
There's the golden text of the Bible, John 3:16.
"That He gave his only begotten son."
That there's the love.
What about John 3:1?
"Behold what manner of love," Stand back and look at it.
"Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
that we should be called sons of God."
Oh, how he loves us. Oh, how he loves us.
And you think about the Son.
How would you describe the love of the Son of God?
Oh, where would you go? There are so many passages.
What about John 13:34, he says "Now I want you Christians,
I want you to love one another."
And then he wants to draw an illustration so we'll know
just the degree to which we are to love each other.
Ok, what are you going to pull out to say "here's what I mean."
Folks, what will Jesus say to illustrate this?
He said, "I want you to love each other", watch,
"As I have loved you".
Don't you enjoy thinking about
the way that Jesus loves you?
How many times have you been troubled of soul so deeply
you just didn't know which direction you were going to go.
And you, you've recieved comfort,
solace in the reality that God the Father loves you.
That Jesus loves you.
But did you ever think about the love of the Holy Spirit?
In Romans 15:30, the Bible says,
Paul says "I beseech you, for the sake of Jesus Christ,
"and for the love of the Spirit, that you pray for me.
I want you to pray for me."
But he based this, he said, "I beg you,
"based on the sake of Jesus Christ,
and the love of the Spirit. You've got to pray for me."
In how many ways has the Spirit evidenced his love
for you and me?
Well, by the very fact that you've got a Bible on your lap
demonstrates the love of the Spirit.
Can I just narrow that down, though, and show you one,
one pinpoint illustration of the love of the Spirit?
Bear in mind, that it's the Spirit who saw to it
that the Messiah came into the womb of a girl named Mary.
Why did he do that?
Why did he, why did he bring the Son to the place,
to walk these dusty streets of this earth?
To suffer one down a Roman cross.
And why, what's the answer to that?
The answer is of course, the Spirit knew as the Father did,
that redemption couldn't be accomplished
without Jesus doing this.
It couldn't be accomplished.
And he loves you, you hear me? The Spirit loves you.
How many ways can you think about this?
In Matthew 4:1, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit led Jesus
into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil.
He led the Messiah to the womb of Mary and now
here it is that the Spirit is leading the Son
into the presence of the Devil at the wilderness,
in order to be tempted of-- Why would he do this?
Why would he put the Son of God under this kind
of difficult circumstance?
And you know the answer to that.
He didn't leave him, by the way, he didn't leave him alone.
There's so many things I like to think about.
What about the angels? Angels were present there.
But they were held at bay until the temptation was finished.
I wonder if it wasn't the Holy Spirit holding them back.
He's God, you know.
I wonder if the Holy Spirit himself wasn't holding back
those angels. "Not yet, not yet.
You can't minister to him yet. Back. Wait."
Why is that important?
That the angels didn't minister to Jesus until
after the temptation was over.
It's because of this; had the angels ministered to Jesus
during the temptation, it would not be an example for us.
We could say it was so very interesting that Jesus was able
to overcome temptation.
But I couldn't go to that passage and say, "See there,
"I can do that the way he did," because I don't have
those angels ministering to me that way.
But they waited.
They didn't minister to him until it was finished.
So I can go, and you know what, I can resist.
That with which I resist temptation
is the same thing with which Jesus resisted temptation.
And you know what that was?
It was the word of God which was brought by the Holy Spirit,
that's what it was.
"Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
And every time Jesus said, "It is written. It is written.
It is written." And who took him there?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Holy Spirit took him there.
And why did he take him to be tempted of the devil?
The answer is Hebrews 4.
See, we need the Messiah, we needed a savior who was tempted
in all points such as we are.
Yet without sin. We needed that.
And he knew that, and the Holy Spirit led him to that point.
And I'm asserting this - that that is an expression
of the love of the Holy Spirit for your soul.
We are so thankful for brother Colley coming and sharing
with us from God's word today to answer the question
"What is the Personality of the Holy Spirit?"
We told you he had a lot to say on the personality
of the Holy Spirit.
I appreciate what he said, especially when he mentioned
the fact that whatever you know about God,
you learned because of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Everything that we know about God, comes to us,
because the Holy Spirit wrote his Word, the Bible.
Just as brother Colley mentioned, Paul says,
"We didn't get this word we are preaching to you
"through some human manifestation.
We got it from the Holy Spirit."
And he said, "I want you to understand something,
"it was not in the words which man's wisdom teaches.
But with the words that the Holy Spirit teaches."
And so it is today, because of the work of the Holy Spirit
you and I can actually know our God.
We can know how to please him, and we can know how
to be found acceptable in His sight.
Thank God for all that he has done for us.
Be sure to join us again next time as we consider more
from Glenn Colley, as he leads us in learning
about the personality of the Holy Spirit.
We hope that you've enjoyed this series of lessons.
We hope that you'll continue to follow along, as we continue
to learn more and more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.