There was a little, three-year-old boy who had been sick for a week with a cold and a cough.
The cough was persistent and little guy was getting obviously weaker, so his mother took him to the doctor.
The little fella was brought into a strange examining room, filled with strange smells.
A man and a woman in funny looking jackets took him, listened to him, poked and prodded him.
Then his mother took him home and tried to feed him some horrible tasting watery stuff.
Trying as hard as he could to avoid the medicine, he failed, and three times a day for several days, he had that horrible taste in his mouth and burning down his throat.
But on the third day, still reluctantly taking the medicine, he started perking up, and his cough went away.
After the fifth day he was back to his old, normal self.
How much do you think that three-year-old knew about what took place that week?
Did he know that he was sick or exactly how sick he was?
Did he understand the role of the doctor and the nurse?
Did he realize that if he hadn’t taken that medicine, he might not have gotten well?
Did he know that without some help and extra attention, he could possibly have died?
Did he even understand what death was?
The answer was probably “no” to all these questions,
And yet, all things worked together for his good, and he was back to health within a week.
It was not necessary that the boy understand everything that was done to make him well.
Now, for those of you who are Christians:
How much, and how many, of the details of salvation did you understand the day that you were saved?
Yes, you repented of your sin; you believed the gospel, and you trusted Christ,
Were you aware that the Holy Spirit was just as much a part of your salvation as was the Lord Jesus?
Did your lack of knowledge in some of these areas mean that you weren’t really born again at that time?
Does a baby have to be able to understand, or be able to define “life” before it can be born?
Isn’t that baby’s “living” proof enough of that baby’s birth?
Here in Acts 19 we come to what is probably the most mysterious and controversial passage in Book of Acts.
So many commentaries have differing opinions and different explanations about these men.
And it seems that just about every time I read it, I see things that I hadn’t seen before.
And yet, as hard as I try, there are many things that I would LIKE to see, but can’t.
Luke and the Holy Spirit have not given us all the details about these men and their faith in Christ.
And this means that we must not be overly dogmatic about what this all means.
When Paul returned to Ephesus he met a group of about a dozen men who professed to be disciples of Christ.
Like a physician, he began to probe their faith and the way that they worshipped.
One of the things that he discovered was that they were uninstructed about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Was their lack of knowledge about the Spirit proof that could not have been born-again Christians?
I think that the only thing that it UNMISTAKABLY PROVES is that they hadn’t been properly taught.
And since there really isn’t any instruction on the subject here, I’d like begin our study in John 16.
As we read earlier, the Lord Jesus referred to Someone called “the Comforter.”
Elsewhere we are told that this “Comforter” is the Holy Spirit.
But after calling Him “the Comforter” the Saviour immediately describes Him as inflicting pain.
And when he is come, he will REPROVE the world of sin, & of righteousness, & of judgment.”
It means to find fault with someone, “to correct and by conviction to bring to the light, to expose.
To reprehend severely, chide, admonish, reprove;
To call to account, show one his fault, and to demand an explanation,
And therefore to chasten and to punish.”
Ah, that’s at the heart of the great story of the grace of God.
THE HOLY SPIRIT is right at the heart of amazing grace of God.
They hear about the atrocities of genocide,
Many hear about such things & either imagine that it’s fanciful exaggeration, or that it didn’t occur at all.
They think that Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung are anomalies and only come up once in a hundred years, forgetting that these three were but a few of the many who came up in their own generation.
Most people have no concept of the wickedness of human depravity.
Most people have no concept of the wickedness of THEIR OWN hearts.
The Bible teaches that it is by the grace of God that human atrocities are not a thousand times more common.
The Bible teaches that it is a part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to restrain, not only the wickedness of men, but even the wickedness and the wrath of Satan.
If we know little, and deny much, of our own depravity, we know even less and deny even more of the wickedness of the Devil.
He is real, my friend, and his hatred of God is expressed in his wrath against humanity.
II Thessalonians teaches that during the upcoming Tribulation period,
and the full fury of the evil one will be poured out upon this world and its inhabitants.
Humanity will be thoroughly inhumane, and Satan will lord his evil over all the earth.
Another part the Lord’s common grace, is the Holy Spirit’s general ministry of spiritual truth.
As all mankind originally came from the hand of God,
All mankind SHOULD have a rudimentary knowledge of God.
our native depravity wants to deny the existence of our Creator and that we have obligations to Him.
But it is a part of the work of the Holy Spirit to keep, in a general way, the evidence of God before our consciences.
Try as we might to avoid it, the Holy Spirit pricks us every once in a while about the reality of His existence and about our own wicked depravity.
I think that John 16:8-11 is speaking both about this aspect of the Lord’s common grace and about more.
“And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more;
Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
He eventually ended up abducting a young Christian woman.
There was every reason to believe that she would be murdered just as he had killed others.
But as that woman spoke to him of the things of God, he was convinced to turn himself in to the police.
I have not heard or read that that man has become a Christian.
I have not heard any kind of testimony that he was convicted of his sin, of God’s righteousness or of his upcoming eternal judgment.
But I believe that I saw both the withholding work of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s more positive work on his soul.
The Holy Spirit kept that man from further blood-shed and pushed him toward something positive & good.
The Holy Spirit’s ministry in common grace is to restrain evil and to promote general spiritual truth and good.
A universal revelation of sin, isn’t the same thing as a specific conviction of personal sin.
Because, despite this knowledge, those who are spiritually dead, will forever remain spiritually dead, until they are quickened by the direct act of God.
Common grace is sharply distinguished from the work of God which effectually brings the lost man to his knees before the cross.
but the Christian is given spiritual insight that is inexplicable apart from the Holy Spirit.
The wicked sometimes display shallow imitations of some of these things,
but it is impossible for them to possess or enjoy them in their fullness.
That is something that requires a specific and special work of grace, through the Holy Spirit.
We can use the conversion of the Apostle Paul as an illustration of this efficacious grace.
Saul, as he was known at the time, had been thoroughly imbued with the details of the Old Testament.
In fact it was a blessing that was available to people of any race, nationality or creed.
In other words he was about as religious as anyone could possibly be.
But that religiousness didn’t make him a Christian; in fact it propelled him away from Christ.
He refused to submit himself to the righteousness of God,
or to admit that he was less than “good enough.”
But then came the efficacious grace of God.
And on a day eternally appointed by the Lord, Saul, the Christ-hater, was met by his nemesis – Christ.
And for the first time in his life, he came face to face with the prospect of eternal judgment for his self-righteousness and his sin against God.
He crumbled to the ground before the grace and righteousness of the Lord.
He prostrated himself before God and believed all that the gospel had declared to be true.
He repented of his sins and put his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And all these things were efficaciously ministered to Saul by the Holy Spirit of God.
We like to say that Saul was “converted” that day on the road to Damascus.
We like to use the word “converted” because it so aptly describes the spiritual change that overcame him.
It’s an appropriate word, but there are several other words which are just as appropriate.
And one of them directly takes us back to the ministry of the Holy Spirit: Saul was “regenerated.”
Regeneration is the act of God whereby a sinner, dead in trespasses and sins, is born-again.
It is the act of God whereby the human being, spiritually dead, is quickened or made spiritually alive.
The Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, and to every other sinner in the world, when he said,
Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and OF THE SPIRIT, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born OF THE SPIRIT is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
Christ Jesus, the Living Word of God “came unto his own, and his own received him not.
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Why did those, like Saul, who had been rejecting Christ up to that point decide to receive Him?
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
The Bible teaches us that it is the Holy Spirit who quickens and makes the dead sinner spiritually alive.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
Who are kept by power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in last time.”
And that is the work of the Holy Spirit, according to the foreordained will of God.
As it was with Saul of Tarsus, the sinner may be happily or unhappily going on in his miserable sinful life.
And then one day the Spirit steps in and crushes his heart in regards to sin, righteousness and judgment.
The Holy Spirit quickens his spirit, and the sinner is able to understand his desperate condition before God.
With the Spirit’s regeneration he is able to repent of his sin and put his newly given faith on Christ.
That, my friend, is how salvation is accomplished; It is by the grace of God;
It is by the grace of God the Father, God the Son and by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
“If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
“When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; & if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
Consider these comforting words of the Lord Jesus from John 14:
“These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you;
But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:
And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.”
Ephesians 1:11 – “In (Christ) also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.
In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
doesn’t decide the issue one way or another.
But not knowing about the ministry of the Spirit definitely robbed them of one of the Lord’s great blessings.
Our question for you this morning is this: Do YOU possess the Holy Spirit?
Do you have Holy Spirit sent peace that if you died today that you’d immediately enter the presence of the Saviour.
Can you look back on your sins with disgust and regret, but be filled with joy, knowing assuredly that they are under the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Is the Holy Spirit a Comforter to you?