John Thiel
This hour of worship is to contemplate the blessings of the Holy Spirit in order to comprehend what constitutes the meaning of our scripture reading, the words of Jesus. Jesus utters these words that need to be understood.
Matthew 12:31 the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
What is this? What is Jesus’ meaning here? To correctly understand it, it is beyond just an announcement. It is beyond just a declaration that this is the unpardonable sin. It needs to be understood by comprehending the experience of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Then from that perspective, we will understand what the sin against the Holy Spirit is. Comprehend with me the blessings of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
We want to understand this blessing, that the one that cannot be seen, that the world cannot benefit by. Jesus is speaking of this blessing. Jesus is saying, He shall be in you, not only with you, in you.
The Holy Spirit brings God’s love into our hearts. It satisfies our longings, so that the riches and honors and pleasures of this world do not attract us. And it fills us with such joy that we want others to have it too. It will be in us like a spring of water, that flows out in blessing to all around. SJ 55.2
And every one in whom God’s Spirit dwells, will live forever with Christ in His kingdom. Received into the heart by faith, it is the beginning of the life eternal. SJ 55.3
This precious blessing Christ told the woman He would give her if she asked for it. So He will give it to us. SJ 55.4
God’s love that only the Holy Spirit knows. He brings God’s love into our hearts. That’s what Jesus said. He will be with you, not only with you, but in you. It’s the love that God has can be portrayed and communicated into our hearts. What does the Holy Spirit further do? It satisfies our longings. The Holy Spirit works inside of us so that the riches and honors and pleasures of this world don’t attract us anymore. It is the beginning. of the life eternal, when the Holy Spirit is entering into us. Aren’t they precious words? Aren’t they precious realities here? The blessings of the Holy Spirit coming into us, will work within us to really love the way God loves, which is different to our love. The work of the Holy Spirit fills us with joy. It fills us with eternal life. It achieves inside of me so that anything that attracts me to the world, is no longer attractive to me.
Jesus says to the disciples, and the disciples indeed were still in need of the Holy Spirit in them. That’s why he says, He’s with you, but shall be in you.
John 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now, howbeit when the spirit of truth is come,
Remember what he said before, He’s going to be in you, he will guide you into all truth.
John 16:12 For he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.
Let’s meditate on this blessing of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth. He will guide you into all truth.
It is not enough to have an intellectual knowledge of the truth. There must be an entrance of the word into the heart. It must be set home by the power of the Holy Spirit. The will must be brought into harmony with its requirements. Not only intellect, but the heart and conscience must concur in the acceptance of the truth. The entrance of God’s word gives understanding to the simple and those who are untaught in the wisdom of the world. TKM 192.3
They didn’t go to university, they are just labourers, people who haven’t exercised their mind in the intellectual world.
The Holy Spirit brings the saving truths of the scriptures within the comprehension of all who desire to know and do the will of God. TMK 192.3
If you desire to know and do the will of God, then what does the Holy Spirit do?
He brings the saving truths of the scripture within your comprehension. Uneducated minds are enabled to grasp the most sublime and soul-stirring themes that can engage the attention of men, themes that will be the study and the song of the redeemed through all eternity. TMK 192.3
What is the blessing of the Holy Spirit here? He will guide you into all truth. He brings the understanding of the word into your being. Although you are not intellectually as advanced as others may be, that doesn’t matter. The Holy Spirit will help you comprehend. He will help you comprehend the deep things of God. Remember what Jesus said in verse 12?
John 16:12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but you’re not yet able to bear it. She says with sadness, He was forced to say, I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. CT 240.5
Why? Follow closely.
The temporal, the earthly, was so mingled in their minds with the spiritual and the eternal, that the sacred and heavenly were eclipsed. CT 240.5
The disciples had at this time the earthly and temporal mingled in their minds with the spiritual. Oh, to understand this. Is the earthly and temporal mingled in your mind with the spiritual? Or are you entirely segregated from the temporal so that you can comprehend? This is what the Holy Spirit is now spoken of.
The soul must be infused with the Spirit of the great Teacher if the mind would penetrate into the deep things of God. The truth will enlarge and enrich the mind. Its beauty, its purity, its holiness and its invigorating power will inspire the receivers, and they will not be content to be circumscribed in their work.
Their yearning soul will cry out after the living God, “Show me Thy glory.” CT 240.6
The Spirit, the great Teacher will penetrate, infuse God’s knowledge, God’s truth into our soul. This is the work. He’s going to separate us from anything earthly. He’s going to bring to our inward parts the deep love of God, the deep intelligent knowledge of truth, the deep things of God. That’s the blessing of the Holy Spirit. Remember there the deep things of God.
1 Corinthians 2: 9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
The deep things of God, the Holy Spirit will reveal to you. The disciples still had so much of the temporal, the natural confusing them.
1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
We are reading some material here that should penetrate our poor brains, our hearts. to realise what a richness that the Holy Spirit can impart to us. Our brains are insufficient, but the Holy Spirit will bring it to us, both through the intellect and in the heart, because Jesus promised that He is going to be in you and teaching you inwardly, leading you into all truth.
How does Christ subdue His chosen people to Himself? YRP 31.2
How does He subdue you to Himself?
It is by the power of His Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures, speaks to the mind and impresses truth upon the hearts of men. YRP 31.2
Mark everything that we have been reading. The Holy Spirit can bless you so phenomenally that you can have the love of God inside of you. You can have the knowledge of God inside of you. But it must be through the Holy Spirit, not through your own earthly way of thinking. What else is contained here in John 16? What the Holy Spirit will do?
John 16:14 He shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it unto you.
Everything that Jesus came to bring to us sinners here on this earth, the Holy Spirit will take of Jesus and show it to you.
In describing to the disciples the office work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus sought to inspire them with the joy and hope that inspired His own heart. He rejoiced because of the abundant help He had provided for His church. DA 671.2
What was the abundant work?
The Holy Spirit was the highest gift that He could solicit from His Father for the exaltation of His people. The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent. And without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail. DA 671.2
For Jesus’ sacrifice to be of any avail to you and me, it needs the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you.
The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries. DA 671.2
Hasn’t it now strengthened much more to now?
The submission of men to the satanic captivity was amazing. Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the third person of the Godhead. DA 671.2
Did you hear that? Can you overcome sin? Are you having trouble with sin? Only by the mighty agency of the third person of the Godhead could sin be overcome.
It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer. It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure. Through the Spirit, the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature. Christ has given His Spirit
as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil. DA 671.2
Are you in trouble with your hereditary and cultivated tendencies? Is what you have inherited from your father, mother, grandfather? I can testify to you; I have had to deal with what I’ve been inherited from my grandfather who was an alcoholic. All who study alcoholism, they know that they are such a thing as a dry alcoholic. And what is that? He can’t control himself. He gets overwhelmed by his own sinfulness. He goes to drinking. But, we are told, and I know by experience, that when I’m struggling with my inherited nature, I know the power of the Holy Spirit is the only thing that can give victory.
Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary
and cultivated tendencies to evil and to impress His own character upon His
church. DA 671.2
Only the Holy Spirit can do that. Jesus came and offered himself to show us an example. only the Holy Spirit can bring it into your soul. Only the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, it would be a waste of time that he died for us. Think about that.
That God should thus be manifest in the flesh is indeed a mystery; and without the help of the Holy Spirit we cannot hope to comprehend this subject. The most humbling lesson that man has to learn is the nothingness of human wisdom, and the folly of trying by his own unaided efforts to find out God. 1SM 249.1
Jesus needs to be found out by you and me. He cannot be found out unless the Holy Spirit takes off the depth of Jesus and shows it to you. The beautiful atonement. Everything that is written about Jesus that was inspired by the Holy Spirit in Psalm 22, Psalm 69, in Lamentations 1 verse 12 onwards. All those things that the Holy Spirit has inspired to be written cannot be understood unless the Holy Spirit is in you to make it real.
We want to conclude this line-up of all these blessings of the Holy Spirit by coming to 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image.
Freedom from sin, etc. What’s that? The image of Jesus, the character of God, God’s perfect character, God’s glory.
2 Corinthians 3:18 Changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
That is the profound benefit of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit, as we behold Jesus, that the Spirit takes of Jesus and makes it clear to your mind; then you behold. That’s how the Holy Spirit changes you into the same personal character of God, of Jesus, the love of God.
The Lord Jesus acts through the Holy Spirit, for it is His representative. Through it He infuses spiritual life into the soul, quickening its energies for good, cleansing it from moral defilement and giving it a fitness for His kingdom. Jesus has large blessings to bestow, rich gifts to distribute among men. He is the wonderful Counsellor. Never will the human heart know happiness. AG 196.4
Do you know true happiness?
Never will the human heart know happiness until it is submitted to be moulded by the Spirit of God. The Spirit conforms the renewed soul to the model, Jesus Christ. Through the influence of the Spirit, enmity against God is changed into faith and love, and pride into humility. The soul perceives the beauty of truth, and Christ is honoured in excellence and perfection of character. As these changes are effected, angels break out in rapturous song, and God and Christ rejoice over souls fashioned after the divine similitude. AG 196.4
By beholding, even as by the Spirit of the Lord, we behold the character of Jesus, the character of God, and perceiving the beauty of truth, Character is moulded by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Highest Energies
The Holy Spirit puts forth its highest energies to work in mind and heart. HP 62.4
What a powerful being the Holy Spirit is. His highest energies are doing what? To work in your mind and heart, inside of you.
Through the grace given us, we may achieve victories, which because of our defects of character and the smallness of our faith may have seemed impossible. HP 62.4
How many times people have said to me, this is too much, it’s impossible. Haven’t you said it in your heart sometimes? I’m trying to reach something that seems to be impossible. Well, the Holy Spirit puts forth its energies. Through the grace given, we may achieve victories which, because of the defects of our character, that are entrenched in us. Don’t you feel it? Your character defects entrenched in you, that when you want to change those character defects, it’s impossible, the Holy Spirit is able to get you there because He will work with the highest energies upon our minds and hearts. Let me put it altogether in short, concise utterances that we have been reading.
- What does the Spirit Do?
He brings God’s love into our hearts.
- He is the beginning of life eternal to us.
Eternal life is imparted into us, through the Holy Spirit.
- He brings saving truth into our comprehension.
He brings the deep things of the salvational activities of God into our weak comprehension. He brings it to the one who is simple, the one who is intellectually not as smart as others. It is the Holy Spirit that brings it to our comprehension.
- Sin can be resisted by the effectual work of the Holy Spirit taking of Jesus and showing it to us.
That which is wrought out by the Redeemer is made effectual by the Holy Spirit. What Jesus did two thousand years ago is made real. By the Spirit. Without the Spirit, the sacrifice is of no avail.
- The Holy Spirit conforms the soul to Christ’s character.
He is the one that changes the character, the Holy Spirit. Now, as you’ve been following this closely, again, referring to the… Work of the Spirit bringing all the blessings of God’s character into our inward paths.
Revelation 7
We are living in this very time, are we not? In which the winds of warfare and strife that are lashing around us ever since the First World War.
Revelation 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. 2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
The work that the Holy Spirit needs to do to bring about the result of the word of God and the activities of Jesus into our understanding and into our life and bringing about a character perfection. This is here addressed. They are to be sealed in their foreheads and that sealing work is beautifully articulated in the Spirit of Prophecy.
What is this sealing?
It is not any seal or mark that can be seen. 4BC 1161.6
Revelation 7:3 Hold until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
We have sealed, the angel says.
It is not a seal or a mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so that they cannot be moved. 4BC 1161.6
Who’s responsible for that? The Holy Spirit, isn’t that what I’ve been reading? It’s the Holy Spirit that does this work. So indeed, the Holy Spirit has everything to do with this sealing work.
Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.
To reach a condition in which there is a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so that you cannot be moved. Then you are sealed. You cannot be changed anymore. The Holy Spirit has done his work. You are now moulded into the character of God. You are now filled with the knowledge of the pure truth in such a way that he has guided you into all truth. Now you cannot be moved anymore. All the truth that has ever been held has been brought into your life by the Holy Spirit.
It is He that leads us into all truth and we come to a point where we are finally settled. We are no longer moved out of what we actually have been infused by the Holy Spirit. Did you see something in Ephesians chapter 4 that we just read?
Ephesians 4:30 Grieve not the Holy Spirit.
Because why? You can’t be settled into the truth. You can’t be settled into the truth unless the Holy Spirit does it; here is the key. Grieve Him not. What were the words of Jesus in Matthew 12:31-32? The sin against the Holy Spirit is, of the Holy Spirit so that He can’t do for you what only He can do. The sin or the grieving of the Father or the grieving of Jesus, as Jesus said, any sin can be forgiven. Any blasphemy can be forgiven. But this sin of grieving the Holy Spirit who alone, can bring into reality all of God’s blessing to you. He alone.
If you grieve Him, who’s left? Who is left? Jesus and the Father is in heaven. They’re not down here. Only the Holy Spirit is down here. If you grieve Him, the Father and the Son in heaven are no longer in touch with you. Because it’s the Holy Spirit that you’ve grieved. But what if we grieve the Holy Spirit here on earth? What do we obviously forfeit?
Everything I’ve just put before you in points one through to five. We forfeit everything that only the Holy Spirit can do. What was that? To bring God’s love into your heart. You grieve him. He can’t do that. To bring eternal life to you. You grieve him. He can’t do that. To bring saving truth to your comprehension. You grieve him. You’re left on your own. You can’t do it. He can’t do it.
To resist sin, making effectual what Jesus has done on the cross. Then what Jesus has done is… That sacrifice is of no longer any avail because we’ve grieved the only one who can make it effective. If we grieve him, the conforming the soul to Christ’s character is cancelled. We cannot be saved. Did you get it? That is the sin against the Holy Spirit. Is there any salvation left if we grieve the Holy Spirit? There is no salvation left. There is an impossibility. It’s impossible for us to overcome our sins. We need the Holy Spirit. But if we grieve the Holy Spirit, look at what it says here.
Hebrews 6:4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.
What does the partaking of the Holy Ghost provide? You’ve been walking with the Holy Ghost and He’s brought Jesus to you and you’ve really tasted of the beautiful effect of the gospel in your life.
Hebrews 6:5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, 6 if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame.
That is the sin against the Holy Spirit. It is impossible because the Holy Spirit has been so grieved and has been so resisted that He can’t help you at all.
Hebrews 6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance.
What is this falling away? Be careful what you’re understanding here.
What constitutes the sin against the Holy Ghost? It is wilfully attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit. For example, suppose that one is a witness of the special work of the Spirit of God. CCh 81.1
Haven’t we just studied what that is?
He has convincing evidence that the work is in harmony with the Scriptures, and the Spirit witnesses with his spirit that it is of God, and he is convicted. Afterwards, however, he falls under temptation; pride, self-sufficiency, or some other evil trait controls him; and rejecting all the evidence of its divine character, he declares that that which he had before acknowledged to be the power of the Holy Spirit was the power of Satan. It is through the medium of His Spirit that God works upon the human heart; and when men wilfully reject the Spirit and declare it to be from Satan, they cut off the channel by which God can communicate with them. By denying the evidence which God has been pleased to give them, they shut out the light which had been shining in their hearts, and as a result they are left in darkness. CCh 81.1
You are hearing serious things here today. I wonder how seriously we’re paying attention. This makes me to tremble. We have been living under the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ever since 1888. We are told that was the beginning of the latter reign. And that message that came in 1888, and all connected with the work of the Holy Spirit to perfect and to seal God’s people in their forehead, If that work and that knowledge and that truth has been brought clearly to every mind and then people say, no, I don’t agree, it’s not truth. It’s error. It’s a deception of Satan. That’s one way of articulating or defining a falling away. Here is the other one.
No one need to look upon the sin against the Holy Ghost as something mysterious or indefinable. The sin against the Holy Spirit is the sin of persistent refusal to respond to the invitation to repent. YRP 35.4
The Holy Spirit is, remember, it’s your conscience. It’s calling for repentance. We go, I’m enjoying myself. Go away. Then He comes again and again. We keep on going, no. Continual resistance of the conviction that the Holy Spirit is bringing to us causes the Holy Spirit to withdraw. That’s the grieving of the Spirit.
I would warn you to fear lest you sin against the Holy Ghost and be left to your own course, sunk in moral lethargy and never obtain forgiveness. Why allow yourselves to be longer educated in the school of Satan and pursue a course of action that will make repentance and reformation impossible? YRP 35.4 Those who resist the Spirit of God think that they will repent at some future day when they get ready to take a decided step toward reformation. But repentance will then be beyond their power. According to the light and privileges given will be the darkness of those who refuse to walk in the light while they have the light. YRP 35.5
Two ways of grieving. One, having been convicted by the Holy Spirit, having been convicted that this is truth and then we turn against it because it doesn’t suit my nature anymore and I turn against the truth and call it of the devil. That’s grieving the Spirit. No more hope. The other is the continual resistance and resistance to the overtures of the Holy Spirit trying to seal me, the Holy Spirit trying to change my life and form God’s character in me. If I’m resisting and resisting and resisting, ultimately there comes a point in time where it stops.
Serious Danger
We live, as I mentioned already, in the time of the latter rain. We’re living in a time of serious danger in these times right now. We are surrounded by every wind of doctrine, human interpretations of the scripture, not what the Holy Spirit is saying. But the Holy Spirit is simultaneously being poured out upon God’s faithful people, the outpouring of the latter rain. Hear what He has to say, the Holy Spirit:
Deuteronomy 32:1 1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: 3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. 4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
My Doctrine
The Holy Spirit is speaking. Listen to my doctrine. As you listen to all the other doctrines that are not in harmony with this doctrine, realise your danger and don’t turn against the doctrine that I have imparted to you, says the Holy Spirit. Let us be careful as we are living now where so many people have determined to resist what they have once believed as Adventists and many Christians. They have once believed a particular doctrine and then have been led by the deceptive teachings of Satan and have given up what they have once believed and declared that to be of the devil. Let’s be careful and heed the words of Hebrews chapter 3.
Hebrews 3:12 Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today.
Can you hear the exhortation of this pulpit right now?
Hebrews 3:13 Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. 14 Partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; while it is said, Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
He’s making a direct reference to the Hebrews as they were travelling through the wilderness and they were committing the unpardonable sin they were provoking They were closing their mind to the work of God and they perished in the wilderness. Let us be careful because we are surrounded by the same circumstance of today.
The beautiful work of the Holy Spirit needs to be understood and not rejected. May God bless his word to us for my heart trembles. that we are in danger today.
Amen.
