The Modern Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Selected Scriptures)

Well, now that I don't have to preach anything but what I want to preach, since I finished the New Testament, I find myself all over the place, trying to decide what to preach in sequence. It's a new kind of experience for me and I'm working on some kind of sequence that makes sense in the future. But I'm at the point of freedom in my life where I can go to whatever I have in my heart, and this is a wonderful opportunity for me. And there is a topic that has bothered me for a long time, and I have wanted to address this topic, but it has not been part of the preaching through the gospels in the way that it can be now and that is the topic. of the Holy Spirit - the Holy Spirit.

After all the emphasis of so many years, 25 years of preaching through the four gospels, and a lot of emphasis, of course, on the person of Christ, as it should be, a lot of emphasis on the character of God and the nature of God as it shows. in Christ and seen elsewhere in Scripture, it is time now to honor the third member of the Trinity; that is, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the most forgotten, the most distorted, the most dishonored, the most afflicted, the most abused and I could even say the most blasphemed of the members of the Trinity.

That's a sad thing. When our Lord cleansed the temple in John 2, He said that, in a sense, He was fulfilling David's attitude from Psalm 69: "Zeal for your house devours me, the reproaches that fall on you fall on me." What our Lord was saying was, "When God is dishonored, I feel the pain." "You have taken my Father's house, which was to be a house of prayer, and turned it into a den of thieves. You have corrupted my Father's house. You have blasphemed my Father's name. You have dishonored my Father." And I can say that I have long felt the same way about the Holy Spirit.

Yes, I grieve when God is dishonored. It is a constant pain for me. I grieve when Christ is dishonored. But in this contemporary kind of evangelical Christian church world, people are a little less reluctant to dishonor the name of God and the name of Christ, but they think they're free to dishonor and abuse the Holy Spirit, apparently, because a lot of that goes on . I am not here to defend the Holy Spirit; He can defend himself. But I am here to say that the reproaches that fall upon His

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name also fall upon me, and primarily this comes in the professing church from Pentecostals and charismatics who feel they have free license to abuse the Holy Spirit and even blaspheme His

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name. . name - and they do it constantly.

How they did it? Attributing to the Holy Spirit words that He did not say, actions that He did not do, and experiences that He did not produce, attributing to the Holy Spirit what is not the work of the Holy Spirit. Endless human experiences, emotional experiences, strange experiences, and demonic experiences are said to come from the Holy Spirit. Visions, revelations, voices from heaven, messages from the Spirit through transcendental means, dreams, speaking in tongues, prophecies, out-of-body experiences, journeys to heaven, anointings, miracles - all false, all lies, all deceptions - falsely attributed. to the Holy Spirit. He knows enough to know that God does not want to be worshiped illegitimately.

God wants to be worshiped for who he is, for what he has done in the way he has declared. It is open time to abuse the Holy Spirit, to scandalously dishonor the Holy Spirit, to claim that He is saying and doing things and generating things that have nothing to do with the Holy Spirit. It's a reckless kind of move. It is a shameful and dangerous sin to abuse the Holy Spirit. In fact, the idea of ​​dishonoring the Holy Spirit should make any thinking person shudder. I think people seem less interested in claiming that God is doing certain things or saying certain things or that Christ is doing things or saying certain things than in saying that the Holy Spirit did this, the Holy Spirit said this, the Holy Spirit is producing and generating this, that there simply seems to be no restriction on the things that are blamed on the Holy Spirit.

One way to perceive this would be to see it as a contrast to what we see in Matthew chapter 12, for example. The leaders of Israel committed the unforgivable sin, and what was that unforgivable sin? It was attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Remember that? It was attributing to Satan the work of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 12:31-32. What is happening today is the complete opposite. Attributing the work of Satan to the Holy Spirit. That's what's happening. Attributing the work of Satan to the Holy Spirit. Satan is alive and working with deceptions, false miracles, bad theology, lying visions, lying dreams, lying revelations, deceitful teachers who are in it for money, power and influence.

Satan is alive and well, and Satan's work is attributed to the Holy Spirit. That is a grave

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, just as attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan is a grave

blasphemy

. I couldn't even begin to give you all the illustrations. You already have enough in your own mind. You can turn on your television and watch any litany of them you choose. And to give credibility to all these things, all these lies, they attribute them to the Holy Spirit as if it were a gift, as if there were no price to pay for that type of blasphemy.

The latest wave of this... I'll just give you one example. The latest wave of this that is gaining ground and has entered some sort of national news is a new form of Charisma, which brings rebuke to the Holy Spirit, called the New Apostolic Reformation, NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation. It is not new, it is not apostolic and, by the way, it is not a reform. It's like Grape Nuts: it's not grapes or nuts. It's like Christian Science: it's neither Christian nor scientific. Well, the New Apostolic Reformation is not new, it is not apostolic and it is not a reform.

But it is a rapidly expanding movement spawned by some of the same old troublesome false teachers and false leaders that have existed in Charisma for decades, always dishonoring the Holy Spirit, always dishonoring the Scriptures, always claiming miraculous signs, wonders, visions, Dreams. . Peter Wagner, the Kansas City "Prophets," Mike Bickle, Cindy Jacobs, Lou Engle, and so on. In fact, this is exploding so quickly that they have a network of 50 states that are now involved in this. This is a new type of charisma, a kind of steroids. One writer said it's Charisma with a dose of adrenaline. And this is his basic statement: that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you that in the year 2001 we entered the second apostolic era.

What does that mean? It means that the long-lost offices of New Testament prophet and apostle have been restored, the Holy Spirit has given the power of prophecy and the power and authority of an apostle to certain people in this generation of the church since 2001 It seems very strange to me that the Holy Spirit gives that to people whose theology is not biblical and is totally aberrant. I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit would not authenticate false teachers, so we know it's not the Holy Spirit, but that's what they claim. But the Holy Spirit is blamed for everything; this is just the newest one.

For example, they have authority equal to that of the apostles, they have the same power that the apostles had through the Holy Spirit to perform miracles and exercise that power, and they have had since 2001. Some of them fall into the category of prophets, some of them fall into the category of apostles. They speak what the Holy Spirit reveals to them with the same authority that the apostles have. This authority and power have been demonstrated in the world because one of the apostles stopped mad cow disease in Germany, he claims. The movement is marked by strange and ecstatic behavior.

Emotionalism went crazy, all kinds of revelations and crazy behavior. Peter Wagner is the father of this, as he has been involved in all sorts of aberrations over the years, including the start of the Church Growth Movement, which gave life to the Pragmatism movement, which, as we know, is so omnipresent. His influence has been growing and he recently jumped into the political arena, and I'll tell you how. A couple of weeks ago, a few weeks ago now, there was a prayer breakfast in the city of Houston that you may have read about. It was an event sponsored by the New Apostolic Reformation and its leaders and guests, and the keynote speaker was Rick Perry, who is a presidential candidate for the Republican Party.

At this event, sponsored by the New Apostolic Reformation, two pastors led this event. They are apostles. They have been given the apostolate by the Holy Spirit. They called the office of Rick Perry, as governor of the state of Texas, and told him that the Lord had revealed to them through the Holy Spirit that Texas is the state that God has chosen to lead the United States towards revival and a government pious, and Rick Perry is playing a key role. And at that event, these two apostles of the New Apostolic Reform Movement laid their hands on Rick Perry and prayed for him.

They claim that God speaks directly to them with specific instructions, specific instructions. And if people do not listen to this divine revelation that comes through them, there will be more earthquakes, more terrorist attacks and worse economic conditions. However, if we listen, good things will happen because they gave us an illustration of that because they were the ones who gave Texas a little bit of rain after the drought. I mean, if you didn't know better, you'd think someone opened the back door to the asylum. One of these apostles says that the Democratic Party is controlled by Jezebel and three lesser demons.

They see demons in public places. They engage in confronting these demons and do so with elaborate rituals, branding irons, stakes, and plummets. They have gone all over the state of Texas driving stakes into the ground, marking certain things, and claiming every county in Texas for God. One of them says, and I quote: "We are called to the dominion of the world." They have gone to all the Masonic Lodges in Texas to expel the demon Baal because the demon Baal controls free Masonry. They had a meeting in 2009 in Houston. Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Jezebel became visible.

They saw Jezebel. Actually, a woman named Alice Patterson, one of these apostles who wrote a book called Bridging The Racial and Political Divide, which sounds like a political book, published in 2010, said that she saw Jezebel, and Jezebel lifted her skirt, and when Jezebel lifted her skirt - this is a quote - "She exposed little Baal, Asherah and some other demons who were tiny little

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s, shrunken and trembling, ankle-high on Jezebel's skinny legs," end of the appointment. This is in a book called Bridging the Racial and Political Divide, and all of this is attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit who is revealing all of these things.

Now you know where all this comes from. This again is attributing the work of Satan to the Holy Spirit. I don't know what Rick Perry knows or doesn't know about all this. You know, in a campaign year, you accept prayers from anyone, especially if you're not sure what this is all about. But this is just one illustration of the aberrations that continue to be placed on the backs of the Holy Spirit, as if they were things He was doing. It is such a terrifying form of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. There are other ways, but that's just the latest one that appears in the media.

I remember in the first years of ministry when I left seminary, for many years I traveled when I graduated, even when I was in seminary. Graduated from college and during my seminary years and for several years afterward, I traveled and spoke to youth groups and college groups and all kinds of different groups and student ministries and church ministries, and inevitably, one of the topics of What Everyone wanted me to talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It was constant. He constantly spoke of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Everyone asked about sanctification. How do I get rid of sin in my life?

How do I progress

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ually? How can I become more like Jesus Christ? How do I separate myself from the world? How do I gain victory over temptation? What is the way? How can I manifest the fruit of the Spirit? How can I walk in the Spirit and not satisfy the desires of the flesh? I mean they were, that's just Old Testament sanctification, and the young people were asking those questions. It was constant. I would be at conference after conference on campus and in various places, talking to students, and inevitably the topic would be: How can I be sanctified?

How can I become more like Christ? How can I overcome sin in my life? How can I grow in grace and in the knowledge of Christ? What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? What does it mean to be baptized by the Spirit? Sealed by the Spirit? Indwelling by the Spirit? What role does the Spirit play in my life? They don't ask me to do that anymore. That never seems to be a topic of conversation. That doesn't seem to be an issue that anyone cares about. The charismatic movement has stolen the Holy Spirit and created a golden calf, and they are dancing around the golden calf as if it were the Holy Spirit.

It is a false form of the Holy Spirit. They have exploited the Holy Spirit and demanded to be able to do so without being criticized. Nobody canthe Spirit of the Lord in Luke 4. He is called His Spirit, that is, the Spirit of God, Numbers 11:29. It is called the Spirit of Yahweh in Judges 3:10. He is called the Spirit of the Lord God in Isaiah 61, the Spirit of your Father in Matthew 10:20, and the Spirit of the living God in 2 Corinthians 3:3. He is given all the titles that belong to the deity. That's the point here. He is called the Spirit of Jesus in Acts 16:7; the Spirit of Christ right here in Romans 8 verse 9, and in Galatians 4:6, the Spirit of his Son.

Philippians 1:19, the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This is a clear indication that He is fully God. Now, the more I think about this and go over it as I have been doing for the past few days, the more my heart aches for the way the Holy Spirit is being mistreated. And again I say, look, I'm not here to defend the Holy Spirit, He can defend Himself. But I am here to tell you that you do not want to be sucked into this mockery of the blessed Holy Spirit. You want to worship Him for who He is. Sometimes people ask me, "Can we pray to the Holy Spirit?" Of course, of course, He is God. "Don't we have to pray only to the Father?" No, pray to the Father, pray to the Spirit, pray to the Son, pray to all three, pray to any two. "Can we worship the Holy Spirit?" Absolutely, fall down and worship the Holy Spirit, just as you would Christ and the Father.

You would not say a word against the Father, you would not say a word against the Son, you would not say a word against the Holy Spirit. Don't attribute anything to God that isn't true of Him, don't attribute anything to Christ that isn't true of Him, and don't attribute anything to the Holy Spirit that isn't true of Him. Why, if we got rid of that, it would change the face of church. When you think about the works of the Holy Spirit, you must begin with creation. And then in the Old Testament, you see him convincing people.

Remember Genesis 6: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man”? He strives to bring conviction in the same way I read in John 16:8: When the Spirit comes, he will convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. In the Old Testament we see him indwelling certain people for a certain service. He regenerated people in the Old Testament because He could not be regenerated unless it was a divine miracle, and He is the life-giving Spirit, the life-giving Spirit. He is that Spirit. So in the Old Testament, He is seen as the Creator, he is seen as the regenerator of those who believe.

He is seen as the one who convinces men of sin. He is seen as the one who allows men to serve. Read Exodus 31, Judges 3, Judges 6, "And the Spirit of God comes to empower men to serve." That's why David in his 51st Psalm about his sin said, "Do not take your Spirit from me." He was not talking about the fact that suddenly the Holy Spirit who had regenerated and strengthened him for his spiritual life would disappear; he was speaking in the language of that special work of the Holy Spirit in which he came upon people for a certain ministry, enabling them to do certain things.

But the one thing that stands out about His ministry in the Old Testament, of course, from the perspective of the New Testament, is that He is the author of the Scriptures. No Scripture is the result of private interpretation, Peter says, right? Second Peter 1:21, there is no private interpretation but the holy men of God were moved by the Spirit of God. This is how the Old Testament was written. The Spirit of God is the author through human instrumentation. This is also how the New Testament is written. It is inspired by God, the word breath is pneuma. It is the Spirit of God that writes the Holy Scriptures.

And you can find places throughout the Scriptures that talk about the Holy Spirit saying this and the Holy Spirit saying that. He is the author of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are inspired by God. It is the revelation of God through the Holy Spirit. An illustration, Acts 1:16, "The Scripture must be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit had foretold." Every time the Scriptures said something, it was the Holy Spirit who said it. And by the way, we read in John 15-16 that the main task of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ, right? He is the Spirit of truth, but He points to me, He glorifies me, and when you read the Scriptures, that's what all the Scriptures do.

Even the Old Testament. That is why Luke 24 is so important, beginning with Moses, the prophets and all the holy writings, he spoke to them of the things about Him written in the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament, as well as the New, the Holy Spirit, who is the author, points to Christ: Christ, Christ. So wherever you see a work that is really the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you will see men humbled and Christ exalted; humiliated men and exalted Christ. And then in the life of Christ, you see the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is there giving it life.

He is there at his baptism, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon Him. He is there to launch his ministry. The Holy Spirit comes upon Him and launches his public ministry at the age of 30. The Holy Spirit is there in his temptation. Remember that the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness and through that temptation he came out the other side. He is the anointing in Acts 10:38. They were preaching about Him and saying that He was anointed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended upon him. That's why he said: "If you deny the works that I do as if they were from God, you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit because it is the Holy Spirit working through me." Do you actually know that that was the Holy Spirit teaching through Christ?

That's how empty it was. He even handed over his teaching to what the Spirit did through him. John 3:34, "He whom the Father sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure." He speaks the words of God because he has the Spirit working through him. The miracles that Christ did and the message that He preached were the ministry of the Spirit through Him. It was in perfect agreement with it but it was the message of the Father through the Spirit. It was the Spirit that was the power behind his miracles; That is why it was blasphemous to say that they were from Satan.

Do you know that even his death, even the death of Jesus Christ that we talk about so often, was the work of the Holy Spirit? I don't know if you ever thought about that, but now you will. Hebrews 9 verse 14: "How much more is the blood of Christ" - listen to this - "the blood of Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God?" Every miracle he did was through the power of the Spirit. And even his death was by the power of the Spirit. His birth was by the power of the Spirit. His life was through the power of the Spirit.

His miracles were through the power of the Spirit. His teaching was through the power of the Spirit. And his death was by the power of the Holy Spirit. And what about his resurrection? Are you still in Romans 8? Look at verse 11: "The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead." When you begin to embrace the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is so incredible, amazing, powerful, and we haven't even gotten to the part about us. So let's get to that. What does He do in the world? What does the Holy Spirit do in the world? Well, He convicts of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.

Genesis 6:3: "He contends with sinners," so He is the convicting power. According to 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, He calls sinners - that is an effective calling - He really calls them. Furthermore, He regenerates - John 3 - "You must be born of the Spirit." So in the world He convicts, He calls, He gives regenerating life and also bears witness to the truth of Christ, Acts chapter 5 verses 30-32. So it is the ministry of the Holy Spirit that comes to the sinner, he convicts him, he calls him when the sinner understands the glories of Christ and then He regenerates the sinner.

Now, what does He do in the believer? He glorifies Christ, exalts Christ through the Word, but beyond that, He dwells in the believer. Verse 9 of Romans 8: “The Spirit of God dwells in you.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, "You are the temple of the Holy Spirit." He dwells in us. Now we're getting personal here. Ephesians 5:18 says, "Keep filled with the Spirit." He fills us, which is a statement of power, like the wind filling the sails and moving the ship. That's that analogy. He seals us, secures us, says Ephesians 1, for eternity. He imparts to us fruits, fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, meekness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.

He gives us love, Romans 5:5. He gives us gifts of the Spirit: Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12. Various gifts divided equally among his people. He teaches us. He leads us into all truth, he guides us to the understanding of the Scriptures, an anointing that we have from God, so that we may know all things. Romans 8:26, He prays for us. Galatians 5:17, He wages war against our flesh and against sin for us. John 14:16, "He comforts us." Romans 8:14, I mentioned it before: "He leads us and guides us." Galatians 3, He sanctifies us. Acts 1:8, He gives us power to witness and evangelize. All these things are done by the Holy Spirit.

We need to understand all these wonderful and rich things. There was a time when this was a very important part of Christian ministry, of Christian thought. Try writing a book on the definitive ministry of the Holy Spirit today and find a place for it in a Christian bookstore. It could be a losing proposition if I really owned up to all the error that was there. I do not hope, except among ourselves and those we can influence, to stem the tide of this terrible abuse of the Holy Spirit, but I believe that we, as a church and we as believers, must honor the Holy Spirit in the way that He is worthy of being honored. and to replace this frivolous, superficial, abusive approach and more than that, to bring him out of the shadows so that he is not the forgotten member of the Trinity who never receives the worship he deserves.

The whole matter of you living your Christian life is the work of the Holy Spirit. All the ministry of spiritual gifts, all that I do, all that I do, all that you do, all that anyone does in the kingdom in the body of Christ that has any effect or impact or purpose or goal or success is work of the holy spirit. How can we ignore that and replace it with crazy things that dishonor him? Well, that will take us to Romans 8, and next week we will return to that chapter. Our Father, we thank you for the time you have given us this morning to worship you.

It's been so refreshing. Thank you for this blessed church, these precious people, the love for You and Your Word. Thank you, O Holy Spirit, for this incomprehensible work that you have done, not only in creation but also in regeneration. You gave us life. You gave us salvation, forgiveness and enabled us, now you sanctify us and take us to glory. We will be glorified by your power. We will be changed by Your power. We will be fit for heaven by your power. Meanwhile, You are there producing fruit and energizing our gifts and strengthening our testimonies and fighting against our flesh and praying for us and making everything work for good, securing us and sealing us for the day of redemption.

We love you, we honor you, we adore you, we exalt you. And we are deeply saddened, as you should be, by the way you are being misrepresented. Help us, Lord, to be all that we should be as we worship you, our Trinitarian God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May we truly worship you as you really are and with all our strength, both in praise and in obedience. What can we say, O Holy Spirit, for all that you have done for us and are doing even as we speak and will do until we see Jesus face to face and by your power are perfected in his image?

We worship You today and ask You to be honored, not only in our lives and among us, but in Your church, the church that You regenerated, to which You gave life, the church through which You work, the church in which You can do much more than all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, that power that raised Jesus from the dead, your power, oh blessed Holy Spirit. Show Your power in Your church and be honored and glorified, we pray. Amen.