John 16: says, When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world of judgment and righteousness.
This week Michael writes: About 100 years ago there was a division in the Christian church over this Scripture and its meaning. One faction who became the Pentecostalists said the work of the Holy Spirit is to empower us. The other faction said, the work of the Holy Spirit is to make us holy. In Acts 2:37 Peter said, repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins and ye shall receive the gift of Holy Spirit. The Apostle Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost to believing Jews about the powerful things that were happening at the original outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit on the church…. One purpose for the gift of God’s Holy Spirit was to save the believers from a wicked and perverse generation.
AW Tozer says, minimally the Holy Spirit is coming to make us holy. The name of the Holy Spirit itself implies a life of holiness. If a person’s life is not holy, then their lives are not sanctified … set apart unto the Lord according to His divine design and Divine purpose. Man’s basic problem started with the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. This was the spiritual root of the problems that we experience today. God’s spirit within Adam and Eve died the day they disobeyed God by doubting God and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are also problems rooted in spiritual darkness described in Genesis chapter 6 about the flood of Noah’s time, and chapter 11 about the Tower of Babel.
Genesis 6:1-11 is about the events that preceded the flood: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repents me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
The ancient Jews believed that the first 8 verses of this chapter described the spiritual perversion of God’s original Divine design. This spiritual perversion manifest itself in sexual perversion contrary to God’s divine order. This explosion of sexual sin rooted in spiritual darkness precipitated the flood. One perspective of these verses according to John McArthur, Chuck Smith, and Chuck Missler, teaches that the perversion of God’s Divine order defied God’s purpose for one man to marry one woman in order to be fruitful and multiply to replenish the earth. God’s purpose for a husband and wife to procreate and reproduce was perverted and prevented by spiritual defilement that went ballistic and affected the whole of mankind in Genesis 6 so that “the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
The Apostle Peter’s sermon In Acts 2 says, “As in the days of Noah, judgement will come.” In the days of Noah, the judgement came suddenly. The deluge of God’s judgement was the result of the spiritual perversion of God’s Devine order. In today’s America what is the parallel path of the perversion of God’s divine order? In 1978, only 5% of American men had seen hardcore pornography in a video format. In 1983, 55% had seen these videos after the invention of the BetaMax by Sony. Today, pornography is so common that it’s only one click away on our smart phones or other electronic device. This perversion of God’s Divine design has destroyed countless marriages, many of them Christian. Today we are living in something akin to the days of Noah. As in Noah’s day, today’s message is “deliver yourselves from this wicked and perverse generation.” Jesus said, “you shall be hated by all men for my namesake. Many will fall away and betray one another. Many false prophets will lead people astray and lawlessness will be increased.”
Let’s continue Michael’s message on the Holy Spirit in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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