The Spirit-Filled Life: Part 1

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, before the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of North Florida.

Our prayer is that these one of our Bible study programs will bring the lost to a craving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the slave to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

All right, thank you so very much for that kind word of introduction.

Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in today.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

And I welcome you to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

This half-hour program has one aim, one goal, one intention, and that is to preach God's holy word to all those that have ears to hear.

Some tuning into this program are saved born-again Christians.

We hope and pray that God will enable those of you that are saved and born again to hear the truth of God's Word.

Some tuning in are religious people sincerely trying their best to work their way to heaven, whether it be through the good deeds of baptism, church membership, almsgiving, or the like.

And we hope and pray that God will enable those of you that are sincere but sincerely lost to listen to it to hear the word of God.

And then some tuning in today, you would honestly, in the quiet moments when no one else is about, you would honestly admit that you are desperately lost in sin.

And we're glad that you've tuned in today.

I'll tell you, God, God so loved you that He gave His only begotten Son, so that all you'd have to do is believe on Him and you not perish, but have everlasting life.

And we're so glad for each and every one that's tuned in to the program today.

Some years ago, as a matter of fact, back in 1930, uh a man by the name of Legters, L-E-G-T-E-R-S, was the field secretary of the Pioneer Mission Agency.

I don't know anything about that operation.

I don't know anything about the man.

All I know is this little booklet many, many years ago, found its way into my hands.

In fact, uh between 1930 and 1939, 22,000 of these booklets were printed and most of them distributed throughout the United States of America.

But uh I don't I don't know if uh if you can find one anymore.

I don't know if they're if they're out, if they're available.

Uh I know it's been uh been out of print for at least at least 50 some years.

But I'll tell you the material in this little booklet, which uh appeared in the Sunday School Times in the spring of 1930, is uh is so outstanding and so clear a presentation on the simplicity of the spirit-filled life that we want with very very little revision, we want with very few alterations, to present to you this material on the next few uh broadcasts.

And so I hope and pray that you'll follow along and listen with us as we consider this great Bible doctrine, this great spiritual truth, of the simplicity of that life that is that is filled by and thus led by and controlled by God the Holy Spirit.

You know, the great heart of God is longing to fill you with his spirit.

God is yearning over us, beyond the thought of man to express, to fill us with his fullness.

Yet we beg, plead, and sigh as though God were trying to withhold this great blessing from us.

Many of us go to God as a man in great need goes to a banker who is guarding his gold, hoping to borrow a pittance and leaving with less than what was needed.

We forget that God is a giving God, that God delights to give the fullness of his Holy Spirit, that God is seeking to fill born-again believers with his spirit.

Many of the people who have written or spoken on the subject of the indwelling Holy Spirit have made this blessed truth difficult and hard to understand, in fact, almost unattainable.

Yet God has commanded that we be filled with the Spirit.

Now nowhere in Scripture does God leave the fulfillment of his commands a mysterious or secret or difficult matter.

You know, I never forget the time when I spent uh days with a group who were seeking the filling of the Spirit.

On the day they separated, all agreed that they had had a precious time of fellowship together, but that no one was filled with the spirit.

And some of these men later became modernists, dropped out of church, quit reading their Bible, or kept going to church and just taking up space, not really doing anything for God.

Had I known then what I know now, I could easily have explained the cause of the failure, theirs and mine.

We had all asked God, we had all asked God to send his Holy Spirit to fill us, not really understanding, not realizing, and of course, therefore not believing, that God in the person of the Holy Spirit is living in each child of God.

Now we know some verses on that, and we we could have told you that was a fact, but experiencing that as a practical reality, as a conscious, controlling influence in our lives, we didn't have it.

You know, the Bible says, Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have of God.

In 1 Corinthians 6 19, we uh those words are found.

Now we could turn to that verse and read that verse and say, look, there's a fact from the Bible, but do we know, do we really know in a conscious way that the Holy Spirit of God dwells within us?

Most Christians are utterly ignorant of the glorious fact.

Today many are praying to be filled with the Spirit.

They are ignorant of the fact that He is present, dwelling within them already.

There can be no filling by the Spirit, where the primary fact of His presence is disbelieved or ignored.

The Bible says in Romans 8 and verse 9, but if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

You can't belong to Jesus Christ and not have the Holy Spirit.

You can't be born again and not be indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God.

Now, those of you listening who long to be filled with the Spirit, will you not now, right now, believe God's word regarding the fact of his indwelling presence?

Will you thank him that you now have the gift of the Spirit?

That he is abiding in you now if you are a believer in Jesus?

Thank God for his gift.

Make it a rule to recognize daily his presence in you.

Disregard your own feeling.

There are days you won't feel like the Holy Spirit is present.

There are days you won't feel like the Holy Spirit lives within you, but but uh never mind that.

Accept God's word.

Believe God's word, not your feelings, not your emotions.

If you do not now have the Holy Spirit, you are none of his.

If you are his, you now have the Holy Spirit.

It's just that simple.

We receive the Holy Spirit as an indwelling person when we believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place, and and when we receive him as our own personal Savior, you were saved when you believed, and you received the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to live in you at one and the same time that you believed God's word about his son.

Listen to these words from Acts chapter number eleven.

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, even as on us at the beginning.

If then God gave unto them the like gift as he did also unto us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's Acts 11, 15, and 17, Peter recounting and recalling what took place in Cornelius' household.

The moment, the moment Cornelius and those of his household believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

They received the Holy Spirit of God.

Now will you quietly and thankfully believe God's word about his Holy Spirit right now?

As I said, our feelings have nothing to do with it.

God's word stands sure.

The first step to filling is believing that you have received him, and that now he dwells in you.

Precious child of God, thank God that you've received him.

When you believed on Jesus for salvation, quietly rejoice because of his presence in you now.

Don't doubt it, don't argue about it, don't fight against the truth.

Rejoice in it, glory in it.

You know it's easy to believe that he, that is, the Holy Spirit, is an influence.

But you must remember he is a person.

It seems easier to believe that Jesus is a person, I suppose, because of his body.

But a body is not necessary for personality.

A body does not make a person.

A body is simply a medium through which a person may express himself.

It's a house in which he lives.

I I would dare say, I would dare say, that most of you listen to my voice right now, the great majority of you listening to me right now, have not seen my body.

In fact, so many times people come to visit us at the Bible Baptist Church in Deland, Florida, who have listened to these radio programs and and they're surprised.

Some thought my my weight to be different than what it is, some thought my age to be different, some had pictured uh my height differently, and and and all of those all of those things prove this.

Those people knew me as a person, they knew I was a person, even though they had never seen my body.

A body was not necessary for you and I to have a relationship as people.

The Holy Spirit is a person, just as Jesus is a person, and as a person he dwells in us.

Now, if you will gratefully remember that God the Holy Spirit now lives in you, letting your heart rise in gratitude to God, how soon?

How very soon he will begin to fill your entire being with himself.

So far, every step in your Christian life has been energized by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says in John 3, verses 6 and 7, that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.

John 3:6

Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.

You were born into God's family by the Spirit.

You have life by the Spirit.

You receive the Spirit of Adoption, whereby ye cry, we cry Abba Father, according to Romans 8:15.

Romans 8:15

Now, if you can say Father to God, I don't mean reciting words, I mean from your heart.

It is because of the indwelling Holy Spirit who enables you to do this.

For this can be done only in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of the Holy Spirit's living in us is to glorify Jesus, our Savior.

His primary thought is not concerning us or our service, but concerning God's beloved one.

God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are seeking that all may honor the Son.

He, the Spirit, does this in those of us that are saved.

Listen, from Ephesians 3, verses 16 and 17, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Ephesians 3:16

Now we need to be strengthened in our inner life that the Lord may dwell there by faith as the owner.

Only the Holy Spirit can enable one to yield the mastery of life.

And Christ can really dwell there only as master.

Many would welcome him as sin bearer, many would welcome him as burden bearer, many would welcome him as healer, many would welcome him as billpayer.

But Jesus Christ must first of all bear the scepter.

Will you not look to the eternal spirit who dwells in you, those of you that are saved, through whom Jesus made himself an offering, to enable you to yield your being to him?

You know, he's the one who works the miracle within you, making Christ Lord, that he, the Holy Spirit, may fill you with himself, and then he reveals Jesus in his wonderful fullness.

The Holy Spirit takes the riches of Jesus and displays them to you.

Let me give it to you as the Bible renders it in John 16, verse 14.

John 16:14

He shall take of mine, Jesus speaking, of the Holy Spirit, he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you.

Just as the servant of Abraham showed to Rebecca and her family the wealth of Isaac, telling them that all the riches of Abraham belonged to the son Isaac, so the Holy Spirit, he who seeks the bride of Christ here on earth, reveals the beauty, the riches, the wonder of the character of our Savior to us.

I can see the young Syrian girl as she rode along on her camel, pressing nearer the servant, listening raptly to what he told her of him whom she had not seen.

So well and so faithfully had the servant told about his master that Rebecca recognized Isaac as he met them in the field.

She'd never seen him.

She'd never beheld his body, she had never beheld his physical appearance with her eyes, but the servant had so well described him to her heart, that the moment she laid eyes upon him she knew who she was looking at.

How eagerly the Holy Spirit seeks to reveal to listening ears the beauty of the one altogether lovely, the chiefest among ten thousand, the bright and morning star.

My friend, if you if you and I would bow in thanksgiving to him who dwells within us, whose will and desire and deep longing is to take the things of Jesus and show them unto us, if we would do that.

More would be accomplished than all the study, all the searching, all the discussion, all the fellowship, all the preaching in the world could accomplish.

Remember, you who hunger to be filled, that as high as the heaven is above the earth, so high is God's longing above yours, his longing that you be filled.

Know that if you will permit him, God will fill you this moment.

Thank him that he has worked a little of his longing in your heart.

Your hunger and longing is all from the heart of God, which the Holy Spirit has worked in you.

You bear in your own heart the evidence of his indwelling manifested in his deep longing.

He who yearns in you will satisfy God's heart, and then you too will be satisfied.

Will you not thank him that he hungers and thirsts after righteousness?

And he said that anyone who has this hunger, anyone who has this thirst shall be satisfied.

Jesus Christ, the one who sought you and found you and saved you, the one who seeks to possess you fully, said, Blessed are they that hunger, for they shall be filled.

Will you not thank him that he longs to fill you, that he seeks to fill you, that it is his will to fill you, that if he could have his way just at this moment, he would fill you with his fullness.

You know, I I I I think so many times we spend we spend our labors, whether it's labor in prayer, labor in study, labor in thought.

I I think so many times we spend our labors as Christians trying to talk God into doing something, or pleading with God, hoping that he might do something.

Something that he has said, he wants to do if we'll just let him.

My friends, if the Bible is true, and I believe it is, God wants to fill his children with his Holy Spirit.

God is an intelligent being, dealing with intelligent beings in an intelligent way.

God does not usually first touch the emotions, but he works through the intellect to the heart.

There is little hope of satisfaction for anyone who desires to be filled with the Spirit unless he willingly believes what God says he has already done for him.

Many people are seeking and praying for things which they already have.

Things that God clearly states he has given to each child of his.

Instead of thanking and praising him, they plead and pray for things they already possess.

For example, God promised in Joel 2, verse 28, that he would pour out the Holy Spirit.

Joel 2:28

And before Jesus ascended to the Father, he assured the disciples that the promise would soon be fulfilled.

And the Bible says in Acts 2, verses 1 through 4, when the day of Pentecost was now come, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:1–4

There are seven words in Scripture that God uses to describe the relation of the Holy Spirit to the believer.

Let's take a look at them.

I don't think we can possibly take a look at all seven of them with the time we have remaining today, but we'll get started.

First of all, the Holy Spirit is a gift.

The Holy Spirit is a gift.

Acts 10 45.

They of the circumcision that believe were amazed.

As many as came with Peter, because then on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God's gift to each child of his.

Regardless of age, regardless of sex, regardless of condition, regardless of intelligence, regardless of place of residence, regardless of former manner of life.

God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to everyone that believes the gospel from their heart.

This gift can be received only as any gift is received with thanks.

You never struggle for a gift.

You can't work for a gift.

The only thing that can be done is to receive it.

In the same way, you can only receive the Holy Spirit, God's gift to the bride to be, the mark of her engagement to his son.

You can't earn it, you can't buy it, you cannot merit the gift, you cannot achieve or attain the gift.

You must simply receive it.

Again, I'm reading from this great event that took place in the household of Cornelius.

And I want to read again, I was quoting a minute ago.

Let me let me read to you so you get exactly what God says in Acts 10, 45, and they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Listen to listen now to Acts 11, verse 17.

Acts 11:17

For as much then as God gave them the like gift, as he did unto us, listen, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unknown to many of us, God gave us the Spirit of His Son Jesus.

When we believed that Jesus Christ carried our sins in his own body on the cross, when we believed that God put our sins on him, when we received Jesus Christ as our Savior, then, at that time, God gave us His Spirit.

We were the recipients of this marvelous gift, the third person of the Trinity.

He has not left us since that time, nor has God taken from us his Holy Spirit, because the Bible says in Romans 11 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are not repented of.

Take back a gift once it is given.

Now, can you see the danger you'd be in if you earned the Holy Spirit?

You could lose the Holy Spirit.

Can you see the danger you'd be in if you bought the Holy Spirit?

You could lose the Holy Spirit.

But if the Holy Spirit Is a gift given to believers, and the Bible says it is, and God does not take back the gifts he has given, and the Bible says he does not, then what a blessed truth we have.

Our failures, our ignorance, our sins have not caused God to change his mind.

Our faithlessness does not change God's attitude about the gift he gives.

For long before the gift was given, he knew precisely the kind of person to whom he would give the Holy Spirit, and he knew that person's desperate need.

Thank God for grace.

Thank God for his mercy.

Thank God that he not only gives salvation as a free gift, but then the Holy Spirit, which brings Christ and His indwelling presence, and his sealing and his comfort and his guiding and his truth and his all these wonderful things.

He too is said to be the gift, a gift from God to the believer.

And God never takes his gifts away.

Now, my friends, some of you, some of you are sincerely listening to the preaching and teaching of sincere preachers and teachers who have told you that now that you've believed in Jesus, you need to try and find or seek or get or locate or receive the Holy Spirit.

Such people may be very sincere, but they are they are wrong.

I'm sorry.

They're wrong.

The Bible says, the Bible says, everyone that trusts Jesus Christ as their Savior is given the Holy Spirit.

And then there are others, sincere, sincere teachers, doing the best to know how, repeating from their heart those things which someone taught them.

And they are teaching you that the filling of the Spirit is some mysterious thing reserved for some special few who do certain miraculous or wonderful or exceptional deeds.

And again, that's just not true.

God wants all men saved.

Anyone that desires to be saved, God will save them.

God wants all saved people filled with His Holy Spirit, and any saved man, any saved woman who desires to be filled with the Holy Spirit, God, God will grant that fullness.

My friends, I I really wish we could cover this entire subject in one radio broadcast because some of you won't get to listen next time.

But since we can't do that, we can offer to give you this entire series of studies on cassette tape recording free of charge.

If you'll simply write and ask for it.

Not the modern day love gift that you have to pay for, but a real Bible type gift.

Doesn't cost you anything, all you need to do is receive it.

So if you'll write to us at 872 Glenwood Road, 872 Glenwood Road, Deland, Florida, 32720, 32720, and say, Brother James, I want this study on the spirit-filled life.

We'll send you those tapes free of charge.

Until next time, I'm Brother James.

May the Lord richly bless you, and good day.

Thanks for tuning in today.

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Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptist the Land, or our website, Bible Baptisttheland.com.

Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.