God, if you don't mind, this is not necessarily related to what we're talking about tonight. It is on the Holy Spirit. But what that is, is the first in a list of verses in the New Testament where you find the Holy Spirit. And what I just want to encourage you to do is to take that and over the next couple of weeks, just go through and look at each of those verses and just jot down, make note of what it says about the Holy Spirit. And in a couple weeks I'll give you the next list that goes on from there. I think, if I remember right, that's Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then we'll pick up with John and we'll look at all the verses in the New Testament that have to do with the Holy Spirit. There's a lot. As a matter of fact, we're familiar with the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. He's referred to by the name Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost 94 times in the New Testament, not so much in the Old Testament. But tonight, we want to, probably we'll get through all this, but I want to just kind of go through what the Old Testament says about the Holy Spirit or what the Holy Spirit was doing in the Old Testament, the 4,000 to 6,000 years before Christ came. He's only referred to as the Holy Spirit three times in the Old Testament, though he's referred to as the Spirit a number of times. And I was thinking about this, okay, so we're talking about the first four to six years before Christ came to earth. We believe the earth is about six, no more than 8,000 years old. The first, depending on which of those numbers you take, The first 2,000 or 4,000 years of man's existence is covered in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. So in 11 chapters, you've got like 2,000 to 4,000 years, and then from Genesis 12 to Malachi 4, you have the next 2,000 years. So most of the Old Testament is covering the 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. So we want to talk about the Holy Spirit and maybe you can just help me, but don't go yet. Back up, back up, back up. You didn't see that, right? You did not see that. See what? So here's the question as we start out tonight. Here's the question. Which member of the Godhead created the universe? Which member of the Godhead created the universe? I'm getting a lot of different answers. How many of you would say God the Father created the universe? All right, put your hand down. How many would say God the Son created the universe? Okay, put your hand down. How many would say the Holy Spirit created the universe? Wow, one brave soul. How many would say all three created the universe? The answer is all three. All right. But how do you know that? That's the question. See, I can answer that. But how do I know that? Well, let's start with how do you know that the father created or let's. All right. So how do we know that all three members of the Godhead were involved in creation or. OK, well, it's just I don't know, this is the best way to ask this question, but how do we know that all three members and we're going to look at some specific verses for each one, but how do you know that the God who created, even in Genesis 1, was not just the Father. Okay, it's not we, but in Genesis 1.26, God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness. But Genesis 1.1 says what? Okay, you probably heard this before, but let me remind you tonight. The word God in the Hebrew is plural, which points to the Trinity. So even the very term, the name for God that is used in Genesis 1 is a plural term, which would refer to the Trinity. And then verse 26, where it says, let us make man in our image after our likeness. And so those would indicate that you know, all of the Trinity was involved in creation. But also, in thinking about the fact that Christ was the creator, can you think of any verses that state that Christ was the creator? All right, John 1 through 3, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, all the same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him, and without him was not anything made that was made. Verse 10 says, he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. Of course, we know that the word is referring to Jesus. All right, can you think of any other verses that refer to Jesus as the creator? Now you can put created up there. Hebrews 1, 1, and 2, God who hundred times in a diver's manners spake in time passing of the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, by whom he created, he made the worlds. So, hmm? Yes. Yes. Can you, you got it in front of you? Okay, good. So, John 1, 1 through 3. We didn't do Ephesians 3, 9. It says, And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God who created all things. Speaking of Christ. I'm sorry. God who created all things by Jesus Christ. There you go. So John 1, 1 through 3, Ephesians 3, 9, Colossians 1, 16, Hebrews 1, 1 and 2, all of those refer to the Son as involved in creation. What about the Spirit now? Can you list any verses that state that the Spirit was involved in creation? Somebody, we've already noted one, somebody said, Janine, I think. Yeah, Genesis 1-2, the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters, moved upon the face of the waters, so he was there. Can you think of any other? Do you know of any others? There are some. And I'll confess that if I were sitting where you're sitting and I didn't have this in front of me and somebody asked me this question, I probably couldn't have come up with these either. Turn to the book of Job. Somebody on this side of the room, read Job 33.4 in just a moment. And somebody on this side of the room, read Job 26.13 when I ask you to in just a moment. Job 33.4, Job 26.13. All right, Job 33.4. Somebody over here read that. Okay, if I'm not mistaken, that's Job speaking. The Spirit of God hath made me. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, he said, created me. And the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. What about Job 26.13? Job 26.13. Okay, by his spirit he garnished the heavens. So the spirit was involved, Job says, in creation. All right, and then Psalm 104.30 says this, thou sendest forth thy spirit and they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth. So again, the spirit is credited with creating. So there are those verses that refer to the spirit. We most often, when we think about creation, We most often think about those verses that tell us that Jesus was the creator, but the Spirit was also involved in creation, as was the Father. So it is a work of the Trinity, but the Spirit was involved. So what was the Holy Spirit doing in those 4,000 to 6,000 years that we read about in the Old Testament? Well, He was at the very beginning helping, being part of creation. But then, having then man upon the earth, turn to Genesis 6-3, and we'll consider a second thing that the Holy Spirit was doing in the Old Testament days. Genesis chapter 6. And somebody read verse 3, Genesis 6-3. Spiritual knowledge strive with me. So in Genesis 6, it's the, we begin the story of the flood, the account of the flood. And the Lord says, in saying that my spirit will not always strive with man, he's indicating that the spirit was doing that. So you can put up the next slide. He contended or convicted men. The spirit was fighting against, opposing the evil of men in the days before the flood. He was convicting them. of their sin. And you know, despite the spirits striving with men before the flood, the wickedness of man's heart is so great that even in the face of the work of the Holy Spirit in men's hearts, Genesis 6, 5 says that 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, despite the Holy Spirit's work in the hearts of men, even unbelievers, convicting them, resisting them, what they're trying to do. You know, the Holy Spirit is doing that today. We'll talk about it more when we get to the New Testament, but we believe that in 2 Thessalonians 2, Where it talks about he who now let us will let until he be taken out of the way that that that's the Holy Spirit that is again fighting against resisting limiting even the wickedness of man. And what but yet when the Holy Spirit is taken away the the wickedness man's heart is so wicked that during the tribulation period when the Holy Spirit is no longer working in the same way, or to the same extent, it will be the most wicked time that man has ever experienced on the face of the earth. We should be thankful that we will not be here, and we should have compassion for those that will, because we've seen some bad times in the history of mankind, but nothing like will happen when the Spirit is no longer resisting men's desire to do wrong. But he was doing that in the Old Testament to the point, but men resisted it to the point where God said, I've got to destroy him because he is so wicked. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. All right, so now how did the spirit convict or oppose the evil that men were trying to do and were doing? How did the spirit do that? And of course, he would have, some of it would have just been the, you know, we have the sense of conviction, we talk about conviction, this feeling, if you will, in our heart that we're not doing right. And that's true, but where does that, what brings about that conviction? Conscience. God has put within us at least some idea of right and wrong. What else? Well, yeah, that would kind of be the similar idea, yeah. But what else? What convicts you today? Huh? The law? Where do you find the law? In the word of God. Yeah. Was there any preaching going on before the flood? How do you know? Okay, very good. 2 Peter 2.5, Noah, God spared Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness when he brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. Was anybody else preaching before the flood that we know of? I mean, obviously, there probably were people we don't know about. Well, we know about two people. We know about Noah and we know about Huh? Enoch, yeah. In Jude, it talks about Enoch prophesied, talking about the Lord coming with 10,000 of his saints. Now, he's looking to the future, but Enoch was prophesying. He was preaching in that day and preaching about the judgment of God that would come upon all the ungodly and against all their ungodly deeds which they've committed and their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And though he's looking to the day of Christ's coming, he's preaching to his generation about the judgment of God which came to them in the flood and which will come eternally in the lake of fire. Nehemiah 9.30 says this, Yet many years did thou forbear them, and testified against them by thy spirit in thy prophets. So throughout the Old Testament, God was speaking against sin and against the sins of men through the preaching of His Word. And Nehemiah goes on to tell us, they wouldn't give ear. Therefore gave us them into the hand of the people of the lands, the nation of Israel. God sent the prophets to preach against their sin, and like the people before the flood, they resisted the Holy Spirit. They wouldn't yield, and God had to send them into captivity because of that. So he was involved in creation, and then as men became sinners, Adam's fall brought sin into the world, and men then lived in sin, and the Holy Spirit then was doing his work of conviction and resisting the sin of men, yet despite that, Men continued to sin mightily against God to the point that God had to bring the flood upon the world and had to send the nation of Israel into captivity. What else did he do? Well, give me the next one. Enlightened. Does he do that today? Yes, he does. Revealing truth. Let's do this. On this side of the room, 2 Peter 1. On this side of the room, Numbers 24. I'll tell you what, let's do this. All right, 2 Peter 1, Numbers 24, 2 Samuel 23. You guys over here, I'll give you the verse in just a second. So everybody on that side gets 2 Peter 1, this section gets Numbers 24, that section gets 2 Samuel 23. So what does it tell us? We're seeing what the Holy Spirit is doing, but we want to base that on what God's word says. So he was enlightening. So somebody read 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. Somebody over here, 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. Okay, so the prophets who wrote the scriptures, the men who wrote the scriptures were writing God's Word. The Spirit of God was directing their writing so that they were writing God's Word. The Word of God is inspired. It's God's Word. Bible is God's Word and the Holy Spirit was the one that was revealing the truth that we now today read in the books of the Old Testament as well as the New. But Peter tells us that was a work of the Holy Spirit through those years. He was And not only those who wrote, but even those who preached, but their words were not recorded as scripture for us today, but they were still declaring, thus saith the Lord. So the Spirit of God was directing the preaching of men and even their writings. Numbers 24 and verse 2, just tell me what's happening there. What indicates the Holy Spirit in that verse is revealing truth? Can you tell me? Numbers 24 too. Yeah, Balaam is going to prophesy. You remember the story how Balak The Moabite king hired Balaam to curse Israel, and Balaam's donkey talk, do you remember that account, that story? And Balaam said to Balak, you know, I'll come, but I can only say what God tells me. And so, and he made prophecies about Israel, blessed them, and prophesied of their, the blessing of God upon them, and he did that by the spirit of God. The spirit of God came upon him. and he prophesied. 2 Samuel 23 and verse 2, David is speaking. What does he say? Yeah, so David says, what I'm saying to you and what eventually I'm writing is what the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me and through me. 2 Chronicles 15, 1 and 2 says, The Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Odad. He went out to meet Asa and said unto him, Hear ye, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with him. And if you seek him, he'll be found of you. But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. So again, the spirit of God came on Azariah, and he spoke the word of God. So the spirit of God was imparting truth, revealing truth to men, giving them an understanding of God's truth. Joseph, when he came to Jerusalem, He interpreted Pharaoh's dream. How did he do that? The Spirit of God gave him the understanding of Pharaoh's dream. And when they're looking for somebody, he said, after interpreting the dream, he said to Pharaoh, you need to find somebody who's wise, who can administrate this thing and prepare the people for the famine. And they said, where can we find a man who has the Spirit of the gods in him like Joseph does. So even Pharaoh recognized the spirit of God in Joseph, enabling him to not only reveal the dream, but understand what needed to be done as a result of that. The spirit of God was working in Joseph's heart. And Daniel interpreted dreams as well by the spirit of God. And they would say of him, the spirit of the holy gods is in thee. Daniel chapter five, the queen said to Belshazzar, handwriting on the wall and he's, everybody's upset, nobody can interpret it and she said there's one in your kingdom, one of the Jewish captives who has the spirit of the gods in him and he can tell you what it means. So they recognized what was true that the spirit of God was the one who was enabling Daniel to know those dreams and interpret them as God was speaking through them, or God was, in the case of Joseph, preserving his people through that famine. And as he was revealing truth and protecting his people in the days of Daniel, and so God enlightened men, gave them truth, gave them understanding of truth. He was doing that even in the Old Testament days. All right, now, the next slide should be a list of verses. All right, I want you to take a minute and just run through these verses very quickly, and I want you to tell me what the Spirit of God was doing. There's a theme, if you will, in all of these verses, something the Spirit of God was doing in every one of these cases. So just kind of run through them real quick, take a couple minutes, and then tell me what the Spirit of God was doing in all these situations. Anybody feel like they've got the answer? Yes, sir. Very good. So go ahead and throw up the next slide. He's empowering people, enabling them to do the things that God called them to do. You know, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel, Caleb's younger brother, and he served as a judge. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and Jephthah and Samson, and they served in their position as judges. The Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul as king. The Spirit of the Lord came upon David to serve as king. Micah 3.8 said, Micah said, truly I am full of the power, full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgment and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. He says, the thing that is in empowering me to do this work that God has called me to do is the Spirit of God. And of course, that well-known verse in Zechariah 4 and verse 6 where Zerubbabel is leading the remnant that had returned to rebuild the temple, and the Lord says, not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit. That's the way that work would be done. So what was the Holy Spirit doing in the Old Testament in those four to 6,000 years before Christ came? Well, he first of all was involved in creation. And then he was convicting men and resisting their tendency to sin. He was enlightening the Lord's prophets and enabling the Lord's servants. And let's talk about one other thing that we find in the Old Testament. So here's the question. Did the Holy Spirit indwell all believers all the time in the Old Testament? You sure? How do you know? Well, he stayed with them anyway, but did he not stay with every believer all the time like that? In the Old Testament? No. Again, how do you know that? All right, very good, that's good. Judges 16, 20. When Delilah said to Samson, the Philistines be upon thee, he awoke out of his sleep and said, I'll go out as at other times before and shake myself. And he didn't know that the Lord had departed from him. What a tragedy, huh? I'm sorry. Yes. The spirit of the Lord, 1 Samuel 16, 14, the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. Somebody else, somebody said something. Right. Yeah, you're getting ahead of me. Okay, very good. if we go back to Jesus said here earlier, no man can come to me except the Father which has sent me to draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. And this seems to me, as I put other scriptures together, that God draws people by reaching out to them with the Holy Spirit, putting convictions upon their hearts and their minds. So you're getting a little bit ahead of us, because we're going to get to what the Spirit's doing in the New Testament age, but the one verse... No, that's okay. That's all right. But that's good, because the one verse that I do have that shows a difference, and you read it, that distinguishes between Old Testament and New Testament, even at that point, as Jesus is speaking to the disciples, He's talking about the Spirit, and He says, He dwelleth with you, not in you. and shall be in you. So there was and is a difference between the Spirit's work in a believer's life in the New Testament age versus the Old Testament. But in 1 Samuel 16, 13, when Samuel anointed David, the Bible says the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Did David get saved on the day he was anointed to be king? No, he's been a believer before that. So, but he didn't have the spirit upon him before that, like he did when he's an anointed king. So there was something different, and the spirit would leave. David prayed in Psalm 51, 11, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. So cast not me away from thy presence, take not the Holy Spirit from me, Psalm 51, 11. In Haggai 2, verses four and five, God is, again, encouraging that remnant that had come back to build the temple Be strong, Zerubbabel, and be strong, Joshua, son of Jezreel, the high priest. Be strong, all people of the land, say the Lord, and work. I am with you, say the Lord of hosts, according to the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. So my spirit remaineth among you, fear not. But the Lord had to tell them that. Now we know, and we're gonna get to it, I'm talking about the New Testament, the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, but we don't ever have to worry about or think about, is the Holy Spirit gonna lead me? because he would be in us permanently. He would indwell us, and we'll talk about that. But that wasn't always the case in the Old Testament. But he was, the last slide there, he was indwelling some people in the Old Testament as he empowered them for service and the work that God had called them to. Now, so there are things that the Holy Spirit was doing in the Old Testament. Now if you want to impress people with your knowledge or whatever, I'll throw this out to you and you can use this. So I gave you that sheet with the verses. And if you go through those verses, as you go through those verses, and again, I'll give you more in a couple weeks, you're developing a biblical theology of the personal work of the Holy Spirit. So you can impress people. I'm working on my biblical theology on the Holy Spirit. But what we've done tonight is we've taken biblical theology and we have turned it into systematic theology. When we take, we look at all the verses pertaining to a subject and then we organize them under headings like this. That's systematic. We take the biblical and systematize it so that we can understand or see the bigger picture. So, when you do your biblical theology, then you can come up with your systematic theology, but that's what you're doing. So, we're doing a study, we're doing the theology of the Holy Spirit together in these Wednesday nights. So, we will pick up there next Wednesday night, and so as Rob, you come, and we will sing the last verse. What I want to do,