Welcome to SuccessfulSavior.org, the ministry of Harmony Primitive Baptist Church in Donaldson, Arkansas. This is Elder Neal Phelan, Jr. preaching in our regular Sunday morning service. Good to be here on the first day of the year. Makes us kind of really think about the year coming up and when you're in God's house on the first day of the year. I hope we'll all try to be better next year because we can all work on some things in our own personal lives. So I covet your prayers this morning and Hope the Lord will bless us today. We sang that song, I requested that song. We don't sing it very often. Spirit of God, move upon my heart. The reason I wanted to sing that song is because I want to speak to you about the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. If I were to title my message this morning, I would title it, Meet the Holy Spirit, or let me introduce you to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is very misunderstood or overlooked in our Christian experience. We think about Jesus and we think about God the Father, but a lot of times we don't think about the person of the Holy Spirit. And we may even think sometimes God has created all things and we're kind of down here running around and he's totally forgotten us and he has nothing else to do with what goes on down here. in the affairs of mankind or even in our own personal lives. But as we look at the person of the Holy Spirit, we're going to find out that God is very active in our lives, even every day. The Holy Spirit is referred to in the scriptures as the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God or the Holy Ghost. We'll find those three terms mentioned in the Bible when it's referring to the Holy Spirit. You know, we're first introduced to the person of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1 and 1. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And if you look up that term God, it is transferred from the Hebrew term Elohim, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. And it means the mighty ones, plural. So we understand then from the very beginning of the Bible that God is more than one. You think of it like this, it's a term that is used to mean something that's one, but it's more than one. I thought, well, a good term to kind of think about is a forest. So a forest is one thing, but it's made up of many trees. So God is three, but yet one. we get a further light upon the person of God as we go into the New Testament. We read, you know, the New Testament gives us great light upon the Old Testament, so we understand, if we understand the Hebrew term, that it's more than one, so how many is it? So we get over to the New Testament and we read things like 1 John 5 and 7. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. So we get that in the New Testament, so we can go back in the Old Testament and start to learn a little bit about the person of God, that he is three but yet one. You find many times in the scriptures, for instance in the book of Isaiah, when the angels are worshiping God and they say one to another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. Holy Father, Holy Son, and Holy Ghost. So they are ascribing honor and glory to the three in one God, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We find that several times in the scriptures. So 30 times in the first chapter of Genesis, we learn that God is three. 2,200 times in the Old Testament, God reveals himself as triune God, and we find that 2,600 times in the Bible. 2,600 times. God refers to himself as three, but yet one. So when we begin to be introduced to the person of the Holy Spirit, then we begin to see that this is a very large subject in the scriptures. So in the beginning, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created the heavens and the earth. Now, in the second chapter of Genesis, you get a little bit more understanding of this person. In the second verse of the Bible, and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. We learn a lot about the Holy Spirit from verse two of the Bible, that it is the Holy Spirit, that person of God, or God the Holy Spirit, that brings order out of chaos. When God created the heavens and the earth, it was just a mass of mud and slime or whatever, but it's the Holy Spirit that moved upon what God had created and brought some conformity to it and brought some beauty out of this chaos, and so we see the Holy Spirit is very, very powerful. He is God. Our salvation is a complimentary work of Elohim, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Mighty Ones in the everlasting covenant. It is the electing love of the Father, the redeeming love of the Son, and the regenerating love of the Holy Spirit. So if we understand the everlasting covenant, then we see God, the mighty ones working continually in the hearts and lives of God's people. From the very beginning, it was in God's mind and purpose to save a people that he chose before the world ever began. And it was the son's promise that he would suffer and die for those same people up on the cross. And it was the Holy Spirit's promise that he would quicken or bring those into a state of spiritual life that they could have communion with the Father and with the Son. That's why we baptize. When we baptize somebody, we baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit because we're ascribing holiness and greatness to the triune God that all had a part in our salvation. So we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. We don't baptize in the name of the church. We don't baptize in the name of the Apostle Paul or any other preacher. We baptize to the God that saved us from our sins. So the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and he changes us. And he continues to work in our hearts to make us more like to the person of Jesus Christ. And John 3, 6, Jesus said, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. So we see the Holy Spirit even in our own personal lives doing the very same thing that we saw in Genesis 1 and 2. He brings beauty out of chaos, right? So when we are born of God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit begins to work in our hearts and in our lives to make us something better than what we were. When we see people in the world that do not love God, and they are committing some of the worst crimes, and they are ungodly people, we can see that the Holy Spirit has not worked in their hearts or changed them in any way. And so when we're born again, we're born by the immediate work of the Holy Spirit. That's the person that does that work in our hearts. Some people think, well, my salvation is all about Jesus. And that's fine. We understand Jesus' part in that, which was the suffering part, and we love him for that. But sometimes we forget that the Holy Spirit has a part in our salvation as well, and that is when we are born again by the immediate work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, as I said, said that which is born of the flesh is flesh. and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So if we're gonna be born again, we must be born, or if we're gonna be born of the spirit, then we must be born by a spirit who is the person of Jesus Christ. That tells us a lot concerning theology, that we're not born again by a decision that we make. or by a church that we go to, or by a doctrine that we believe, or by going through a catechism or some church ordinance like baptism or anything like that, those are fleshly things. We are born by the immediate work of the Holy Spirit. Nobody in this room made a choice to be born personally. And nobody in this room made a choice to be born spiritually. Now you may think you did, but I can tell you, if you made that choice, you were already born again. You already had a love for God in your heart. He'd already worked in your heart. And he had done a little change in there and caused you to love him and call upon his name. That's what I think the Apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, we cry Abba Father because we are already born again. And John 3 and 8, Jesus Christ gave the clearest definition of this work of the Holy Spirit. He compares it to the wind because if you look up that word, it's kind of a pneuma or it speaks of the wind. The wind bloweth where it pleases or listeth. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh or where it goeth? So is everyone that's born of the Spirit of God. Now that's every person. That leaves out nobody. Anybody that's born of the Spirit of God is just like the wind. The wind blows where it pleases. Nobody can direct the wind. As much as scientists have learned about the weather and about creation and about lightning and the sun and the moon, they still cannot control the wind. And we as God's people cannot control the spirit of God by which we are born again. We can't have a revival. and decide, well, we're gonna get some people born again today because we're gonna have a revival and we're gonna control the Holy Spirit. And we're gonna get some people born again and get them to heaven. There's only one that gets people to heaven and that is Elohim, the mighty ones in the work that they have done. So the Holy Spirit blows where it pleases, when it pleases, upon whom it pleases. And that's the sovereign work of God in our regeneration. In 2 Corinthians 5.17, the Apostle Paul uses the very term creation concerning our new birth. He said, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. That means a new creation. So the Holy Spirit creates us, and then it says all things become new. Well, it doesn't mean everything becomes new, but it means the affections of our heart. They become new in our lives. We have a love for God, and we have a love for God's people. We love the Word of God. And I do encourage you to read the scriptures. It'll be the best thing you ever did in your life. That's why there's so much ignorance in Christianity today is people don't read the Bible. You talk to them about, say, well, elections in the Bible, well, they're offended by it. They've never read the Bible to know that election's all over the Bible. Old Testament, New Testament, Jesus preached it, Paul preached it, Peter preached it. But they hadn't read the Bible to know where it is. And we as God's people that believe in it, you know, you may be a person that believes in it, but you may not know really where it is in the Bible that you could point somebody to where it is. So it's so important that we do read the scriptures and that we have a love for the scriptures and for God himself. And so the Holy Spirit changes us and keeps working in our hearts. He's that hidden man of the heart. And when you feel something tugging in your heart because of your sin, I want to tell you, let me introduce you to him. It is the person of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of things in our life that can make us better people. As a matter of fact, the outward man, we can work on the outward man, can't we? We can comb our hair and put on our makeup, lift a few weights, try to eat right. We can do some things to the outward man, but it's only God that can do something to the inward man. You know, we were talking the other night with some friends, and we were talking about becoming better people. And I said, well, you know, one of the things that's made me a better person is marriage. I thought I was perfect when I got married. But after you've been married a while, you know, your husband or your wife, they can reveal a few flaws you had in you that you really didn't know you had. And when you have children, they'll reveal a few other chinks in your armor. You're pretty perfect, but your kids come along and they start looking at you and saying, well, what about that? I remember one time I ran a stop sign or something and I didn't think anything about it. I didn't think my kids were watching. Dad, you ran a stop sign. So they have a way of kind of straightening you out a little bit. But the Holy Spirit works on the inner man and works in us and continues to work in us. You read Romans chapter seven, the Apostle Paul has a whole chapter in there. And he's talking about this struggle that he has. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He said, I've got this struggle going on in my life. And I keep doing these things that I really don't want to do. And then he gets it right and he goes right back to it, back and forth. So life is a back and forth thing, you know, in this struggle with the inward man and the Holy Spirit. We're thankful that he continues to strive with us in our lives and try to make us better people. So if you feel sorry for sin, let me introduce you to the person of the Holy Spirit. He's still working today, by the way. If you have guilt or inward pain, that's God, the Holy Spirit that's working within your heart. Psalms 18 and 28, David wrote, for thou wilt light my candle, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness. So it is God that gives us light upon our sinful selves, our personal sin. And that's a good prayer, by the way. Lord, show me my sin or my transgressions. David prayed that prayer, which is a good prayer for every one of us. You know, it's kind of one of those prayers that you're thinking, I don't really know if I want to pray this prayer, because if I ask God to show me my sins, that's going to be kind of painful. But you know it's really good for us when we pray that prayer and the Lord starts unveiling, kind of unwrapping ourselves and we start seeing the sin that is indwelling within us that we can be better people. You know this Holy Spirit, I like to think of it as a skilled sculptor. that chips away at us, continues to chip away at this person in bringing something out of a rock that is beautiful. I think it took David three years to, as a sculptor, or Michelangelo, three years to chip away and make David. So the Lord continues to work at us and chip away at us until we become better and better. And I'm not saying this morning that I don't believe in the perfect sanctification of a person, that we are continually sanctified until Jesus comes or until our life is over, that we continue to be, it's called progressive sanctification, that we are progressively sanctified by the Holy Spirit and the Lord keeps working in our hearts and we always get better and better. And we might be the worst we could be. David messed up in his life. We find that Solomon loved many strange women. He didn't get progressively sanctified in his life. But the Lord, I believe, continued to strive in his heart and convict him of his sin. I think he lost a lot of his joy in the later part of his life because he entered into sin and the spirit, I believe, really convicted him. He writes some things later on that you can see that he was very sad about. But if the Holy Spirit is working in your hearts, listen to it. The Holy Spirit can work in our hearts and sometimes we really don't know. what's really going on. Some people are very confused out there. They've never been to church, they've never heard a sermon, they don't read the Bible, and the Lord can be working in their heart, and they don't really know what's going on. They're confused people. We don't wanna be confused. If the Lord's tugging at your heart to be a better person, to be baptized in his name, do it, because you'll receive a great blessing from those things when the Holy Spirit is prompting us. Maybe you have a gift that you haven't used in the church. something that you could be useful in God's kingdom. And you haven't used that, the Holy Spirit's burdening your heart. I would encourage you to follow that because that is God working in you to use you in some particular way. Well, let's move on from Genesis 1 and 2. We've only got the whole Bible to go through now. He said to take my time. We're obviously not gonna get through everything that the Holy Spirit does as I introduce you to him. But let's think about the Holy Spirit again as I introduce him to you. To think about him being a teacher. The Holy Spirit is a teacher, okay? We've had natural teachers in our life. My mother was our second grade teacher and I remember being in her class and Marilyn said that she put me in remedial reading. and that she got to go into the first reading class. I thought about that, but I think my mom told her that so she wouldn't feel bad, because she was actually in the second reading class. No, I'm just kidding, she was probably right. But anyway, the Holy Spirit is a teacher. We find that mentioned several times in the scriptures. In John 14, Jesus said this, but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, and we're gonna look at Him being a Comforter too, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. Now that was the promise of Jesus Christ before his ascension, that the Father was going to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. And he's gonna teach you all things. Well, we know the Holy Spirit's not gonna teach us everything. You have to look at the context. Jesus was talking to them. about the fact that he was going to be crucified. I'm gonna be crucified, and they just could not fathom that Jesus was going to be crucified. And I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna be raised on the third day. They could not understand that. But after Christ was crucified, you remember they were all together at a place called Pentecost? And what was it that set upon the upon the apostles as cloven tongues of fire. It was the Holy Spirit. They were overshadowed with the Holy Spirit. And it was the Holy Spirit when Peter stood up and preached that enabled Peter to preach that great sermon on that day. Their eyes were opened by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus said, this one that you have crucified is Lord in Christ. And then they realized, their eyes were opened as Jesus said, and they understood the things that Jesus was talking about. And they said, men and brethren, what should we do? And Peter said, don't do anything, just go to church. Is that what he said? No, he said, arise and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And 3,000 were baptized on that day. But it was the fulfillment of the promise that was made actually back in the book of Joel. that the spirit would come down and anoint them and that their eyes would be opened. And he does this even today when we understand God's word. If you've been reading the scriptures and something comes out at you and say, I understand that now. That's the Holy Spirit working in your life. I don't know how many times when I was a kid, I tried to read the Bible and you know, it's difficult to understand when you're young. But the Holy Spirit, later in my life, began to open up the Scriptures to the point that I couldn't put it down. I wanted to read it every night. Marilyn knows, she'd go to bed and I'd be up reading the Bible for hours because I was so hungry for it. And that is a blessing for God's people. You know, Jesus said, blessed are those that do hunger and thirst for righteousness. So if you have a hunger and thirst, to know more about the Word of God and more about the person of Jesus Christ, more about your relationship with Him, then you are a very blessed person. You are a person that's very, very blessed by God, chosen by God, and anointed by God. So another thing the Holy Ghost does is He writes God's laws upon our hearts when we are born again. Now he does that all the time, every day. So the Holy Spirit, God is very active. When we start thinking about the work of the Holy Spirit, we see that God is very active every day of our lives and in the lives of many, many people every day. In Hebrews 8, the Apostle Paul says, I will put my laws in their mind, this is verse 10 and 11, write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. Now, Paul's not telling them in that day not to be witnesses for Jesus Christ and try to tell them about Jesus Christ. But what he's telling them is, you as a person cannot make a person know God. God will introduce himself to every one of his elect when he wants to when they are born again and he writes this law upon their hearts and he puts it in their mind. Know me. And when we're born of God's spirit, we know he's there and we may not know much about God until we get a Bible in our hand or get to God's house, but you will know that there is a God. I still love that story by Helen Keller that when they tried to communicate with her and her teacher began to communicate with her by touching her and they introduced her to the person of Jesus Christ. And she said, I already know him, I just didn't know his name. So she knew that there was a God and she knew that there was a Savior, but the introduction of the person of Jesus Christ was something very special to her. Now we live in the Bible Belt and we hear the Bible all the time as children. We hear people talk about Jesus and we come to church, we sing songs about Jesus. So you may not in your own personal life remember a time that you were first introduced to the name of Jesus Christ. I can't go back in a time that I remember when I was first introduced to the name of Jesus Christ. But I like what Brother Lowrance said one time, he said, I can't go back at a time in my life that I can remember that I didn't believe in God. You know, some of God's people are born again even as a child, a little baby. John the Baptist was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit when he was yet in his mother's womb. So you may come out of the womb believing in God, but you may not know much about God until you hear the Bible or you go to church and you hear a preacher preach about it, then that's great evidence that you belong to the Lord. Well, the Holy Spirit is a person, as I've already said, as I introduce you to him. He's not just something that we refer to that has a, he's not just a power. or just something that is invisible, that has no feelings, but the Holy Spirit is a person, the person of the Holy Spirit. We think about God the Father as a person, right? And we know Jesus Christ was a person, we see him as a person, but the Holy Spirit also is a person and he has feelings and love towards us. Just as parents can be grieved in their heart when their children sin or do something that is wrong, we're greatly grieved, aren't we? I don't know about you, but as your children get older, they do some things, and it can make you very sad to see the things your children can do. Well, the Holy Spirit's just like that. In Ephesians 4 and 30, Paul says, and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you're sealed into the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Now this is an encouragement to the church. And be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. When we're in God's house and we're unkind to one another, it grieves the Holy Spirit. Our sin grieves the Holy Spirit. Just as parents, if you have children and they're fighting and they are angry with one another and they make your house an unhappy place, it grieves you as a parent. And God the Holy Spirit is grieved when he sees that go on in his house. He wants us to love one another, pray for one another. to have peace with one another. That's one of the greatest prayers that we can pray, the apostolic benediction where the Apostle Paul prays for every church in the beginning of his epistle, grace and peace be unto you. He's praying that prayer for the churches and we should be praying that ourselves as God's people in his house or we grieve the Holy Spirit. Now I don't know about you, but I don't like to make God sad. I didn't like to make my parents sad. I know sometimes we're not perfect people, but I think that's something that we should have a knowledge of as God's people in his house. Well, another attribute of the Holy Spirit is the attribute of being a comforter. This is something that I've mentioned already, but it's usually the attribute that we hear the most about concerning the Holy Spirit, that he is a comforter. In John 4.16, Jesus said, and he said this in several places, I will pray the Father he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever. Now, the Father is a comforter, isn't he? God the Father, we've received great comfort from God the Father, and Jesus Christ is a comforter himself. But he said, I'm gonna give you another one. Something that they may not have thought about, that you and I may not have thought about, that the Holy Spirit is a comforter, he's another comforter. He is the person that comforts us concerning many things. One thing he does in John 15, 26, Jesus said, but when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me. Now that's one of the main things that the Holy Spirit does as he comforts us. Now again, in our own personal experience, you may not go back to a time that you can think about that you did not know the person of Jesus Christ or what he has done. But consider a person that does not understand that their sins are paid for. They do not understand the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, a person can be in great agony in their souls and in their hearts and in their spirit if they do not understand what Jesus Christ has done for them. I've told the story about being in the Philippines preaching over there and there was a father there that didn't understand about the resurrection or about what happens after death and his son had died or drowned in the ocean over there. And so he buried him in his backyard and dug another grave right beside his son and at night he would go out there and lay in that other grave because he didn't want his son to be alone because he thought his son was still there. But when he came to church and learned about Jesus Christ and the resurrection and about the soul going back to be with Jesus, he was greatly comforted. Can you imagine the torment that man went through? That was horrible. But you know, even as children, people can torment children with some doctrines, even in the Christian church. I remember when I was a child, I was going to a church in a Sunday school. The Sunday school teacher told me if I go home and I'm not baptized that day, if I die, I'm going to hell. Well, I thought about that. I thought, well, I probably deserve it. But I went home, and I couldn't go to bed to sleep that night. I was laying in bed thinking, well, if I die in my sleep, I'm going to hell, and my mom and dad are going to be in heaven, and I'm going to be in hell, and I'm going to be all by myself, and they're going to be with Jesus, and I'm going to be with the devil. I was torment. I mean, it scared me to death. So I went into my mother's bedroom, and I was crying, and she was, I think, reading her Bible, and she sat up in bed, and she said, Sonny, what is wrong with you? Because I was usually a happy child. And I did know I was a sinner, even about 12, that's about 12 years old, maybe. I knew how, I was pretty mean to my brother, and I'd done a lot of things I shouldn't have done. And I maybe even smoked a cigarette, I can't remember. Those things come to your mind. And so, I said, I was crying, I said, Mom, I'm afraid if I die in my sleep tonight, I'm gonna go to hell. And those tears started coming down her face. And I thought, yeah, she knows it's true. She knows I deserve it. That's where I'm going. I said, Mom, why are you crying? She said, well, if you weren't a child of God, you wouldn't worry about it. You're talking about a burden being lifted. The Holy Spirit made that application in my heart. I'm not gonna say I became a primitive Baptist right then, but I'll tell you what, when I came to this church and learned about grace, don't you know that came to my mind? I remembered that joy that I received that night in my heart, that I belonged to God. I went back and laid down on my pillow that night. It was like I was just floating there. The Holy Spirit just engulfed me and I felt so happy. You know, I thought when I went back and laid down, I thought, that's got to be right. I love Jesus. I love God. And surely I love God and Jesus. He wouldn't throw me into hell forever. You know, that's one of the greatest evidences, and I didn't know the Bible back then, but that's one of the greatest evidences that you're already a child of God. John said, he that loveth is born of God. That's past tense. So if you love the Lord, you're already born again. You don't need to do anything to become a child of God. You just need to make a witness of it here in your own personal life of being baptized in his name and let people know who you are and what you believe in. So the Holy Spirit is a great comforter to us, has taught us, taught us that we are saved by the grace of God, by the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, that his blood paid for our sins. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. You know, some people sing that song and they don't even know what they're singing. I don't think nothing but the blood of Jesus. And you say, well, how are you safe? Well, I did this. I did this. I remember one time I asked a young girl how she was saved and she said, I went down front and I read the sinner's prayer. I said, well, what did Jesus do? Oh yeah, he died for me, by the way. He's kind of a side note there. But we believe that Jesus Christ paid it all. That way we can say in our own hearts when we find that comfort of God. Oh, death, where is thy sting? And oh, grave, where is thy victory? We're redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Great, great comfort for us all. But he also comforts us in our trials. You know, when you're going through a trial, you know the Holy Spirit can come into your heart, remind you that the Lord loves you, where you're gonna be one day, that one day this is all gonna be passed, and you're gonna be in a better place than you are right now. Well, another thing about the Holy Spirit that we never want to forget is that he indwells every born-again person. He's in you if you belong to the Lord. In John 14 and 17, Jesus said, but you know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. So the Holy Spirit does dwell within us. As I said, he's the one that works on the inner man. He's working in our own hearts. And the Apostle Paul wrote about it in 1 Corinthians 6. He said, what, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own, for you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God. So that's one of the greatest arguments as a Christian about abortion. You know, they've got these fancy slogans out there that it's the woman's body and she can do with her body what she wants to. No, your body does not belong to you. Your body belongs to the Lord. He bought you with a price. And what you do with that body is God's business. Everything you do with your body is God's business because it belongs to Him. So, remember that. Another thing we find about the Holy Spirit, and I'm running out of time, but let me just give you a few more. He is an intercessor for us every time we pray, okay? So if we think God's not busy, he's busy. If you're praying, God's busy. He's doing something. God is not up there doing nothing. He's not ignoring us. The Holy Spirit is an intercessor for us. In Romans 8.26 Paul says, likewise, The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession with groanings for us which cannot be uttered. There's some things, I don't know if you've gone through a trial in your life, but sometimes when you're going through a trial, you really don't know what to say. You don't know what to say or how to say it. You know, you're approaching the God that created all things. I don't know what to say, Lord. I just need help. You know, some of the best prayers in the Bible are prayers that are very short and somebody just asking God for help. Well, how was that such a great prayer? Because the Holy Spirit made intercession for that person and went between that sinner and God and form that prayer for them. I don't know, I've been around some kids before that, you know, when they first learn to speak, can't do it very well, but mom knows. Mom knows what the child says and she interprets for that child and tells people, this is what he said. He wants another piece of candy or something like that. But the mom can do, well, the Holy Spirit does that for us. There's more about the Holy Spirit. Did you know the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible? Some people forget that. They think, well, Paul wrote the Bible, and Jeremiah wrote the Bible, and Moses wrote the Bible. Well, we know that they are the ones, the human part of that, that penned it. But actually, God, the Holy Spirit, is the author of all of the Bible. That's why we believe in the inerrancy of the scriptures. We believe in the inerrancy of scriptures. We don't believe there's anything, if you got the right Bible, that is. I know there's some Bibles out there that other people have written. But we believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Somebody might say, well, I think that one verse over there, you know, we need to throw that one out. Well, if you throw that one out, what about the others? Somebody else might want to throw it. It's like that farmer that had that watermelon patch and people were stealing watermelons out of his watermelon patch. So he put a sign out there one night and said, there's one poison watermelon in this patch. And he comes back the next day and there is another sign up there and it says, now there are two poison watermelons in that patch. So nobody gets anything. So if you've got one poison watermelon in here, somebody is going to say, well there are two. And then there are three. Well why do you believe? We believe in the inerrancy of the Word of God. In 2 Peter 1 and 21 Peter writes, for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost moved men to speak and to pen the scriptures. In Acts 1.16, Peter makes mention of the scriptures, and this is interesting the way he puts this. He said, men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas. So Peter refers to the things that David wrote, the Psalms, as the mouth and the pen of God. So remember that when you're reading the Bible, and that's one thing that I always loved about reading the Bible, it's one book that you can read that you know that every verse is the absolute truth. What else can you read today that you know is the absolute truth? But you can read this book and believe everything that's in it. So it wasn't Paul's opinion of women, like we hear sometimes when Paul says, I suffer not for a woman to teach or usurp authority over the man. Paul wasn't a womanizer or something like that. Paul was moved by the Holy, that's God speaking. God has authority to say what he wants to say in the church, and that's what he says. When you think about the Holy Spirit, you understand that he had a part in the birth of Jesus Christ. When the angel spoke to Joseph, he said, fear not, taken to thee marry thy wife, for that which is conceived of her is of thee, Holy Spirit. So you see, when you're introduced to the Holy Spirit, there is a lot about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is also a giver of gifts. If you have a gift in the church, he's the person that calls us into the ministry, that gives us the gift to understand the scriptures, the ability to teach it to people, to help people to understand the scriptures. It is the Holy Ghost that calls ministers, evangelists, pastors. He gives us every spiritual gift that we will ever have. Finally, one other I'll just give you this morning, and that is that the Holy Spirit is the author of every good fruit that God's people can bear. Over in the book of Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. All of those things we can look at and say, you know, I need to be a little more temperate. I need to have a little bit more love. Did you ever ask God that you might love him more than you love him today? Somebody might say, I think I love God all I can love. No, no you don't. You probably don't love your husband or wife as much as you could. But we can love God more than we love. That might be a good thing for us this year, is to learn how that we might love God more. Well, I pray this has been a blessing to you as the new year unfolds in your life. I pray that you will be mindful of the person of the Holy Spirit and his work in your life. Thank you. And what a wonderful message to start the year with. One thing that came to mind, you mentioned something about people being in ignorance, and this is kind of a challenge and a call to action to our church for this year. Maybe this is something we should set our minds on this year. You can be born of the Spirit of God and be living in ignorance and suffering as a result of your lack of understanding of what the Lord has done. And I think as primitive Baptists, we tend to underestimate the amount of spiritual suffering that other Christian people have because of the religious ideas that they have embraced that cause them to suffer. Brother Sonny talked about having heard that, you know, if you don't get baptized tonight, you're going to go to hell. There's a lot of those ideas out there in the world of Christianity And they cause people who are in ignorance of that to suffer and they may not ever say much anything to you about it But they may be lying awake at night staring at the ceiling in their ignorance, and they need comfort Years ago, when Andrew was little, he got a tummy ache, really bad one. He was just a little guy, and it was very distressing. And we ended up taking him to the emergency room, cuz we're like, I don't know, he may be gonna die or something. I mean, it was very, very distressing. We went to the emergency room, saw the doctor, got to talking to him, found out he ate an entire thing of Rolos. You know what I'm talking about, those little chocolate covered, And they were all just bound up in there and he was a mess. He was hurting him. The doctor said, ain't nothing wrong with him. It's just gonna have to work its way out. And you know what? When we were in ignorance of what was going on there, Catherine and I were miserable. We were thinking this could be really bad, right? That didn't make it bad, it made it bad for us. The reality was that situation was gonna pass, he was gonna be fine. But we didn't experience the deliverance in that until we had a good physician come to us and say, it's gonna be okay. That's what the gospel does to God's people who are in ignorance out there, who are worried this is not gonna turn out well. I'm in ignorance. When they hear what Christ has done, they can enter into the rest of what Christ has done. And what I'm going to tell you is that you know people, all of us know people around us who are dwelling in some measure of that ignorance of gospel particulars. Let's commit ourselves this year to try to get some of those people into the church so that they hear the truth that it's going to be all right. Jesus Christ said it's going to be all right. That's where we find rest is when you recognize that Jesus Christ has finished the work. Thank you for listening to SuccessfulSavior.org, the ministry of Harmony Primitive Baptist Church. This has been Elder Neal Phelan, Jr. preaching from one of our regular meetings. Come and join us as we worship God in the simplicity of Christ every Sunday morning at 416 North Hall Street in Donaldson, Arkansas. At Harmony, we don't have many things that are so common in the religion of our day, but we do have a successful Savior. We invite you to come and see.