HOLY SPIRIT -LOVE GIFT FATHER & SON. Jon 14,15.16

Before our Lord Jesus promised the Comforter, He assured His disciples that mighty things waited for His obedient children. ’Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father.’ The disciples expected the Lord to do the same mighty things that HE had done over three and a half years. Furthermore, the Saviour promised ‘greater works than these you shall do‘, because His return to heaven was imminent. Mighty encouragement to them: and to us.

Our Lord reinforced His promise with ‘ Whatever you ask in My Name, I will do, that the Father may be glorified in His Son.’ The only qualification was to ask

‘In My Name’, followed by the purpose, ’the glorifying of the Father in His Son’. His disciples expected glorious doings. The assurance linked with the promise, ‘If you ask anything in my Name (v14), I will do it. Oh, the Power of that holy Name.

Then the private prayer that included the three members of the Godhead. ‘I will pray the FATHER. He will give you another Helper (of the same nature, kind or ilk) That He may abide with you for ever. (v16)

This was important, for the Lord Jesus in His earthly ministry could not be present geographically in two places simultaneously. Nor could He speak to more than one person or crowd at the same moment. Even in His resurrection body, our Lord chose to limit Himself to be with the Emmaus disciples, then vanishing to speak with Simon Peter; then reappearing in the upper room with His faithful disciples. Now he assured them that the Helper would abide with them forever. This would totally compensate for the Lord’s absence in His return to heaven.

How could this Person ( the third Person of the trinity ) abide unchangeably with every follower? This defies all reasonable hope of having an ever-abiding Helper alongside and within each life. The amazing likelihood of divine assistance was soon to be available for each lover of the Lord. Paul wrote, ’that if any man has not the Spirit of God, he is none of His.’ (Romans 8:9). The Holy Spirit was essential. He also wrote in 1 Cor 6:19,20, ’Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,’ while in 12:13, he referred to the godly stirring in every life. ‘By one spirit, we have all been baptized into one body.’ God excludes no saint.

The world‘s hatred of Christ is recorded in chapter 15:18-25., where it states that ‘They hated Me without a cause, culminating in calvary.‘ From the suffering of Calvary and the ensuing triumph of the resurrection, He gave the hope of the coming of another Person. ‘But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of TRUTH, Who proceeds from the Father, HE WILL TESTIFY OF ME, surely the supreme task of the Spirit of God. Observe that the risen Lord actually sends the Spirit to the believers. So deeply did our Lord love his infinitely precious church, He actually bought it with His own blood.

The disciples should have been excited with the coming of the Helper at Pentecost.

The SON sent Him from the FATHER and the SON: the blessed. Trinity. The GOD HEAD of 3 PERSONS will farewell the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, regardless of the cost. Who could estimate the sacrifice of the Holy Spirit in leaving heaven after the Lord Jesus had been reunited around heaven’s throne. The Lord ascended to heaven forty days after His resurrection. Ten days later, for an assignment of 2000 years or so, the Comforter will live in the lives of the redeemed on earth.

Every believer is empowered to witness, (v26,27 ) because the ‘Helper will testify of me.’ He is our dynamic, daily teller of the glory of the gospel. Do you enjoy His empowering when you are with friends, associates and loved ones?

‘It is to your advantage that I go away.’ for if I do not go away, the HELPER will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.’ 16:7 Were the disciples grieved that their Lord would leave them, and return to heaven? Did they doubt their survival in His absence? The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet crucified. They could not imagine a coming Helper to enable and energise them to do ‘Greater things than these, because the Lord would go to the Father.’

They could not dream of the marvellous work of God’s Spirit at Pentecost when 3000 turned to Christ: nor the 85,000 that heard George Whitfield preach with only a brass sounding board for resonance: nor when Billy Graham spoke to one million South Koreans on an old air force field: or that 100 million Chinese would be born of the Lord in the house church of China. Or that more saints would be martyred for faith in the Lord in the last century than all the preceding centuries.

Nor could they picture the prayer meetings of Count Zinzendorf which continued unbroken for 100 years, from which missionaries moved to the corners of the earth.

Nor the 4.30 a.m prayer meetings in Seoul South Korea every morning, every month and year. The Holy Spirit gave the Spirit of prayer to the believing church.

Noela had been converted from a home and life-style, where the Lord’s Name was blasphemed. As she read her bible, the Spirit of God taught her the invaluable truths of that Holy word. She delighted in bible teaching, firstly at home, and then among women. Her husband resisted, taunted and opposed her for many years.

Fighting for breath, even on continuous oxygen, he finally bowed to the Lord Jesus and received his wife’s Saviour as his. I visited him in hospital, confirming that my former patient had become a new creature in Christ Jesus. I wept as I prayed with Jim, blessing God who had faithfully pursued hssim down through the years.

‘It is to your advantage that I go away’ rightly spoke our dear Lord. Peter told us, ’Repent, and let everyone of you be baptized in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ( Acts 2:38 )