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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

The Final Work of the Holy Spirit

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to dive into your Word and to study your truths.

Once again, Lord, I ask that you just make me a nail on the wall, a rusty, sorry nail, Lord, but upon that nail I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

We need to hear a word from the throne room of grace.

And Lord, I ask in a special way now that you just bind the enemy, send him far from here.

And Lord, give angels that excel in wisdom and strength charge over this place now we pray in Jesus name, amen.

All right so if you have your Bible go with me to the book of Matthew chapter 12, Matthew chapter 12 where most of what we're gonna read will come from.

Matthew chapter 12 starting with verse 22.

Matthew 12 verse 22 the Bible says, Then was brought unto him 1 possessed with a devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.

Matthew 12 is an interesting chapter in the story of the life of Christ.

In the verses preceding this, Jesus actually heals on the Sabbath.

He's then challenged by the Pharisees about whether or not he's keeping the Sabbath.

First, His disciples pick corn and they challenge him then he heals a withered a man with a withered hand and the hand is restored and so they are really coming after Jesus and they are denying his divinity and they really are angry and Already are at the scene where they are at the stage where they are plotting to kill Jesus.

What bothered them so much, the verse 22, after you read verse 22 is verse 23.

And all the people were amazed and said, is not this the son of David?

When they saw the miracle, especially this miracle, a man who could not speak and could not see, who everyone knew was full of a demon, when they saw that Christ was able to vanquish the demon and at the same time restore sight and speech in this man everyone saw this and realized wait a minute this is not just some average guy this is the Son of David meaning he's the Messiah he is the divine Son of God and with this with this a powerful statement was made.

But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, this fellow doth cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.

They did not want to give him credit and if you read the commentary, the SDA commentary on this, if you read the Spirit of Prophecy on this, if you even read Matthew's comment, you read all the commentary, 1 thing that comes to mind is that they were so calloused and hardened against who Jesus was that they would rather give the devil credit for what God was doing than to give it to Jesus.

They were so messed up and so angry that Jesus was doing what he was doing saying what he was saying reaching the people he was reaching that they were ready to give Satan credit for the work of God Beelzebub is an interesting word I'll just give a little background on Beelzebub.

You'd have to go back to 2nd Kings chapter 1 actually, you don't have to turn there, but it was King Haziaya who fell, do you remember he was walking in his palace, fell through the latticework in his palace, injured himself, and when he, this is in the northern kingdom of Israel, when he injured himself what he did was instead of asking for God's to give him a prognosis on his injuries he sent to the town of Ekron and asked that that Baal, Baal Zabub would give him an answer as to how he would do.

When the prophet Elijah heard that this is what happened he came and told him because you didn't call on God and you called on Baal you're gonna die of your injuries.

When the Pharisees referenced Jesus calling on Beelzebub or using Beelzebub as their power, it is, if you understand in the context of the Old Testament, You can see it as they were literally wishing death on him.

And church, I can tell you that what we are seeing in the world today, Beelzebub is still at work.

There's an interesting show everyone is talking about, and I don't know if you should watch it so I won't say the name of the show except it's about a family, true story in Utah and the woman was like a vlogger and would have her whole family on this show, I don't know, 6 or 7 or 8 kids, how many kids she had and ultimately a woman came into the house that was giving him advice, and on the show, people, everybody on social media is talking about the show, the woman becomes possessed with a devil, the woman who comes into the house, and takes over the house, and what they tell me, or what you read is, that on this show, this woman is demon possessed and they have it recorded and all of America now, at least a lot of young America, is watching the show and realizing that the devil still controls people.

Church, we are living at a time when as God's Spirit is withdrawn from the earth, the devil is going to step out and do more and more.

And we have to be careful as to what we do, because the enemy of our souls is gonna work harder today than he ever has.

Then verse 25, the Bible says, "'And Jesus knew their thoughts and said unto them, "'Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to what?

And every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.

It's 1 of the best arguments against what they accuse him of you could make.

He says in verse 26, and if Satan cast out Satan he is divided against himself how shall then his kingdom stand?

Everyone had seen that this man was blind, Everyone had seen that this man couldn't speak.

Everyone knew the man was possessed by a devil.

If it was Satan who cast out Satan, Satan's kingdom would not last.

You've been studying the Sabbath school less than this quarter, and especially even this week, you realize that There is a true cosmic conflict, a great controversy, a war between God and Satan.

And in this war, as we were talking about in Sabbath school, there are rules of engagement, and it would make no sense for Satan to fight against himself.

Satan's enemy is not the other demons, his enemy is God, and he wants to make us collateral damage.

Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself.

With that, that was a pretty strong argument.

But this verse is the 1 that really, really makes it, starts to make it plain.

Verse 27 says this, and if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, then Jesus asked the Pharisees, then by whom do your children cast them out?

Meaning who do your followers cast the devils out by?

Because when you read the commentaries and some of the history on this, in that era there was a lot of exorcism.

And you remember the 7 sons of Sheva later on, there are all these stories in the Bible of false people trying to, or at least a few of false prophets trying to cast out demons, and it goes bad for them.

What we understand is that the Pharisees used to actually use the name of some of the demons to cast out demons.

They were literally accusing Christ of what they did and this is why Jesus says therefore they shall be your judges Because they were doing what they were trying to accuse Jesus of.

And that's why he says, if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out?

But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.

If I'm casting out devils by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God basically has arrived.

To misunderstand the work of the Holy Spirit is very dangerous.

When you look at the verse that we just read, Jesus says, but if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come unto you.

If you misunderstand the working of the Holy Spirit, you're in trouble.

And this misunderstanding in our day and age is caused by a misunderstanding of who the Holy Spirit is.

There is nothing Satan wants more in these last days for you to have a misconception of who the Holy Spirit is.

There's nothing that would work better in his favor than for you to not Understand how the Holy Spirit works and who the Holy Spirit is now, so how does this happen?

How is it that the devil is trying to make the Holy Spirit impotent or powerless in our lives.

Number 1, he will try and convince us to deny the personhood and the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

He wants to make it so the Holy Spirit is not God.

Make it so the Holy Spirit is not a person.

If the devil can do that, then the power and protection that comes with the Holy Spirit, you will forfeit it.

The second thing, make the Holy Spirit something people control rather than the Holy Spirit controlling people.

And I've been to churches like this, where you go into the church and folk are trying to control the Holy Spirit.

They're speaking in words and utterances no 1 understands, running around in the church, jumping, flipping, dancing, doing all this stuff, and saying it's the Holy Spirit.

And on their command, the Holy Spirit will make them do this, that, and the other.

The work of the Holy Spirit is not that we control him, it's that he controls us.

These are 2 great misconceptions and deceptions that will cause people in the last days to miss out on the latter rain.

Evangelism 617 says this, the Holy Spirit has a personality, else he could not bear witness to our spirits and with our spirits that we are the children of God.

He must also be a divine person, else he could not search out the secrets which lie hidden in the mind of God.

For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?

Even so the things of God knoweth no man but who?

The Holy Spirit is divine and a person hence he is referred to as a he.

First John 5 to make the point of the importance of the Holy Spirit, 1st John 5 7 says for there are 3 that bear record in heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost.

To give up the divinity and personality of Christ or the Holy Spirit is to deny 2 of the 3 witnesses in heaven.

That bear record, I should say, in heaven.

Well, you have to understand the final work of the Holy Spirit.

Number 1, and we'll go through a few of these, the number 1, the final work of the Holy Spirit first is to seal the church.

It is to seal the church with the seal of the living God.

Number 2, he is a comforter and he is given as a comforter but especially that work will happen during the time of trouble as we will see.

The third 1 I've referenced already but we'll get to it more succinctly is that his work is to hold the enemy at bay.

It is to drive Satan back, drive Satan out of your life, drive Satan out of your atmosphere.

The fourth 1, which I won't get into much, I'll just say a little bit on it is the unity of and in the church The work of the Holy Spirit is what unifies us what separates us from a and you can see our country and our society Polarizing more and more The church should be going in the opposite direction.

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The Final Work of the Holy Spirit

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