The Holy Spirit
20 September 2026
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you
(John 16:13-14)
Please turn with me in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, to chapter 16. As we continue this series, this topical series looking at the subject of The Church, today we come to look at Another big, significant subject within that, and that is the Holy Spirit. So, we're going to read John 16, just 2 verses as we begin to look at this. We're going to read John 16 from verse 13. This is the Word of God.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Amen.
Let's pray together. O Father, we pray that this would be a time which is profitable for the souls of your people. As we think about the Holy Spirit in the life and work of the church, we pray that you would work by your Spirit to teach, to shape, to instruct us in the understanding of this weighty subject. We pray for the preaching of your word to be honouring in your sight, that Christ would be magnified, for we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
So, as we deal with this yet another very big and significant subject in and of itself, this is one of these topics that, like some of the others we've already dealt with, are so quickly and then rapidly misunderstood and grossly misapplied in the life of the church. But as a working premise and focus, if we were to say something along the lines of, well, the church should be filled or have the Holy Spirit, that would be something that surely is a good thing, a right thing, and something that we would want this and any church to have. And certainly, that would be the case, but then we get to the details of what that actually means, and where we come to a sermon like this where we unpack some of the key aspects and applications. Because when it comes to having or being filled with the Holy Spirit as a church, what are we to look for? Are we to suggest or consider that maybe some churches have the Holy Spirit, others do not?
And how can we tell those who do have the Holy Spirit? Is it those who are the most seemingly passionate and energetic? Is it those who display that which we would consider to be supernatural, things that are out with the ordinary? How are we to make sense of this vast and lofty subject? Well, we begin by dealing with who the Holy Spirit is.
And this is very important to get the initial crucial building block, because when speaking on the Holy Spirit, we are speaking about someone, not something. Now, that might seem like pretty basic a thing to state, but it needs to be stated and clarified in our minds as we begin to then unpack some subsequent questions.
Because as we come to an understanding of the gospel and a belief, a saving faith in Jesus Christ, the second person of the triune God, this one God in 3 persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When we come to the subject of the Holy Spirit and how this applies in the life of the church, we are dealing with the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit, for this one God is one God in 3 persons, co-equal, co-eternal. And so, therefore, with that alone being established, it already gives us the weight for seeing that the Holy Spirit being at work, being present in the life of the church, is speaking about God Himself being at work, being present in the life of the church. And when we understand that we're speaking about God Himself, the third person of the triune God, it is very clear to therefore state that a church is not a church if that church does not have the Holy Spirit. So, that already establishes this point. To be a church means to have the Holy Spirit, because it means to have God. For the someone is God, His Spirit at work in our midst.
Now, with that established, we then consider many of the outworkings, the applications of this. And we're going to break this into 2 key topics here this morning. We're going to consider the work that the Holy Spirit does, and then we're going to think more specifically in terms of, in our lives and application, the gifts of the Holy Spirit at work and through us, His people in the church. So, the work of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit will be the 2 key areas that we're going to deal with in our time, having established who the Holy Spirit is.
The work that the Holy Spirit does
So first we deal with what the Holy Spirit does, and we come to this text that we looked at in John 16. Now, in this text, the Lord Jesus is preparing the disciples who are then, as we see, his apostles in the time of Acts and the establishing of the church.
He's preparing them for that time which is to come, a formative time because, as we likely already should know, that will be the time after Jesus has been crucified on that cruel cross. He has died for sinners with his blood being shed. He's been buried in a tomb. He's risen on the third day, alive, victorious over sin and death, ascended to be seated at the right hand of the majesty on high. All of that having happened and then we have what he is promising in John 16 then happening. Because in John 16, we see he is promising the coming of the Holy Spirit.
And this is why, for those of you who've gone through our church membership course, this text here, John 16, verses 13 to 14, would likely, arguably be the first passage that I would take anyone to when dealing with the topic of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. Because there are 2 key points that we find in this text, in these 2 verses, about what the Holy Spirit does. The first one is found in verse 13, where you'll note that the Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of truth. That is deliberate, and it is pointed to give us an idea of what the Holy Spirit has come to do. The Spirit of truth, what is He going to do? What will He do for the apostles, the early church? What will He do for us, the church, today? He will guide us into all the truth. That's the first thing. That is our staple foundation by understanding what the Holy Spirit does. He will guide us as the Spirit of truth into all truth. And that's what we see working itself out from the time of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles.
What do they do? They proclaim the gospel with passion, certainly, with conviction, absolutely, but they are fired up by the Holy Spirit. They proclaim this life-saving message, calling sinners to repent, and by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit is then at work, convicting and saving people by the thousands, and the church begins, it establishes, it grows, and then eventually we see many churches being established in all of the different regions in which this truth, emboldened, empowered by the Spirit, is proclaimed. This is the foundation of the church, and it is Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered, and it is truth. It is truth. Now, if we go back to some of the building blocks we've dealt with in previous sermons in this series, we think back to how the church came into being and how the church has grown. And this is where, in this time of Acts, it would be described as the apostolic foundation, where the apostles were proclaiming this truth.
So, if we're wondering, well, how do we know what the truth is? Everyone would say, oh, well, I'm telling the truth, that person's lying. How do we know truth from error, that sort of thing? Well, here we have it in the word of God, because God is truth. His word is truth. And so therefore, the people who are then filled and empowered with the Spirit, they are the ones who have the message of truth. This gospel message, the word of God that we now have before us, that is the truth. So, when we have the apostles, they are filled with the Spirit, they speak this truth, and as that foundation is established, what are we then given to know the means by which we understand truth? The living and abiding word of God which is before our eyes.
This is a living and active word. Yes, it's contained on pages, on paper, in a book which is compiled. So yes, someone can look at it and say, well, that looks like a book like any other, but we know by the Spirit of God, by the Holy Spirit's work, this is a book which is alive to us, and we know it to be the truth. And why? Because the Holy Spirit reveals this as truth.
Now, this is crucial to stress, brothers and sisters, because as we see before us, this inspired word, all scripture being God-breathed, is the truth which divides from error. It's how we know the difference between right and wrong, light and darkness, life and death. It reveals the means by which we can be saved by the grace of God, and the Holy Spirit does such a work in His word, in this truth. So, the first thing the Holy Spirit does is to reveal truth.
The second thing, which is also crucial, is that the Holy Spirit has come for a specific purpose. Verse 14, Jesus speaking says - He will glorify me. This Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, will come, and He will glorify Jesus Christ. So, if we're wondering, the Holy Spirit comes to do what? 2 pillars are found in this text - reveal truth and glorify Christ. If we want to go to what does the Holy Spirit do, and we can only think of the 2 key things to say, it is to reveal the truth, reveal this truth, to illuminate the word of God, which we have before us, and also, crucially, to glorify Christ.
Now, think of this, even at the point of your conversion, which, as we see in Ephesians 1:13- 14, is sealed by the Holy Spirit. This is what the Holy Spirit has come to do in the life of the unregenerate sinner, to be born again, to be made alive. The Holy Spirit does this work by shining the light on the gospel and revealing this truth to your heart, taking out a heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh. This regenerating work is what the Holy Spirit does, and in doing so, in saving you, this glorifies Christ, the Saviour who you now believe in and confess with your lips, my Lord and my God. The Holy Spirit does this work.
Christ is who is illuminated, and the Spirit of God has breathed that new life into you (John 3), sealing our salvation (Ephesians 1), giving us the assurance as sons of God (Galatians 4), transforming us into Christ's image (2 Corinthians 3), and making us holy (1 Thessalonians 4). Work the Holy Spirit has done, is doing in you, and in so doing glorifies the Son by taking what is His and declaring it to you. He is Christ-centred, Christ-exalting in His work.
Now, this therefore means by default the Holy Spirit has not come to glorify you, me, we, or our ministry, our ministries. Anything that we do, any ministries that we are blessed to serve and be part of is a work that the Holy Spirit does, and it is because truth has been revealed and Christ is being glorified. That's what the Holy Spirit does.
Now, have these bumper tracks, if you like, in view and consider already, if anything, that you have ever heard or supposedly seen, which is claiming to be the Spirit moving. This is the work of the Holy Spirit and it is not within the tracks that we see already established as foundation on this topic, then we already know that not only have we slightly missed the mark, but very likely we have veered very, very far away from what is the work of the Holy Spirit.
And it needs to be stressed, again, crucially, this work that the Holy Spirit is doing is not simply a work that is somewhere out there, where's the Holy Spirit? No, we also find that He dwells in us, in the church. Something we considered in our communion this morning, 1 Corinthians 6:19 - Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? Do we stop and dwell on the saving reality that the Holy Spirit is in you, at work in you, alive in you?
This is why we have exhortations and applications in texts like Romans 8, which speaks of us not being of the flesh, but of the Spirit. This is a marked change. It's a transformation in you, and the Spirit has done this, where we can boldly proclaim that we are not of this world. We are born again. We are alive in the Holy Spirit. And we see that, therefore, with the Holy Spirit being alive and at work in us, that He comforts us (Acts 9:31). He empowers us (Jude 20). He helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26), by the Holy Spirit who is abounding in the hope that we have (Romans 15:13).
And then we go to texts like Galatians 5:22-23, where we have the fruit of the Spirit giving us a visual, visible picture of what this life by and work of the Holy Spirit in us looks like. This is the work that the Holy Spirit does within the individual, and by the grace of God in the church. Think of 2 Corinthians 13:14, where it says that He is knitting us together in fellowship. Why and how could we pray for unity in the life of the church? By the Holy Spirit's work.
The Holy Spirit is the one who emboldens the preaching of God's Word (Acts 4:31). He empowers our singing (Ephesians 5:18). We worship in the Spirit of God (Philippians 3:3). Everything about what we do as the church is by the work of the Holy Spirit, present, filling, guiding, directing, convicting, empowering us in all that we do. So yes, to be the church is to be Holy Spirit-filled.
Now, one question we may then ask is, well, should we then pray for the Holy Spirit to be at work in us? Should we pray for that filling of the Holy Spirit? Well, let's just quickly turn to Acts 2, that text we've covered on a few occasions, which is Acts 2, and we'll read verse 38. At the end of this sermon at Pentecost, there is a conviction of sin in the hearts of thousands of the hearers. They ask, well, brothers, what shall we do? And this is what Peter says in verse 38 - And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”. And note this – “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”.
Now, at this point, we're not dealing with our second area, which is gifts of the Holy Spirit, because this is not the word charisma, where we get the word charismatic, which is found in texts like 1 Corinthians 12. No, this is the gift of the Holy Spirit given to any who will be saved. So again, if we've ever heard any teaching along the lines of, well, you get saved and then later on you need to get the Holy Spirit again, although we see here, right in this formative text, it is the Holy Spirit who comes upon you and is in you at work in you when you are saved. So, there's not, well, I'm a Christian, but I don't have the Holy Spirit. No, you have the Holy Spirit.
Now, with having the Holy Spirit, we recognize that this side of eternity, we still will be tempted by sin, a potential of being ensnared by the evil one, and all manners of fleshly distractions and distortions, even in the household of God. So, on that framework, because the Holy Spirit is at work in us, we pray that the Holy Spirit would do a mighty work. We pray that we would be filled and emboldened in what we do, for example, in the Lord’s Day.
Now, that's not contradictory, because the Holy Spirit drives us to pray for this, because we know that the enemy is going to come in and seek to fix our gaze back on the fleshly. And so, the Holy Spirit brings about that conviction and a desire for, I pray that the Holy Spirit would be the one who would be at work in me, that I would be fixing my gaze on the one in whom I now live for, which is my Lord and Saviour. And in this, we don't have a contradiction, we have the blessing of a life lived as a Christian by the Holy Spirit's work in us.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit
Now, with that established in terms of some of these key ways in which the Holy Spirit works in our lives, we come then to the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, this first category, the work of the Holy Spirit, is a work that the Holy Spirit does in everyone's life who is saved and who is growing in holiness, a people born again and set apart. The Holy Spirit is at work in each of us. And now we come to the specifics of He also gives us certain gifts, gifts which differ from one member to the next within the church body.
In 1 Peter 4:10 it says – As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. So, note this language. Each has received a gift, and then there's the exhortation of what to do with it. So, first of all, when it comes to work of the Holy Spirit and the giving of spiritual gifts—and this is this word charisma, where we get the word charismatic—well, what does that look like in practice in my life and in the life of the church? Because as we know, individually, people on this earth, while we have many talents and abilities, may be good at playing instruments, good at sports, good organization, all of these sorts of things. Now, God can sanctify and use certain talents when we become Christians, but we're asking specifically, what makes something a spiritual gift?
Well, it is something given by God, as we see in texts like 1 Peter 4:10, and the purpose of a gift given by God is to bring glory to the Son, as we saw in John 16, and it brings unity to and it builds up the church.
In 1 Corinthians 12:7, a chapter which teaches us about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It says in verse 7 - To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. So, when we deal with true charisma, to be charismatic is something which is given by God for the purpose of uniting, blessing, and building up the body of Christ for the glory of Christ. That's what it means to be charismatic. This is why, as I've said before on this subject, it is not to say that false teaching churches which claim to be charismatic, well, they get that title and we have to settle for something else. No, as a biblical church, we are a charismatic church because we have the Holy Spirit at work in us and giving us gifts which are being used in the life of the church body to build up this church body and to glorify Christ.
Now, just contrast this with what can be described as counterfeit charismania, which is often where the title spirit-filled is so often used. And often in such settings, it involves Bibles being closed. So, remember Spirit of Truth, John 16:13. There is very much a lot of the hyping up of the emotions, whipping up a storm. And in such contexts where the church, maybe leadership, is going to invite the Holy Spirit to move freely in this place, and we have the audacity to think, that this is what the Holy Spirit does. As though we're channelling some sort of energy and we'll try some type of meditation which can be likened to false religious practices where unqualified men and women are leading a mix of the saved and the unsaved and spiritually immature into all manners of what quickly becomes demonic and godless practices. Worship which is chaotic, irreverent, blasphemous, it's chaos.
And yet this, in our modern society, in church life, is what has become the definition of charismatic and Spirit-filled. Brothers and sisters, we need to be very clear and precise that we're not just going to step away from such terminology, but we're going to clarify from scripture what such terminology means and looks like in our individual lives and in the life of the church. Because to have spiritual gifts being used in the life of the church is what being charismatic means. That's what it means. That is what it means to be filled and blessed and gifted by the Holy Spirit.
Now, brothers and sisters, as we think of this, when we consider some of the dangers and the challenges of misapplications and even false teachings on this, think back to the foundations of John 16. The Spirit reveals truth and glorifies Christ. And the gifts that he gives to us are not going to contradict truth, and they are going to glorify Christ. It is for the sake of Christ, and it is for the sake of his bride, which is the church. And this is why the apostle Paul elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 14:12 says - So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church. In building up the church.
How many times have you likely, have I had conversations with people who are often disconnected with the church, some not even attending any, or if they are, they're floating in and out and they're not committed to it, because they're waiting for the Holy Spirit to call them to do something big for his kingdom. Even yesterday, out in our street evangelism, a self-professing evangelist who says that he feels most alive when he has a mic in his hand. Now, brothers and sisters, this sort of so-called Holy Spirit filling is simply people using spiritual language to gratify the desires, the pride, and the idolatry of the flesh.
To be Spirit-filled and to have spiritual gifts is to recognize that as one who was belonging to the kingdom of darkness, now you are what? You are a child of God. You belong to the kingdom of the beloved Son, and you now live for and worship Christ, and you are so blessed and so privileged to be part of what? His church body. You are individually a member of this body, and the Lord has filled you with His Spirit, and He gives you gifts to be used for that purpose, not for yourself and your own ministry to get onto a certain platform or whatever it may be. That is not the work of the Holy Spirit. The gifts that He gives us are to be used for the sake of glorifying Christ and building each other.
And if you're maybe thinking at this time, well, I'm not really quite sure what my gifts are, how can I function in the life of the church? Well, you function in the life of the church by recognizing that you are still one who is filled with the Holy Spirit. You are one who is born again, and the Lord has ordained to bring you into fellowship with these brothers and sisters, and so you have the opportunity right here this day to serve one another for the building up of one another. And very quickly, as time goes on, gifts that you have become clear in the life and practice of the local church. And this is where it can be a blessing to others. If you're someone who is very quick and prone to speak to and encourage people in their ministry, in their gifts, in their Christian character, this could well be where a gift of encouragement is being used, and this can also be used to encourage others to be an encouragement to brothers and sisters in the life of the church.
And if, for example, you maybe think, well, I've got a gift of teaching, but I've not really had a big opportunity by which to use this, that could even begin by sitting alongside and spending time with a brother or sister in the life of the church by which you can be caring for, and beginning to teach biblical truths, even applying biblical truths, by which you are building up your fellow believers and strengthening the church body. This is the supernatural work that the Spirit does in gifts that he gives to build up one another and to glorify Christ. It's clothed in humility. It is not driven by a desire for the sensational. The Holy Spirit in the work that He does in glorifying Christ, that is what is spectacular to behold. We should not be jumping, trying to strive for some of that action because we know by the grace of God that it is the Spirit's work in us, that the Holy Spirit will do supernatural and mighty works.
And it often looks like in the small and the mundane, where you've spent time week after week serving and even using your gift in the same area, where something that you thought wasn't that big of a talent has been a gift that the Lord has used in that instrument that you've played, in the way by which you organize, in the way by which you speak to your brothers and sisters, where there is then increasing visible fruit in the life, blessing, and growth of the church. And this is what makes for a healthy, Spirit-filled, growing, vibrant local church. That is what it means to be filled with and for gifts of the Holy Spirit to be used in the life of the church.
Now with this said, we do need to spend a bit of time in our closing minutes to consider the supernatural element of the way by which the Holy Spirit has and does work in the life of Christians. Because as many of you will likely be aware, when it comes to teaching on the Holy Spirit, and especially the subject of gifts of the Holy Spirit, often what is very quickly meant or assumed by that subject are 3 specific gifts, namely prophecy, healing, and tongues. So, let's deal with these subjects in our closing minutes and understand what they look like from Scripture with the Spirit of truth revealing truth and what this means for us, the church, today.
So, let's deal first with the subject of prophecy. So, when we deal with the word prophecy, this definition means to speak forth by divine revelation. So, it is speaking the word of God. Now if we were to spend any amount of time reading through portions of the word of God, we would find that there were those who were called prophets. Many, in fact, who were called prophets. And what we find, particularly as we look in the Old Testament, is many of the ones who were called prophets were nothing of the sort. Because a prophet is one who speaks the word of God perfectly and in its entirety, because you are literally being used as a mouthpiece to speak forth God's word.
So, when a prophet, a true prophet of God was called by God, that is what he did. He didn't give you bits and pieces where there were some meat on the bone and you had to spit out the bones and the bad bits. No, everything was perfect. It is God's word. That is what it means to be a prophet. And there were prophets who served God in this way throughout the Holy Scriptures. Now, a big question is then asked, well, do we have such prophets today? And if we look around, it doesn't take us very much effort to see that there are many people who would be self-professing prophets.
I think I've mentioned this story once before to some of you where I remember an incident many years ago. It was during the COVID time and there were online videos that were being spread out quite quickly. And it was of a conversation that the pastor of one of these so-called charismatic churches was having with this woman who was called a prophet or a prophetess, one of these titles. And she was giving the pastor and the church the words from God. And then the pastor had a follow-up question regarding what God's saying about this specific area, and this prophet prophetess said, oh, I'm not really sure, I haven't heard from God about that yet, as though this woman had a special hotline to God. Now, let's consider the fundamental danger and blasphemous foundation of this so-called modern-day prophecy. And it's before our eyes as we look at the word of God.
If some were to say, oh, well, are you stifling the Holy Spirit? Are you putting Him in a box? No, what we declare is, no, the Holy Spirit has decreed it and made it that His word is contained in a book, which is the Bible. And it is authoritative in our life, and that, as we see again in John 16, is what the Holy Spirit has come to reveal to us. Think how chaotic, how crazy it becomes if we've got our Bible, which maybe sometimes we open up, and other times we have someone who comes to the front and says, well, I've got a word from the Lord for you today. So, which is it? Is it the Bible or is it this word from the Lord? What are we to make of this? You put the two into competition. What is the authority? We have a complete explosion by which eventually what we have of the congregations is they will do what is right in their own sight, and they will attribute, well, the Holy Spirit is telling me to do this. And if it contradicts the Bible, well, you had a word from the Lord.
And that is fundamentally the exact opposite of what the Holy Spirit has come to do. There is a progression in what God has ordained throughout the time and history of humanity. And we are blessed, we're not restricted, we are blessed to be the church of Jesus Christ who are standing with the hindsight and the oversight over this word that is before us, which is the authority by which we stand, and the Holy Spirit reveals this truth through that. And so if we're thinking, well, the Holy Spirit's leading me to do this, He's guiding me in this direction, then we will know that if we're thinking He's leading us there, there, and everywhere, and it's contradicting the word of God, we already can know that's not where the Holy Spirit's leading me, because the foundation of our authority is what we have in the Scriptures. That is what the Holy Spirit himself reveals. And it's why right at the end of the Bible, Revelation 22:18, it says - I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book.
If you add to the scriptures, so when it comes to definitions of being prophetic today, in the time of the scriptures, we see it as speaking forth with divine revelation, but now we come as a people speaking forth divine reiteration, which is to speak forth the word which is already revealed and contained in the word of God. During the time of the Protestant Reformation, that was what it meant to have a prophetic voice and to speak emboldened with the Holy Spirit. And that's how we understand and apply this in the life of the church.
Now, we come to the second of these 3, the subject of healing. So, do we believe that God heals today? Yes, we do, and praise God for this. But do we believe that people have the gift of healing that we see at times in the Old and New Testament? No, we don't.
2 Corinthians 12:12 states - The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with the utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.
Now, just giving a sweeping timeline of biblical history, there are only certain small timeframe periods where we see God working in such an intense, supernatural way doing healings, supernatural signs and wonders. In fact, after the time of creation, it's not until we get to Genesis 20:17, many centuries later, that we have the first recorded healing of Abimelech. Then there are certain specific periods in the Old Testament where we see many supernatural works happening. The time of the law, Moses and Joshua, and the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Out with those times, any recorded instance of these great miracles, signs, wonders, and healings are very, very rare.
So, that needs to be stated. Then when we come to the New Testament, again, these would have been time periods of around 30 to 40 to 70 years, we have 2 specific and very unique and glorious times. First of all, the account of the life of Jesus Christ, where even compared to no other time in history, the demonic realm could not hide. Every time Jesus would appear, they would shriek, and they would come in full submission to the absolute authority of Jesus Christ. And in this time, we see many miracles, many healings take place. Similarly, in the time of the apostles in Acts, we see people being healed, we see many signs and wonders being performed. And as we read in 2 Corinthians 12:12, these were signs of a true apostle. These were the signs. They were to authenticate the message that they came to proclaim, to shine the light on the Saviour that the Holy Spirit has come to do. Why did the Holy Spirit come? To guide and to reveal all truth and to glorify Jesus Christ. And He used these signs and wonders and these miraculous healings not to be the big thing in and of themselves, but to point to and glorify Jesus Christ.
And so, today, there is not these same apostolic gifts of healing that we see in Acts, though we do give glory to God when He decrees any spectacular healing in the life of any individual.
One other of the 3 that's so often and often is most readily misused and misapplied, and this is the subject of speaking in tongues. So, we've got prophecy, we've got healing, and we've got tongues. Nowadays, when many professing Christians speak about having the Holy Spirit, what they mean very quickly is, can you speak in tongues?
Now, we would scratch our heads and think, well, where did that come from? Has this come from the New Testament? Well, this modern-day way of thinking, no, it has not. In fact, this whole concept, this giving birth to this notion of, we need a baptism of the Holy Spirit, and we need to be filled with this tongue speaking, is something that only really came about some 125 years ago, which began in the Methodist church, and it spread like wildfire at the beginning of the 20th century, where this false teaching notion of, you need a baptism of the Holy Spirit, and you need this misapplication of glossolea, which we find in 1 Corinthians 14, which is being able to speak this language called speaking in tongues, which is a trained language which is babble and unintelligible.
Now, let's just quickly consider what we see of tongues in the books of the Bible. In both the Old and the New Testament, there are instances where people speak in tongues. And in each of these instances, we see that the tongues is speaking in other languages. It's not this unintelligible thing. No, it is other languages. And these times came about when it was marking God's judgment against Israel's rejection of God and, in the New Testament, of the Messiah. And this is why when Paul addresses the subject to the church in Corinth, who thought, oh, we can do tongue speaking, and they start all this different type of rabble, Paul even gives a distinction in 1 Corinthians 14 between the gift of tongues, where the word tongues is written plural, in contrast with tongue, singular, which is the misapplication of the church in Corinth, which was the very thing that he was rejecting and saying must not be done.
And yet people take 1 Corinthians 14 and they say, well, look, this is a private prayer language, which in and of itself is not how it's being misapplied in the life of the church. And they would use this as the blueprint for, well, we need to all be able to speak in tongues today, misapplying and misunderstanding what the gift of tongues was and was for in the time of the scriptures. And so, with these bumper tracks in view, with regards to the work that the Holy Spirit does and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what is not meant is, well, let's quickly jump to prophecy, healing, and tongues, and let's get to the real good stuff.
That's when we'll know we're a Holy Spirit church. No, that's when we'll know we're a counterfeit, charismatic church, with often demonic rabblings that is a lot closer to the work of the evil one than anything to do with the Holy Spirit. And this is a great danger today, folks. This is a great danger in the life of the church. Because this is one of the ways by which doctrine, biblical truth, the biblical gospel, has been dumbed down and ignored. Instead of getting to the business of calling sinners to repent and revealing the truth that the Spirit has come to do, well, we forget all about that and we start talking about tongues and other things that the Holy Spirit's doing. It glosses over; it disguises all of the actual being a Christian living in the life of the church.
And this is why spending time like we do today is crucial in the life of the church. Because when we get Christ into view and this life-saving message of the gospel, it changes things, it changes everything. And note, Christ is the one who changes things. Sometimes people will say, oh, you just need a bit more faith, and you'll have more of the Holy Spirit. Well, take, for example, the woman who was sick for 12 years, and she knew that just by touching the cloak of Jesus that she would be healed. This was not, oh, well, because her faith was strong enough, that's what got her healed. No, she could have had a very weak faith, but the act of faith brings us to the one who can restore us, the one who is the actual power and strength, which is Jesus Christ.
So, when it comes to our faith, when it comes to the Spirit-built, Spirit-filled work in us, this is all glory to Christ, which again, John 16, is what the Holy Spirit has come to do. And our faith, even if it is weak, even if we are struggling, the application is not, well, just try and have a bit more faith. Try, try, try. No, we come desperately to the One who is that source of strength, which is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit does that work. And praise be to God, that is the work that He is doing, will do, continues to do in the life of the church, because this is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to be a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered church. And by the grace of God, this is what we are. As we'll see in subsequent weeks, with order and structure in worship, with the preaching of God's word, with the hymns and psalms that we sing, this is how we glorify God. This is how the Spirit works and moves in the life of the church. And this builds up the church where gifts are being used for this purpose, and it gives glory to Jesus Christ.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and we praise you for the hope that we have in Christ by the work of your Holy Spirit in us. O Lord, we pray that you would guide, direct, and fashion us as those who are in your hands being used for your purpose. Thank you, dear Father, that as we see in your word, the Spirit has come to reveal truth, the truth which is before us in the Holy Scriptures. The Spirit has come to glorify Christ, by which we come with this desire and longing in our hearts, in our lives, as those who are born again and set apart, that we may worship you. For we are not our own, we were bought with a price, the price of Christ's life being laid down. And so, we come now with our bodies, as those filled with the Holy Spirit, to glorify you. Lord, thank you for such a desire and longing that we have, because Jesus Christ is alive and victorious, and because your Spirit is at work and alive in us, your people, the church, by which we worship you this day. So, guide us in our thinking, our understanding, our application of this subject, for we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.