[0:00] I didn't take it a second or two. Yeah, no, that's fine, that's fine. Aw, jump. Wow. I can talk about it. I've actually got it.
[0:11] Tiffany's got it in her backpack, but we'll catch up to that in a second. All right. So session two, the face of God, and I just, I don't know about how everybody else felt about it, but I thought it went, I thought it was really good.
[0:28] I had to chew on it a little bit. I know I watched it two or three times. I watched it twice. Yeah. So, and if you haven't seen the study guide, the study guide is really good that comes with this.
[0:44] Yeah, I need to get it on my computer so I can pick that out. Yeah, you print it out or something, but the lecture outline is super helpful. And then, of course, it's got the study questions and discussion questions that we use as a starting point.
[0:58] Yeah, I've just been lazy watching it on my phone, and I don't know how to find that stuff on my phone. Yeah, I don't know if you can get to it from your phone, because I haven't seen it either on the phone. But also, it lists all the scripture readings that are in the video.
[1:10] So that's helpful, too, because if you want to go and refer back to. So, and we'll probably hit some of these. But in this lesson, he was really focusing on the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.
[1:26] That was kind of the focus. Now, of course, you know, there are comparisons to now in the New Testament. But the focus was the Old Testament. Now, did anything strike you or stand out to you when you was going through this lesson?
[1:41] I guess that the Holy Spirit was the one who revealed the face of God.
[1:56] God, as the leader of the Godhead, I assume, did not seem to be the one picking and choosing when his face was going to be shown. It was the Holy Spirit. Yeah, the Holy Spirit was working in concert to show that face of God.
[2:11] Yeah, that was interesting. I never really thought of it like that way before. But I think he makes a good point. And if we think about, I guess the way I was thinking about it, like, it makes sense because we see that the Holy Spirit was over the womb of Mary when Jesus was there.
[2:34] Like, that Holy Spirit was revealing the face of God in Jesus. And then in the Old Testament, those, I think of Moses and the cleft of the rock.
[2:52] And he's, you know, asking God to show him his face. And he's like, no, no, you can't, you can't see that yet. And I wonder if that's a marking, like, where is the Holy Spirit in that?
[3:02] Because if the Holy Spirit was revealing the face of God, was he not there? Like, it's curious, right? Because, or maybe the Holy Spirit hadn't come down on Moses yet.
[3:15] I'll have to go back and read and research that. Yeah. But it was very, very fascinating. Well, when he had all the things that he had to do to tell Pharaoh about the different plagues that were coming, if you don't do what God did, then God ardues his heart so he wouldn't.
[3:34] Yeah. Yeah. I want to show my power and stuff like that. And you would think that the Holy Spirit would have been controlling him back even through those times. Yeah. I mean, the Spirit was definitely there.
[3:46] It's just maybe, maybe I'm getting my timing wrong. I've got to go research. But very interesting. So in this, so he's, the Spirit of God is there to make people conscious of God's presence.
[4:02] That's one of the points that he makes in this video. And we, I think we touched on that last week. You know, we talk about the creation and how people, how is it possible that people can look around at creation and say that there is no God.
[4:20] Right. Whereas the Spirit, like, and the Bible says, right, the creation exclaims his glory. Right. It's like glorifying God in creation.
[4:32] And yet we're, you know, the Bible also says, you know, we're dead to sin. And so that Spirit is what awakens us to that. And so it's making us conscious of God's presence.
[4:46] And we talked about that last week, too. I used a terrible example of a satellite with an antenna broken. Right. That's that the Holy Spirit is inside of us, getting us attuned to God's frequency, so to speak.
[5:00] So I thought that was really neat. And he quotes the Psalms 139. Basically, you can't run from creation or you can't run from God and his creation, which makes sense because we are also a creation in creation.
[5:19] Where are you going to hide? Right. So he's revealing the face of God for us. And that's I think that's probably the we talked last week about natural theology and natural theology is that study of what can we figure out about God just from creation itself.
[5:43] And it's a fascinating branch. I mean, you should I've got books on it. Really fascinating how far you can go. But you don't know God.
[5:54] Like there are certain things you can figure out about God, but you don't really know him. And I was at a wedding yesterday. And apparently this is out of out of vogue anymore, but it used to be the bride would come down and her face would be veiled.
[6:14] They don't do that anymore for some reason. OK, fine. We'll go with that. But that veil is there. And I was thinking about this and thinking about our lesson.
[6:26] It's almost like natural theology can show you things about the bride as an analogy. But without the spirit, you can't unveil.
[6:38] You can't see the face. And that's probably the best analogy I can come up with is you need. Christianity is a revelationary religion, right?
[6:51] It's not. God has to reveal himself to us in order for us to really understand who he is. We can figure out from natural. God is powerful, but we can't figure out God is loving from natural theology.
[7:07] Could just be a very powerful God. Yes, Brian. I'm just thinking about that veil that you were talking about. I watched that episode where Barney Fyfe dressed up like the bride.
[7:17] Now, if he comes down, he was under the veil. After the wedding was over, he lifted his veil up. Yeah. What are you doing, man? Are you married to Barney Fyfe? The bride is what I'm saying.
[7:28] Yeah. But it's all in the ceremonial outlook of what they were doing. Yeah. I mean, you kind of want to see the bride before you get married, right?
[7:41] At least make sure it's the same person. Yeah, really. Well, Jesus made it more acceptable for more people to accept the Holy Spirit, too. Mm-hmm. But he did.
[7:52] I mean, I believe the Holy Spirit's been here since the beginning of the time. Yeah. I won't doubt that. But in order for people to hear the voices, they had to send a prophet or something.
[8:03] Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's that even through the prophets, right, he's revealing the face of God. And when we say face of God, right, it's not like physical portrait or anything like that.
[8:16] It's the intimacy of knowing God versus just God through his works. Like, you're knowing his desires, his wants, his dislikes, right, the personality of God.
[8:30] You're knowing that he's a loving God. He's also a jealous God. He's also a holy God, right? We're learning all these things about him through the prophets, right?
[8:43] The prophets came and gave, you know, that law, like, the Ten Commandments, for example, right? Like, that's an expression of God's desires, right?
[8:55] We shouldn't kill. We shouldn't take my name in vain, right, this and that. That's just who God is. Same time, right, we know he cannot lie, right?
[9:08] That's one of God's attributes. He cannot lie. And yet he's all-powerful. So we're learning all these things about him through the prophets.
[9:18] And then ultimately, cumulating. Cumulating? Seems wrong. I haven't had my coffee yet. I woke up late. It was terrible. In Jesus Christ, right, who comes to, and this is why Jesus is saying, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
[9:38] But he was formed through the Holy Spirit. And if you look on one of our, let's put it in our Facebook group, our YouTube videos, this, our first lesson actually was getting some comments.
[9:49] And there was a person disagreeing about the concept of the Trinity. Okay. Okay. Well, and you can read my response there. But that was kind of it.
[10:00] Like, what do you do with, you know, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have all been there. And they're all working together. And they're put on equal footing. So the Holy Spirit's definitely there.
[10:12] But that was one of the things is Jesus says, I am one with the Father, basically. I am God toward the end of Mark, right? We saw that. And yet he was formed through the Holy Spirit, working through the power of the Holy Spirit.
[10:29] So he's revealing himself to us. He wants to, he cannot take sin, right? God cannot take sin. But yet he's loving enough to provide a way to pay for all of our sin.
[10:42] And loving enough to let us choose. Do we accept that or do we reject that? So we're revealing the face, the very act, like the very nature of God.
[10:55] Not just looking at him from afar, but really knowing him. Just like you would a friend or a spouse or anything like that. And so, but yet at the same time, the things that we see today, we know about the Holy Spirit today, which we're getting ahead of ourselves because we're New Testament.
[11:15] And this, the focus of this was the Old Testament, was that the Spirit was revealing God's love for people through people. And he gives the example of Joseph, right?
[11:28] His brothers hated him, left him for dead, thought about killing him, got close, could have. And yet Joseph, empowered through the Holy Spirit, when his brothers come begging for food, he gives it to them.
[11:43] And not only gives it to them, but gives them, you know, plenty. Now, is that a human reaction? No.
[11:55] No, not really, right? Because the human reaction would be? Tough toodles. Yeah. Go hit the sand, right? Air sandwiches for you.
[12:07] You tried to kill me. So, through that, through, and he gives the example of Daniel, right? That whole Nebuchadnezzar story of being thrown into the lion's den, but showing wisdom through Daniel.
[12:24] Through the interpretation of dreams, right? That wisdom of God. Only the, that only God could, could know. I mean, it's, it's, why don't we always get in low points before we go to reaching out?
[12:44] Before we go to reaching for anything that can get us out of this. Yeah. I mean, it's always taken down before we can be lifted up. And it's, you know, it's a repeating thing all the time.
[12:55] Trying to stay out of those places where you're thinking you're sinking. And, you know, you go up to that whole quick saying, you don't want to step in it and say, well, I really sink or what I do. Yeah.
[13:06] Just forward to it. Are you going to jump right in? I don't know why people do that. And I think that's just our maturity. We've been working. We've been there, but we end up just by the same.
[13:20] Yeah, we always do the same things. And, but at the same time, like miraculously people, when they find a point that they're like, man, I'm not going to do that ever again.
[13:34] Like it's clicked for them. I was, to use my kids as an example, we made them, we have couches in our living room. And they're kind of raised.
[13:46] So stuff gets shoved up underneath it. And I've cleaned it with them a hundred times. Well, finally made it clean them themselves. And then at the end, Mitchell's goes, man, we really shouldn't throw things up underneath there.
[14:05] I'm like, good job, Mitchell. That's all I'm asking. But people, that's just nature. That's just the way people are. And people will do the same thing with, you know, bigger things.
[14:17] Whether it's lying on their taxes, you know, stuff like that. Like people will get, people will overspend all the time and get in credit card debt.
[14:28] I've seen this a million times. And they're like, man, you know, I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have done that. They get it paid off. They do it again and again and again. Some point, you know, not everybody learns, unfortunately.
[14:39] But some people that do, they make a change. It's like a light bulb goes off in their head. Man, I'm really not going to do that again. And then they don't. Why is that?
[14:51] I don't know. Sin nature? I don't know. So the spirit of God reveals, he's revealing his love.
[15:02] He's revealing the God through his gifts. He gives the example of the tabernacle and also the temple.
[15:13] When they've built that later on in the Old Testament, right? He gave craftsmen gifts to decorate the temple. And we have those same gifts today. He reveals himself by leading his people, giving his people direction.
[15:32] And I found that whole idea of the exodus and that pillar of fire cloud that led them. And Dr. Ferguson claims that that was the Holy Spirit.
[15:45] And I never really thought about it. I never really, like, yeah, it was God leading them. But actually it was the power of the Holy Spirit leading them. And that makes sense.
[15:55] And also it explains, like, the crossing of the Red Sea when it miraculously parts. Really, I was thinking about that.
[16:06] You know, in Genesis, I guess it was 1, 2? Right there at the beginning it says that the spirit's hovering over the face of the water. And the spirit is creating the world and filling it.
[16:19] Well, it wouldn't be anything for the spirit to, you know, part of sea for a couple minutes. So that's the power of the Holy Spirit at work. There was an experiment.
[16:31] I'm sure that God showed it. He had to show his congregation how the parting of the sea could happen. He made a large wind. This is how the Holy Spirit, when they said they could send it through, they blew that power of the wind and it come out and it separated and held the water back.
[16:54] Yeah. Part of the sea, right through that little trench thing, he made it from the sand on the bottom. And as long as that breeze was there and that wind was blowing, it held that water.
[17:06] Yeah. So that was the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, who threw the water back. Yeah, so the Spirit is working it. And I guess I just hadn't really thought deep about it enough and just said, well, you know, God can do anything.
[17:19] But actually, you know, God has a, there's an order here, right? The Spirit is doing the work. The Father is kind of leading or guiding what the work should be done.
[17:31] There seems to be a system here. And so that's the power of the Holy Spirit. I thought that was neat. You know, I never really put it together like that. And then we have the Spirit pointing to the new covenant, right?
[17:49] And he gives this example of Moses in Numbers when he's trying to, you know, he's having problems with the new nation, so to speak.
[18:02] And, you know, he's having, you know, everybody's coming to him personally for all their problems. And we're talking like probably a million people at this point. And so Moses appoints elders, right, to kind of divvy up the work.
[18:15] And then the proof text that he gives was Numbers 11, 16 to 30, where it says that the Spirit was, part of the Spirit was taken from Moses and divvied out among the elders.
[18:28] But then some other people started, I guess, prophesying. And Moses says, don't stop them.
[18:39] I wish everybody could have this Spirit inside them. Well, that's a pointing to the New Testament, because that's exactly what we have today.
[18:50] And then the last thing he kind of pointedly brings up is that the Spirit's, the ultimate goal of the Spirit is to bring God's people into rest.
[19:04] And so when we have that rest, again, it's almost like a pointer in the same way. It's a pointing to Jesus Christ, right? Bring me all you who are heavy laden, and I will bring you rest.
[19:17] My burden is light, right? It's kind of a pointer to Christ. Leading people. And I think that's what people are looking for today, really.
[19:29] When we outreach to people, you know, they're going to ask, like, what's the benefit of Christianity? All of our studies tie together in some way. What's the benefit of Christianity?
[19:40] Well, one of the benefits is you give rest, right? It can lead you to rest, because you don't have to worry so much anymore. Yet, you're still going to have problems.
[19:52] I'm not saying that it's all, you know, prosperity. But there's a peace about it. There's a peace about things that you don't have anywhere else.
[20:03] And I know today, like, I feel much more at peace with the world and restful, because otherwise you get restless, like he says.
[20:16] Restless and anxious, and you don't have that with Christianity, because you know God's in control. And that despite your failures, God still loves you.
[20:30] So, that's kind of the highlight, right, of the video. We kind of reviewed that. Now, the fun part is the discussion. So, let's take a minute.
[20:43] I want to make sure that we... There's five study questions in the study guide. I want to make sure everybody has the answers to these. And these are just, like, multiple choice questions.
[20:54] So, not a big deal. So, this is true or false. The Spirit of God unveils the attributes of God, but not his person. True or false?
[21:13] Well. I don't know. I think it's false. I think we get into the person. Yeah. The way the question... And I should have this on screen. I apologize. But the answer is false.
[21:25] Because it does go into his person. It reveals the person of God. Not just his attributes, but the person as well. So, I would call that false. Question two.
[21:39] The kings and lords of foreign lands recognized the spirit of the Lord Joseph, Daniel, and others because they possessed wisdom, intelligence, good looks, or speaking skills.
[21:56] I was going to say all of the above until you said good looks. But wisdom for sure. Wisdom. Yeah. The wisdom of God coming through those people.
[22:07] They stood apart from everybody else. Now, you had other people pretending to be wise, but they didn't have true wisdom. So, that's how they stood out.
[22:18] When the prophets speak about the hand of the Lord being upon them, they mean that the spirit of the Lord has disciplined them, spoken to them, touched them physically, or come upon them.
[22:36] Come upon them. Come upon them. Yeah. It's more than just a speaking to you. It's more than just a... It's actually what we would say now to, like, indwelling. Like, come upon them.
[22:48] Over them. Question four. All of God's people experience the fullness of his revelation through the spirit in the Old Testament. True or false? I think false.
[23:00] False. Moses had the presence with the spirit. He had cover a veil over his face because his face shined. Yeah. So, not everybody in the Old Testament had the spirit like we do today.
[23:12] They could be believers, but it wasn't firsthand experience like we do today. And then, all Old Covenant believers could aspire to be prophets of the Lord.
[23:27] True or false? You can aspire to be anything. Yeah. Does that mean you're going to get it? I'm not really sure the point of this question. I think the answer would be true. They could aspire.
[23:38] But I think the idea is it should be false because not everybody was going to be a prophet of God.
[23:50] That was a little confusing. So, I could go either way on that one. But, hey, I'm not grading you. So, it doesn't matter. All right. Discussion question. This is where we start getting the meat.
[24:00] And we'll kind of use this as a starting point, per se. So, we talked about unveiling the face of God.
[24:13] And that's very abstract. Right? It's very... What does that mean to you? Like, how would you explain that in your own words? What does it mean that Dr. Ferguson is talking about unveiling the face of God?
[24:26] What does that mean to you? And this is more of a conceptual question. Like, how would you put that in your words, so to speak?
[24:36] Yeah. Yeah.
[24:46] Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know? You don't want to see an angry face on me anymore. No. I would rather...
[24:58] I would rather... I would rather see a happy face. Right. You know, you have different expressions when you look at people where they're disappointed, when they're happy, when they're maybe not exactly where they should be.
[25:12] And you're off somewhere else thinking. You know? You get to have the thoughts on their eyes and watch it all and things like that. They're here, but they're not there. Mm-hmm. You know, the expressions of faces, people learn how to read them.
[25:26] So it's... If you're around that person long enough, you can see those expressions. Okay. Okay. So... Okay. Okay. So... If you're around that... If you know that person well enough, you can kind of read their facial expressions.
[25:41] Right. I think that's a... That's a deeper thought. Try to change your facial expressions on your kids when they're questioning you about something and, you know, you're doing it for the fun of them.
[25:51] Mm-hmm. And it takes them a minute to catch on. Yeah. Yeah. But they learn to read you. But at the same time, I think there's a two-way...
[26:02] I think part of this is also to... You're exposed to God, too. Like, if I can see your face, you can see my face. Right. So it...
[26:15] Yeah. There's a... It's like opening a channel. Like, between us. I think there's part of that kind of in that imagery as well.
[26:26] It's like, yeah, you can see God, but now God can see you. Although, not fully correct. Analogies always break down at some point. Right? Because God can see you regardless.
[26:38] Exactly. But you're exposed to Him as opposed to... If you go back to, like, the imagery in, like, the Garden of Eden, right? They were exposed to God.
[26:49] And then they were exposed to sin, and they decided they had to cover themselves up. Well, the Holy Spirit is almost uncovering yourself to God. You're being fully exposed.
[27:01] Again, analogies break down at some point. But, you know, the thought is there. So... The Holy Spirit reveals God to you.
[27:16] Like, as a person. Not just as an entity. So that's kind of the main concept here. In that question. Now, the next question is...
[27:30] Let's go to this one. How does the Holy Spirit instruct God's people? How does the Holy Spirit instruct God's people? And you can go back to Old Testament, or you can use New Testament.
[27:43] That's fine. Well, I mean, today, I think the still small voice we hear in our head when we're trying to choose path A or path B, that's the Holy Spirit speaking to you.
[27:55] Okay. Let's be clear. Because not everybody... I think some people get confused. When we say that still small voice, do you audibly hear God talking to you?
[28:10] What do we mean by still small voice? I just... Because people that are new Christians or people that are hearing this, they... You know, they may think that you're hearing voices.
[28:21] And it just might be... I mean, it's a consciousness of the choice. It's not like hearing an audible voice. Yeah. But the... These are... Yeah. What I call Christianese words, right, that we use.
[28:33] We hear his voice. You know, all these things. But really, what we're saying... I like that word. A consciousness of the decisions and, you know, the ways that we should go.
[28:44] Because we have that feeling. Like, some things, you know, from a non-Christian standpoint, may be about the same. But then from a Christian standpoint, there's big changes.
[28:57] Because, you know, if one choice is kind of neutral and one choice kind of helps somebody, but it costs the same to me. As a Christian, I would say you're obligated.
[29:10] Obligated to go with the choice to help somebody. You might as well. Because that's what God would want. Yeah. Right? This is an analogy that I use now. Sometimes you're working with people, you're doing things, and all of a sudden you're hitting something.
[29:25] I call it being hit upside the head. Your first reaction when you hit upside the head with something is either you're going to grab your head, you're going to shake your head, or something. But you get hit with a question, or you get hit with something right off the bat.
[29:38] And I said, oh, I'm going to hit upside the head. And you try to explain to somebody, they want answers immediately now. Immediately. They want, what are you going to do? How did you go ahead?
[29:50] You know, if you're trying to sit there and say, will you just give me a minute, let it breathe, and think about it. And more than likely, you've been through the same situation that you're going through.
[30:01] Yeah. How do you respond? Do you think about the way you handled it the last time, or do you want to try to present it another one? So there's a communication going on. Mm-hmm.
[30:11] But you and your conscience, your Holy Spirit. So sometimes... If you're wanting to do the right thing, sometimes you've got to just take that minute and breathe and think.
[30:24] Okay. Okay. So not acting rashly would be a guidance of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes the guidance is after the fact.
[30:34] Because we can actually, you know, make decisions without the Holy Spirit. And then, after the fact, the Holy Spirit's like, good job, right?
[30:45] Because you made a bad choice. You know, sarcasm. But the Holy Spirit is correcting you, saying, hey, that was a bad decision, right? And you're feeling bad about that.
[30:55] And maybe, hopefully, you'll learn from it and don't do it again. So that is also a guidance. The guidance could also be from prayer, right?
[31:09] Holy Spirit has now connected you with God. You now have access to God directly. It's one of the Protestant reformations, right?
[31:19] We don't have to go through a priest. We don't have to go through a human priest, right? We're connected directly to our high priest, Jesus. And we can, now that our sin has been...
[31:31] We can go directly to the throne of God and petition there. That could be guidance. I know that I've prayed for things. And, you know, I won't say...
[31:42] I will say God has spoke to me, but not in an audible voice. But it has given me direction. Certain opportunities closed. Or new opportunities opened.
[31:54] Or, you know, maybe you're just even just driving down a road. Like, I know that we were trying to go on a camping trip. And we were like rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing, rushing.
[32:04] And it just never felt like peace. And then I come out the day that we're going to go, and I've got a flat tire. Was that a sign?
[32:18] Was God speaking to me? Was it just coincidence? You know, for anybody else who's not a Christian, I mean, oh, well, it's just coincidence. But for me, I was feeling rushed and having to now stop everything and deal with this.
[32:34] I think that was God speaking to me. Yes? Could that have been God speaking? Or could that have been Satan trying to divert you from, you know, your plans like he tries to do every day?
[32:52] Well, I think it was because I was in, I was praying to God.
[33:03] Like, God, why is all this happening even before the flat tire? I think it was an answer to prayer. I think it was God speaking. Now, that's a good question.
[33:16] I'll have to think about that. Because I would say that that would be God speaking because I had asked for a prayer and it had been answered. Right? You need to take a chill pill, kind of say.
[33:28] But if I was, like, feeling good and we get on the road and then the tire pops, maybe that would have been Satan. But then again, maybe it was God, too, kind of changing my direction.
[33:45] Opportunities like that to protect you. So, let's say you got on the road at the particular time you wanted to get on and then down the road you would have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
[33:55] Yeah. So to speak. So, again, that could have been God saying, oh, wait a minute because I'm not ready for this to happen to you yet. Mm-hmm. And I know when I was driving downtown every day, that happened a few times.
[34:09] I'd be running a few minutes late. I'm trying to scoot out the door and it turns out there's a wreck. Like, approximately the same time I would have been in that location had I left on time. That's happened a few times.
[34:20] So, I... To me, I think... Yes, Satan is at work. But a lot of times, I think we give him a lot of credit that he's not due because we're fully capable of shooting ourselves in our own foot.
[34:38] That's true. A lot of times. And, you know, Satan has a... He's very powerful, but he also craves power. And so when we did our study of the seven churches, right, we saw where Satan had placed his home at that time.
[34:56] And it was in a center of power at that time. So I would say, you know, Satan, probably physically, is around a power center. Washington, D.C., New York, UN, European Union, Beijing, right?
[35:14] Something of a power center. Now, he still has his demons at work, but unlike God, Satan is finite. He cannot be two places at once.
[35:27] So he has to prioritize. And is he really prioritizing Clint Davis? I don't know. I don't want to think too highly of myself.
[35:38] I kind of doubt it, but maybe. But, you know, Satan has a way... And I don't want to take a rational... No, you're fine. Satan has a way of sometimes, because you are in a close relationship with God, he tries to throw that curveball at me.
[35:54] Yeah. So to speak. You know, he tries to disrupt... You were praying, okay? So he was maybe trying to disrupt your prayer, you know, and try to put you on a wrong track.
[36:08] Or just throwing it out there just doesn't... But if, say, Satan did do that and try to throw me on the wrong track, right? If I'm in communication with God, would he not also guide me around that wrong track?
[36:24] I think so. Yeah, I think so, too. Nobody wants to cry at the feet. Hmm? Nobody wants to cry at the feet. Nobody wants to cry at the feet? No, you don't want to be feet.
[36:37] Everybody struggles with power and control over all situations. If I was controlling this, I'd do it this way and that way. If I was doing this, I'd do it this way and that way.
[36:48] You want to control it. You want to have the power to control it. Yeah. And if it doesn't happen, and we cannot... A lot of times, we power ourselves because we can't surrender.
[37:00] True. We can't surrender and say, okay, back up a minute. This is not going with me. Mm-hmm. You say things, you talk to a lot of people, and it seems like nobody hears what you're saying.
[37:12] Yeah, we try to power our way through things. Our way of thinking is already, you know, it's funny in our minds. Mm-hmm. It doesn't matter. You can't want to change a person's thinking.
[37:25] If they are grounded into that, it's hard to do. Mm-hmm. Instead, it's shown a little simpler way to do things, and I've been with it myself. I've had people come up and say, hey, look, you'll try this one time, you'll try that one time, and it'll work.
[37:39] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Just calm down and try it for a minute. Bam, it works. I think we're probably all old enough here to kind of see that in our own lives, where we tried to, we had a notion in our own minds, and we tried to, like, make it happen.
[37:58] Yeah. And maybe it did work out, or maybe it didn't, but we can see later on, like, if I would have just changed course a little bit.
[38:08] But where we're falling off now in a lot of things is God gave us dominion over all things in earth. He gave us dominion. And when people start taking our dominations away from us, like, we have control over this.
[38:24] We can say whether we want to cut that tree down, we want to do this to that, we want that color, we want this. We have dominion over our, even our own animal, where we tell it to control it, to consist, do what it's not supposed to do, whatever.
[38:38] Now they're telling us, oh, you're not supposed to do that anymore. You're not supposed to take things away from your kids, because you're going to hurt their feelings in the long run. Oh, that's terrible.
[38:49] The dominion over, you have the dominion over your atmosphere, your area, you have the dominion over it. But they don't want you to anymore. It's okay.
[38:59] They'll tell you what to do. Some people tell you how to live, what to do. But no. I say everybody is only. You know, if you want to do that, you try it. It works for you.
[39:11] I don't know. There's a lot of things I could backfire on, too. That's what I'm saying. It backfires on you. A lot of times, you've got to stick your foot out there, like I have, and get the crank side to the door. And I'm not saying God can't use it for good, right?
[39:23] Some people have to learn the hard way. I don't, you know, I used to be like, well, you know, if it doesn't kill you, you know, give it a shot, see what happens. But now I'm kind of like, there's some things that can harm you.
[39:35] That are not good. Drug use, for example, right? Just for one. Like, I'm not going to recommend you try anything. It comes to the fact that when people are worried about dying, you shouldn't worry about dying.
[39:49] But nobody likes pain. No. And that's why they inflict it on you, before they can get control of you, is a lot of pain, and they want pain, but you feel a lot of pain in something.
[40:01] Mm-hmm. Is it, actually, go ahead and kill me, and it'll be better. But people are not wanting to hurt. Yeah. They're not wanting to take the struggles, and do whatever it takes to have to do this.
[40:13] Yeah. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to bring my neck. I want to do that. I don't know. They're not thinking of chances or anything. They're already made up in their mind what they're going to do before they have to do it.
[40:26] But let's take that, that idea of they've made it up in their mind, and coming back to the Holy Spirit, the whole, the process of this is, you're turning yourself over to God, to His mind, essentially.
[40:41] Right. Right. We don't want to do those things outside of the Holy Spirit. And I can, I can think of things, and when me and Tiff were looking for a house, before we bought our current one, we found a beautiful house.
[40:55] It had everything we wanted. Except for, it didn't have internet. Now, for a lot of people, who cares?
[41:07] Right. I mean, this house was nice. It was really nice. It was close. It was, in fact, it was right in Moreland. So it'd have been a lot closer here. Like, it, everything made sense about this house, except for, it didn't have internet.
[41:25] Now, I could have, and it broke me and Tiffany's heart, because she loved the house. I was, you know, pretty on board with the house. But we got to thinking about it.
[41:37] Right. And this is where that Holy Spirit comes, like, is this the right choice for our family? Because if I do this, I have to go into work. Like, I have to. And it turns out, a few years later, right, we passed on the house.
[41:52] We got another house, a subdivision, not what we wanted, but it had everything else, close to places. A few years later, we have COVID, where I had to work remote.
[42:07] Now, I'm not saying I'm some wise person, but what I am saying is, if we take a moment, just to kind of think about things, and what would God have me to do? Because Clint wanted this house.
[42:19] Tiffany wanted this house. But we also knew that, you know, my job requires me to have internet. Like, it's how I make my living. Is it wise, really, God?
[42:31] God, why, like, is this really the way you want me to go? Because God has also led me in my career. prayer. Do, is that wise? You know? And so I said no.
[42:42] And it turns out, you know, through just prayer, because we prayed hard about it, that it seems we made the right choice. But I can also tell you of examples where we force fit things, and probably not the wisest thing that we've ever done.
[43:02] I know we've bought things on credit and gotten ourselves into credit card debt. Could we have waited? Yes. Should we have waited? Yes. Did we? No. Right?
[43:13] And we paid the price for those things. Think about it. Like, and that's, you're turning, the whole submission, right? You say you don't want to cry, nobody wants to cry at the feet.
[43:24] But that's kind of what it's getting at. You're submitting yourselves to God. And that's what, like, the Holy Spirit is communicating on your behalf. Hey, what should I do here?
[43:36] And I think God answers those prayers. Absolutely. All right, I think we've got time for maybe one more, and then I want to discuss something else. Is there a progress to the work of the Holy Spirit?
[43:52] If so, why? And if there is a progress to the work of the Spirit, where does it, what is it progressing to? So, first part of that question, is there a progress to the work of the Holy Spirit?
[44:07] Yes. Yes. Simple enough. Why? Hard question. Well, I mean, you've got people who don't know God and don't accept Jesus until they're older.
[44:24] And you've got people who accept Jesus when they're seven and get baptized and are fully saved. so the Holy Spirit is gently guiding the younger batch, I think, and trying to keep them out of trouble and stuff like that.
[44:40] And the older adult who becomes a Christian, sometimes it's a miraculous change. I mean, the Holy Spirit just gets in there and pow, you're changing from here to here.
[44:52] You're going full 180. And other times, it's like they have to be, they have to understand what parts of the old life have to be left out. They're new life. So, I think it has to be a process.
[45:04] So it has to be a process. I was just thinking of paint, Brian. Paint. I remember, kind of, as an analogy that we'll break down at some point, I remember I had a wall in our house that was like this dark, dark blue, like a navy blue.
[45:25] Almost, it was close to black. And I remember I wanted to paint this wall because I made the room super dark. And so, I get on my new color and I throw it on there.
[45:36] And, it doesn't look quite right. Now, Brian, you know, you paint. What was the problem that I dealt with there? I didn't have a primer. Right?
[45:47] I didn't, it's going to take, well, I didn't have a sovereignty, Brian. You paint over twice. Yeah, you've got to do multiple coats. Right? And that's what I had to do. I had to do multiple coats.
[45:58] And I kind of think of it the same way. Like, you're changing from a sin nature into a godly nature. Process. There's a process there. Right? You've got to, you've got to, you know, prime it.
[46:11] Maybe you've got some imperfections in the wall that you've got to, you know, fix them. Right? Then you've got to prime it. Then you've got to paint it. And then, you know, maybe due to the wall or the humidity, maybe you've got some runs.
[46:25] Now, professional painters don't have that problem. Right? But you kind of, as an analogy, it breaks down. But I think it almost has to be a process. Or I also think of a, has anybody done rock tumbling?
[46:37] Where you like round rocks? It's kind of like that. Like, we're a big jagged rock. And we're, you know, we're put into a tumbler and it kind of smooths out our rough edges, so to speak.
[46:51] Because we all have them. So, I kind of think like, and even us just here today, like, bouncing against each other, we're almost like in a rock tumbler together. And we're bouncing around off of each other.
[47:05] And, you know, you're getting shaved off a little bit. I'm getting shaved off a little bit. And then when we come out of this, we're like smooth. Best I can come up with.
[47:17] There's a question that a kid asked me. Does God choose you or you choose God? Yeah. Well, it depends. Let's define what choose means.
[47:29] It's got to choose you to be his or you choose God to be yours. You know, in the process of that, I said, well, you know, I think it's got to be a mutual thing.
[47:39] It's kind of like two people getting married and having to accept one another. But who chose first, though? Who chose first? Who comes in the process? And what you're saying now is it's a choice of being taught right or wrong from the beginning.
[47:57] you know, it's a, you know. Well, God chose first. God wanted everybody to come to him. But there is this other, we have to respond to that choice.
[48:08] God doesn't force us into marriage. We do have to respond to it. But I think the message of the Bible is clear. Like, we were dead in trespasses and sin.
[48:19] He moved first. God made the first move. So, in that regard, I would say God chose first. like, you can't, you don't complete the union unless the other person responds.
[48:34] Right? Just like in marriage, right? Like, yeah, somebody makes the first move, but if they don't respond, you're not married. Right? If they don't say, I do, like, if you say, I do, and the other person doesn't, you're not married.
[48:47] Right? They both, there's a response there. But somebody does have to move. I've been using marriage as an example because we've been at a wedding. At a wedding. Well, I should have come in.
[49:01] It's kind of like taking your chances like, yeah, I saw it on you. It's kind of like that, you know, I had a kid throw that question up to me.
[49:11] Did God kiss me? Or did I kiss you? Well, it's a good question. It's a good question. And a lot of, a lot of adults will have that same question. That's right. Right? But a lot of adults are also confused.
[49:22] They'll be like, well, if God chose me, or if God chose me, then, you know, I'm good. Well, no, you have to respond. Right? And in that response, you're going to change.
[49:33] Like if, if, if I'm going to a wedding, right? And if the, if the bride and groom both say I do, but then I see them going off and like they're driving separate cars and they're living with separate people, I'll be like, what's going on here?
[49:51] That's not, that's not a marriage either. Right? You change. Like it's part of the commitment. You change. You know, the, the wedding vows that I heard yesterday, you forsake all others.
[50:04] That's a, that's a change. Right? You are now committed to this one person. Right? One of the pastors that was here, they were in the color having a thing on the radio not too long ago and he said, well, I'd rather do a funeral than I would have a marriage wedding.
[50:23] And the question was, he said, because when I do a funeral, I know the person, I know their destination and what they're getting into and where they're going. When I do a wedding, I'm unsure. Okay.
[50:37] Okay. Well, I mean, I'm not going to immediately disagree with that. I would say I would probably not agree with that, but I'll think about that.
[50:47] You have to think about it, but he said that. Because marriage has so much potential. They've got a lot to learn during that marriage. Yeah, they do have a lot to learn. And you're putting two rocks into a tumbler together, right?
[51:01] They're spinning super fast, right? But there's so much potential there. Whereas I may know the person, and I may know that they're not saved. And I may know that they're the destination.
[51:13] And I would hate to do a funeral like that. So anyway, that's just my personal opinion. I don't wed people having given a funeral.
[51:24] So I will divert to his expertise in that area because I haven't done it. So do you have that letter? All right, are there any questions before I take these last couple minutes to talk about something I've got in the mail?
[51:37] Any questions about the Holy Spirit? I think it was deep. And, you know, if we have questions, we can always talk about it some more. Definitely these are videos that you're going to be watching multiple times, I think.
[51:51] So make some time during the week as you're going through. And then I want to show you all this, what I got in the mail. This is related. From here or off here? You can keep it on.
[52:03] So we talked about our, I guess it was our last study, right? Soul Whisperer. Not quite related to this. But I got this letter in the mail.
[52:13] And it's personally written out to me, hand addressed. And it was a letter from somebody I never met.
[52:29] And it says, Dear Mr. Davis, we are asking people today this question, is it possible to enjoy life forever? And what this is, is it's basically what this person is trying to do is saying, hey, the Bible has answers to these questions.
[52:51] And I can pass this around. You can read it. And at the bottom it says, can we really believe what the Bible promises? Yes. To see why, please contact me and I can show you how the Bible can help you.
[53:03] And they've got a phone number, an email address. And in this card, they actually, free Bible course. And then on the back it's got a name and a QR code.
[53:15] And when I happened to be driving down in the, I had to go to the probate court. And when I was driving on the court square in Noonan, there was, somebody was set up with a table.
[53:26] And it had this same imagery and all this. I was like, man, that is really, I really like that, the getting out and stuff. Now, unfortunately, this is Jehovah's Witness.
[53:39] I don't agree with them. But if we're looking at outreach ideas, I think this is great. Because, you know, people are looking for these things.
[53:50] And Christianity does have the answers to a lot of God's problems. Now, tie that in with our study in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives you rest. It gives you guidance.
[54:00] That's what people need. So, anyway, I wanted to share that without passing around. I thought it was neat. I thought it was neat. This is the second one I've gotten from the Jehovah's Witnesses. The first one, this letter is typed.
[54:13] The first one I got was handwritten. And I just, I wanted to reply, I never did. But I wanted to reply to guys like, I appreciate you handwriting me this letter. I don't agree with you, but I appreciate it.
[54:25] I think it's a nice gesture. So, I wanted to share that with you. Because those are the things, are we sharing our faith? They are bold.
[54:36] They are bold. And I think we need to be bold. Right? We need to have a boldness for Christ. And I think we need to pray. I think we need to pray that the Holy Spirit gives us the same boldness.
[54:51] And gives us the power to go out and reach these people. One thing that's happening now is our Constitution was based on biblical principles. And the more people are hearing about what's going against our Constitution, now, and what it is, there are actually people sitting down and going to read the Constitution.
[55:08] I had to somewhere in the school, but we didn't get into in-depth reading that much of the Constitution. But none of them know that it was inspired by the Bible, got the people done.
[55:20] And now people are saying, why are they saying everybody wants to go against the Constitution now? What is in the Constitution? Yeah. They never had the opportunity, just like a Bible, of opening the Constitution to read it.
[55:32] I haven't read the whole Constitution before. That's crazy, because you can go out online. I mean, I'll bring you a copy if you want to read it. They're getting into where they want to see, what does our Constitution actually say?
[55:44] Are we going to be in what they're telling us? Or do we really want to know? I think we... So the same thing's happening with Christianity now. Yeah, I agree. And civics, if you were in high school, you probably had a class called civics or American government.
[55:59] I would hope you had something like that, because it's very important that you know your rights as a citizen. But at the same time, I've seen Christians too. They've been in church, and they've never read the whole Bible.
[56:09] Guys, we need to read the Bible so we can know, because people will come out and make all kinds of crazy claims, and read our YouTube comments.
[56:19] You'll see some of the claims out there, and you have to be able to respond to those claims. And so I've tried my best, but I mean, look out there and see. Like, there's some...
[56:30] Oh, the Trinity doesn't exist. Well, you know, you've got to be able to respond to that, because it does. It does. Last Sunday, I was showed at the conference they had in that time for the Hindus.
[56:44] And during that whole thing, they were showing me his video, what he videoed, and how they have them. But I was so shocked at how many American people were involved into that and won't come to Christianity.
[57:01] Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? What attracted them to come into the Hindus? That's the question. That's the question. I mean, all I could see was a bunch of colors and brightness and the happiness of the dance.
[57:15] What do they want, though? That's what I'm saying. What are they acting? They're not with Americans. And you know they're Americans, but you can tell them they're artists. In that setting.
[57:28] And he was bragging about, we have these American people come. They love our dance. They love our food. They love it. Now, I love to love Indian food. I do love it. It's good.
[57:39] I'm with you, Brian. Like, there's so many. And I think we need to understand. Like, people are looking for stuff. Right? And what we need to do is we need to present. And I think this is where we've gotten off track in Christianity because we don't, A, I think part of it is we just don't understand or are not comfortable explaining our own beliefs.
[58:00] Right? That's why, you know, Sunday school is so important. But also, we just need to have a boldness to go out there and talk to people about these really important life questions.
[58:11] Right? People have the big questions. What happens after I die? Right? How can I know that there's a God? How can I know that God loves me? Right? How can I know that I haven't offended God in some way?
[58:22] How can I know that I've been told you about this? These are all very important questions that at some point in your life, most people ask. So, it all starts now.
[58:34] Right? I've already said this. You cannot build a house, a foundation, in the middle of a hurricane. You need to prepare for it before. And if you're not in a hurricane now, when you start to get in the middle of a life crisis, that is not the time to be finding faith.
[58:53] Now, God can miraculously work through that. But it's going to be a whole lot easier if you had a solid foundation first before you go into that life crisis. And that's, you know, what we're trying to do today.
[59:04] We're trying to build our faith. So, well, we're out of time. So, I've got people coming in. They're wanting to, like, come on, client, wrap it up, wrap it up. So, all right.
[59:15] Well, we'll close in prayer. Next week, video three in our study. And we'll just continue on. I appreciate the people that responded to my text message.
[59:26] It kind of gives me an idea of moving too fast, too slow, all that stuff. So, video three next week. And make time during the week to watch it. Don't just save it for, like, 20 minutes before class.
[59:39] Brian, will you close in prayer, please? Amen. Amen. We're here to learn your word. Learn more about your Holy Spirit. Jesus, you know what you did for us. And we thank you, Lord, for all the things that you're doing for us now.
[59:53] Just be with us for this week. And not just on the Sunday. Be with us the whole seven days a week. Teach us, lead us, guide us, and protect us. For our children's sake.
[60:04] And the people who need you the most. Amen. Amen. Thank you all for coming.