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JL church in Toronto in the fall of 1982. It was a beautiful sanctuary; richly decorated with colorful icons and sacred art.
The priest in this beautiful church was a magnificent embodiment of this great religious tradition with his long beard and decorated flowing robe. Hanging from his neck were three jeweled crosses.
He looked very dignified—and very nervous.
Seated at the front of the church was the entire Hinn family—my mother, my brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles, and a host of cousins—along with a few close friends.
Before us was the casket of my father, Costandi.
At the age of only fifty-eight he had died of lung cancer. Daddy had been a smoker since he was a teenager. Even after giving his life to Christ several years earlier, smoking was a habit he struggled to break.
Since my parents were raised Greek Orthodox, my mother insisted that the funeral service be held in that particular tradition. In making the arrangements she
told the priest, “I have only one request. I want my son, Benny, to conduct the service.”
The priest was extremely upset. “No,” he told her, “it cannot be.”
She looked at him and said sternly, “This is our funeral and you will do what we tell you.”
Surprised by her firmness, he reluctantly agreed. “Yes, Mrs. Hinn. What do you want me to do?”
“Well, you just begin the service,” she told him. “Do whatever you have to and then let my son take charge.”
As the service began I looked around and realized that the church was filled with people who knew our family but had never experienced a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.
The priest walked from side to side, sprinkling incense from the censer—an ornamental container suspended from a small chain in his hand. The casket, which had been open earlier, was now closed.
The atmosphere was one of great sadness. People were openly crying at the loss of their friend and relative. After conducting a few ceremonial duties, the priest walked over to his special chair and motioned for me to come forward.
“He’s Not I walked over to the casket and stood there
quietly for a moment. When I glanced at the priest, he had his head down. I couldn’t tell whether he was deep in prayer or trying to avoid watching someone else conduct a funeral service in his church.
Across my mind flashed the scripture that declares: “I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning
those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13).
In front of a shocked audience I began to pound the casket with my fist. Then I grabbed the coffin with both hands and literally shook it. “He’s not in there!” I announced. “My daddy is not in there.”
As I pounded that coffin I caught a glimpse of the priest. His eyes were now open wide. He was on the edge of his chair, transfixed. The entire audience came alive as I continued, “He’s not in there! My father was born again and the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
I began to preach the gospel. Instead of talking about my father I talked about the Lord Jesus—how He came, how He died and rose from the dead, and how those who believe on Him will live with Him forever through the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11, emphasis added).
When I finished the thirty minute message I called my mother and my brothers and sisters to join me at the casket. All of them had found Christ as their Savior and three of my brothers were in the ministry. My wife, Suzanne, joined us as we made a circle around the casket and began to sing:
He is Lord, He is Lord,
He is risen from the dead and He is Lord.
Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess.
That Jesus Christ is Lord.
We raised our hands to heaven and repeated the chorus. Then with great joy we united in praise: “Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art, How great Thou art.”
I wish you could have been there. There were no musicians. The only sound in the building was from one solitary family who knew the Lord Jesus. We stood there with our eyes closed, worshiping the Lord.
A few moments later, as we continued to sing, I looked out at the audience and noticed that several people were wiping tears from their eyes. Immediately, I gave an invitation for people to accept Christ as their Savior.
The first person to step forward was one of my cousins. He took my hand and said, “I want the same thing you have.” As a result of that service souls were born into the Kingdom of God.
It was just impossible for me to look at that casket and say, “My father is in there.” It was not true. There was only a body—only a shell.
It was as if a hand had been removed from a glove. We can’t say, “Look what the glove can do.” It is lifeless. It is dead. My father was not in that casket. But one day God through the power of the Holy Spirit is going to resurrect that shell. The dead in Christ will rise. Mortals will put on immortality.
The resurrection of Christ and the promise of the resurrection of the dead is the foundation of Christian living. Without it, our faith is futile, our forgiveness from sin is an illusion, and our hope of being reunited
Your Closest Friend
with “the dead in Christ” is a fantasy. In short, we are to be “pitied more than all men” (1 Cor. 15:12-19 Niv). But because of the sure and certain hope each believer has of the resurrection, our faith is secure, our forgiveness is certain, and our hope of being reunited with those who have gone before us will not fail.
The certainty of our resurrection is based on the certainty of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: “But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming” (1 Cor. 15:23). And how do these resurrections take place? Paul says, “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11, emphasis added).
The Holy Spirit, then, is the key to conquering that implacable foe of humankind, namely death. But is the Spirit of the Lord a force or a Friend? Is the Holy Spirit a power or a Person? The answer to this question makes all the difference in the world.
The Holy Spirit is so much more than a force or a power. Early in my Christian walk, I didn’t think much about the Holy Spirit one way or the other. It wasn’t until that marvelous morning in Pittsburgh when Kathryn Kuhlman looked out over those seated in the audience for her healing service and said of the Holy Spirit, “He’s more real to me than you are.”
Kathryn’s statement stopped me in my tracks. She wasn’t referring to some remote, impersonal force floating on some mystical cloud which she wanted to bend to do her bidding, she was referring to a Person , and Friend whom she knew in a deeply personal way. And
when I grasped the personhood of the Holy Spirit I told Him that I wanted to know Him as Friend too. It was this breakthrough that led not only to power in ministry, but also to a growing friendship with the sweetest and most wonderful Person I know on earth: the Holy Spirit. Make no mistake about it, there’s glory in grasping the personhood of the Holy Spirit!
I can tell you from personal experience that when you stop learning about the Holy Spirit and begin to know Him as a person, your life will never be the same. Instead of trying to add His power to your life, you will surrender to Him, His love, His will, and His direction.
Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church in Seoul, Korea, writes of this same experience in his book Successful Home Cell Groups where he says: “When I start to preach, I say in my heart, ‘Dear Holy Spirit, now I’m starting, Let’s go! Supply all the knowledge and wisdom and discernment, and I’m going to give it out to the people.’ ” Then he adds, “After finishing the sermon, I will sit down and say, ‘Dear Holy Spirit, we did a wonderful job together, didn’t we? Praise God!”’ 1
So you see, the difference between the Holy Spirit being a power or a Person couldn’t be more profound:
• If the Holy Spirit is a power, we’ll want to get hold of it. If the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, we’ll want Him to get hold of us.
• If the Holy Spirit is a power, we’ll want it to accomplish our will and whim. If the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, we’ll want to surrender more to Him in awe and wonder.
• If the Holy Spirit is a power, we’ll be proud we have it and feel superior to those who do not. If
the Holy Spirit is a Divine Person, we’ll be humbled that in His great love the very Third Person of the Trinity has chosen to dwell within us. 2
Unfortunately, millions of people nevertheless view the Holy Spirit merely as a heavenly power or influence. They hold Him in the utmost regard and speak of Him with great reverence, but they don’t know His communion and fellowship. This is doubly sad because/zV^, it’s absolutely futile to attempt to understand the work of the Holy Spirit without first knowing Him as a person; and second, they fail to take advantage of the marvelous fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Like Christ, the Person of the Holy Spirit is eternal and living. Now when I say that the Holy Spirit is a person, I don’t mean that He has a body as you and I know it. Yet, He is not without form. And in one sense, you might even say that we become His body when He lives within us.
Like you and me and every other person, He has an intellect, a will, and emotions. My friend Rodman Williams sums up the theology so well, “That the Holy Spirit is the one God, that He is a person, and that His person is a distinct reality—all of this transcending intellectual comprehension—is the universal affirmation of those who have experienced the mystery of His sending and coming. We know that He is wholly God and that He is profoundly personal. He is not the Father or the Son but is deeply experienced through their activity. He is, to be sure, the Spirit of both (such has been confirmed again and again); however, He is identical with neither. Thus the Christian faith can rejoice in singing the Doxology, ‘Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”’ 3
The Lord Jesus Himself put an exclamation point on the personhood of the Holy Spirit when He refused to speak of the Comforter (the blessed Holy Spirit) as an “it.” The word for “spirit” in Greek (pneuma) would normally take the pronoun “it”—but Jesus showed the personhood of the Holy Spirit by speaking of “He” instead: “When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13, emphasis added).
Just as you have a unique personality, so does the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are characteristics ascribed to Him that only a person (that is, a being with intellect, emotion, and will) can possess. Not only does He have the ability to think, to communicate, and to express His love; He is also easily wounded by our careless words and actions.
Here are some of the specific ways we know the Holy Spirit is a person.
1. He has an intellect.
Can the Holy Spirit think? Can He reason and remember? According to God’s Word, He has those abilities, for as a Person He has an intellect.
Only someone with an intellect has the ability to explore, examine, and search. But that is what the Spirit of the Lord can do. For example, we cannot fathom the things that God has prepared for our future, “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God” (1 Cor. 2:10, emphasis added).
God’s Spirit has all knowledge, but even so He searches the depth and magnitude of the Father’s plans.
How We Know the Spirit Is a Person
And He shares that knowledge with us. “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God” (v. 11). It’s clear from this passage He is not merely a Revealer of truth, but also a being who Himself knows the truth.
The Scripture itself declares that the Holy Spirit has a mind: “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Rom. 8:26, 27, emphasis added).
Now notice three things in this passage: First, the Holy Spirit prays for us. Second, He searches the hearts. Third, He has a mind (“mind of the Spirit”). The word “mind” here is a comprehensive word which encompasses “the ideas of thought, feeling, and purpose.” 4
The Holy Spirit works on our behalf. The Lord Jesus made that clear when He promised that the Holy Spirit would “ teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26, emphasis added). The Holy Spirit did this for the nation of Israel as well: “You also gave your good Spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold Your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst” (Neh. 9:20).These verses highlight the Holy Spirit’s active teaching role, an action only possible for a being with intellect.
In John 15:26, we learn that He not only teaches, He also testifies: “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me” (empha-
sis added). He doesn’t just help us to testify, He Himself testifies, an action which requires intellect.
In John 16:12-15, the Savior refers to the Holy Spirit as our guide. How does He guide? “He will take of Mine and declare it to you” (v. 15). This is not some mystical imparting of knowledge; this is “hearing” the things of God and “speaking” them to believers (v. 13). This action of hearing and repeating clearly requires an intellect.
2. He has a will.
When Christ returned to heaven, He placed the Holy Spirit in charge of the Church. He has a will of His own and has decision-making responsibilities on earth.
The variety of spiritual gifts available to believers is not given at random. Paul said, “The same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills ” (1 Cor. 12:11, emphasis added).
And those working in the Kingdom of God are subject to the direction of the Spirit of the Lord as well. Paul told the elders of the church at Ephesus: “The Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28, emphasis added).
Even Christ after admonishing the seven churches in Revelation said, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7, emphasis added).
It is vital that we stay in tune with the direction of the Holy Spirit.
3. He has emotions.
The Holy Spirit is not some unemotional entity, incapable of compassion or concern. He is a person with feelings and heart. Here are two ways His emotions are expressed.
First, the Holy Spirit can love.
Love is more than a characteristic of the Holy Spirit, it is His character.
One of my favorite scriptures was written by the apostle Paul: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me” (Rom. 15:30 Kjv).
That verse is so special to me because I have personally known the love of the Holy Spirit. He has cared for me in such a special way.
Let me tell you the greatest love story I know. God so loved me that He sent His Son. His Son so loved me that He died for me. And the Holy Spirit so loved me that He came and revealed the Lord Jesus to me. And the same Holy Spirit continues to love me and help me become more and more like the Lord Jesus.
Second, the Holy Spirit can be grieved.
God’s Spirit is so gentle and loving that He has been likened to a dove. He is easily wounded. Just as the Lord Jesus was “grieved by the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5, emphasis added), the Holy Spirit can also be grieved by our actions and our wrong attitudes.
Paul was not speaking to the world, but to the Church, when he gave this stern warning: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Eph. 4:30).
The word “grieve” means “torment, cause sorrow, vex, offend, insult, or cause pain.” The Holy Spirit has a tender heart that will easily weep for you and me. We cause Him pain and even reproach when we fail to live the Christian life as we should.
Just prior to the warning that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit we are told:
• Don’t give place to the devil. (Eph. 4:27).
• Don’t take what is not yours (v. 28).
• Don’t engage in corrupt communication (v. 29).
Then Paul goes on to tell us how to please Him rather
than grieve Him. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ ever forgave you” (Eph. 4:31, 32).
The Spirit of the Lord knows our hearts, and as we keep them pure and just we will not grieve Him.
4. He can speak.
Shortly after I began to know the Holy Spirit I read the Scripture that declares “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” (Gal. 4:6 Niv, emphasis added).
When I realized that the Holy Spirit fills us and enables us to speak with intimacy to the Father, I cried out, “Lord, fill me and enable me to speak to the Father—enable me to pray in the way that pleases Him.” And suddenly from the very depths of my soul, my whole being was crying out, “Father, Father.”
While the believers at Antioch were worshiping the Lord, u the Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them’ ” (Acts 13:2, emphasis added). It is worship that invites His presence, worship that sets the stage for Him to speak to us and through us.
Timothy wrote: u The Spirit expressly says that in latter
times some will depart from the faith” (1 Tim. 4:1, emphasis added).
The Holy Spirit not only speaks directly, He also chooses to speak through His people. David stated, “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue” (2 Sam. 23:2, emphasis added).
And remember the voice of the Holy Spirit is not limited to special individuals or special occasions. He longs to speak to you today and every day. And my prayer for you is that you will always hear His voice.
5. He can be insulted.
The writer of the book of Hebrews discussed the dangers of sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth. He recalled the fact that anyone who rejected the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Then he asked, “Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:29, emphasis added). Now the word “insult” here carries with it the idea of “treating with utter contempt or arrogantly insulting.”
When we fail to appreciate the significance of Christ’s death on the cross for us, we insult the Holy Spirit.
I was appalled when a clergyman recently announced, “We are not going to sing any hymns about the blood. It upsets too many people.”
What an insult to the Holy Spirit!
It is dangerous to remove the blood or to decrease the importance of Christ’s sacrifice for us and in our place. When that happens, you have closed the door to
the Holy Spirit and have made room for satan. Remember, the Holy Spirit would have never been sent to the world on the day of Pentecost if Christ had not shed His blood and returned to the Father.
I find it astonishing that there are churches where the message of repentance and salvation is never presented. Christ is spoken of as a good moral person, but people are never invited to come to His cross to be cleansed of sin.
Why is insulting the Holy Spirit such a serious matter? It will result in losing His presence—something I never want to experience.
The removal of the Holy Spirit’s anointing and divine fellowship would be worse than any punishment I can imagine.
6. He can be lied to.
One of the Commandments God gave Moses to give to Israel was “Do not lie” (Lev. 19:11). The decree was not only to guide our dealings with man, but also with God’s Spirit.
The apostle Peter had a growing relationship with the Holy Spirit following his remarkable Upper Room experience. He knew the Holy Spirit’s gentle and sensitive nature, and how easily He can be grieved. Peter’s Fierce love for the gentle Holy Spirit was such that it is recorded in the book of Acts that he raged with holy anger when he discovered the conspiracy of Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Spirit. You probably know the story, but perhaps you’ve wondered why their punishment was so severe.
The couple had sold a piece of property and pretended that they gave the entire amount to the Lord
when in fact they had only given part. Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?” (Acts 5:3, emphasis added). He said, “Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God ” (v. 4, emphasis added). First Ananias and then Sapphira were struck dead after sinning against God by lying to the Holy Spirit (vv. 5,9, 10).
Since the Spirit of the Lord is a person, He can be lied to. And we believers must be so careful and must never forget that He is God Almighty!
7 . He can be blasphemed .
There has been much discussion concerning the “unpardonable sin”—blaspheming the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus addressed the matter when He said, “Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men . . . either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:31, 32, emphasis added).
Now it is very important to understand the context of these verses. Jesus had just cast demons out of a demon-possessed man, and in the process healed him of the blindness and muteness that afflicted him (Matt. 12:22). The reaction of the crowd that witnessed these miracles was amazement, saying: “Could this be the Son of David?” (v. 23).
The Pharisees, however, had a different reaction altogether. Seeing what the Lord Jesus did, they intoned, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons” (v. 24). Please understand how deliberate their action was. They were students of the law, rulers of the people, and eyewitnesses to the miracles
of the Lord Jesus. In their anger, spite, and pettiness, knowing exactly what they were doing, they attributed the miracles of Christ to the working of satan. They attributed the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the life of the Lord Jesus to the infilling of the evil one.
This dread act is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and as the Lord solemnly explains in the account written by Mark. “He who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” (Mark 3:29).
In both Matthew and Mark, the “unpardonable” sin was willfully attributing to Satan the miracles performed by Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. 5
I would not want to be in the shoes of someone who willfully points his finger at the work of God saying, “That’s of the devil.”
If you are worried about committing the unpardonable sin it is unlikely you ever will. Blasphemy is a willful act and not an accidental mistake.
Paul’s rejection of Christ and his persecution of the Church, for instance, was accidental as opposed to willful. He said, “Although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:13, emphasis added). He experienced full forgiveness for his unintentional sin and became one of the greatest apostles in the history of the church.
8. He can be resisted.
Can you imagine resisting the loveliest Person on earth? It is the constant practice of those who do not know Him.
Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, stood before the Sanhedrin—the high court of the Jews—and said, “You
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you” (Acts 7:51).
He was not talking to saints of God, but unbelievers— those who appeared religious but were actually rebellious.
Although these religious men were physically circumcised, they were behaving like the pagans in the uncircumcised nations that surrounded Israel. When Christ was on earth they hated Him and fought everything He stood for.
Now Stephen, defending his faith in the face of death, looked his accusers in the eyes and said, “You always resisted the Spirit.”
Rejecting God was nothing new for these outwardly religious people. Do you remember what the Children of Israel were doing while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Law? They were making a golden calf, rejecting God and His spokesman. They said to Aaron, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us” (Ex. 32:1).
And continual resistance of the Holy Spirit will silence the voice of God as Zechariah declares in chapter 7, verses 11-13, “But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry [and said], When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen, says the Lord Almighty” (niv, emphasis added). Instead of heeding the words of the Holy Spirit, Israel deliberately ignored them. It is very dangerous to refuse to hearken to the words of the Holy Spirit, for there can come a point when He will ignore our words if we ignore His.
Throughout my ministry I have encountered people who resisted the moving of the Holy Spirit—not once, but dozens of times. In so doing they have quieted His Spirit. Those who resist the Holy Spirit must realize that God has given this sobering warning: “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (Gen. 6:3). Scripture declares God is long-suffering but there is a limit to His dealings with man. Proverbs 29:1 says “A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy” (emphasis added).
9. He can be quenched.
The world resists the Holy Spirit, but believers can actually quench Him. Paul’s admonition, “Do not quench the Spirit,” is a clear order (1 Thess. 5:19). The imagery used is that of putting out a fire.
The apostle was not talking to sinners, but to the “brethren” (v. 12).
How important is this directive? It follows a list of commands that include:
• recognize those in ministry (v. 12).
• live at peace with each other (v. 13).
• warn the idle,
• encourage the timid,
• help the weak,
• be patient with everybody (v. 14).
• don’t return evil with evil (v. 15)
• pursue what is good—for you and everyone else (v. 15).
• rejoice always.
• pray without ceasing,
• give thanks for everything (vv. 16-18).
After presenting this marvelous list as being “in God’s will for you,” Paul states: “Quench not the Spirit” (v. 19, emphasis added).
There is a great difference between resisting and quenching. An unbeliever resists Him by rejecting the message of the gospel and refusing to allow the Holy Spirit to work in his life. The child of God, however, quenches a flame that has already started to burn.
I have met people who pray for some of the gifts of the Holy Spirit—but not all of them. Oh, they love the gift of faith and the gift of teaching, or the gift of giving, but when it comes to the supernatural power of God and the gifts of healing, then they pull out their spiritual fire extinguisher and douse the flame.
Always remember that when we quench Him we deny Him the opportunity to bless and touch our lives, and to touch the lives of others through us.
of Love
The Circle It seems that all of heaven is joined together in their loyalty and unwavering love for the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament, we see the Holy Spirit so loved by the Father that the Father defended Him from any attack. While wandering through the desert, the children of Israel “rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; so He turned Himself against them as an enemy, and He fought against them” (Isa. 63:10).
In the Gospels, we see the Holy Spirit so loved by the Son that He solemnly warns the Pharisees who were insolent enough to attribute the works of the Holy Spirit to satan, “Do not speak against the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 12:32).
In the book of Acts, we see the Holy Spirit so loved by Peter, that with great boldness he rose to the defense
of the Holy Spirit in the face of those who sought to lie to Him, saying in essence, “Don’t ever lie to Him” (Acts 5:3).
In the book of Ephesians, we see the Holy Spirit so loved by Paul that he warns the Ephesian church, “Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 4:30).
In all this I see the Father, the Son, and the Church continually on guard for the One they love.
It is only natural to defend those for whom we have deep feelings. In the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is the One we are warned not to wound and offend.
Thus the Lord Jesus said, “You can speak about me and I will pardon you. But if you speak about Him, I won’t forgive.”
The Father did not say, “You have grieved Me.” He declared, “You have grieved my Spirit ” (Isa. 63:10)
I have asked several theologians and diligently searched the Scripture, but nowhere can I find the Word commanding, “Grieve not the Father,” or “Grieve not the Son.” But we do read: “Grieve not the Spirit.”
I wish there were words to describe my year-long introduction to the person of the Holy Spirit. During the entire year of 1974 God Almighty allowed me to come into His innermost sanctuary.
The ministry the Lord has entrusted to me was not born in weakness, but in a life-transforming visitation of the Holy Spirit. I did not receive an anointing or a “mantle” from Kathryn Kuhlman or anyone else. What the Spirit of the Lord gave me was fresh and new and it continues to this day.
Night after night I would lock myself in my bed-
A New Mantle
room—sometimes until two or three o’clock in the morning, talking and fellowshiping with the Holy Spirit.
The moment I said “Holy Spirit,” He would come. My room would fill up with an atmosphere so electric and so beautiful that my entire body would begin to tingle. And as that presence would intensify, a numbness would come on me. At times it was so great that I would feel weak and could not move.
I could not understand why I had such a feeling. If I was standing, I would collapse to the floor. If I was on my bed, I would have to bend my legs underneath me and lean against the wall.
During those moments, as I would begin conversing with the Holy Spirit, every word that came out of my mouth seemed to be heavy, so rich with meaning and emotion. I lost all sense of time, aware only of the richness of the fellowship we were sharing. Many times during these wonderful seasons of fellowship, I would hear myself speaking words of love and poetry to the Lord Jesus, and literally listen to the inner recesses of myself uttering the most incredible things to the Lord. Oh, the sweetness of those moments of addressing the Lord Jesus with the most beautiful, heavenly names.
I came to know the Holy Spirit intimately and understand His great love for the Lord Jesus. I began to understand what the Scriptures meant when they declared that the Savior is “the fairest of 10,000” (Song 5:10), and why the Holy Spirit used so many wonderful titles to describe Jesus Christ, the altogether lovely One. And in my heart, a great crescendo of love for the Lord Jesus began to build. I truly entered into the experience of the songwriter, lost in praise and exaltation, who adoringly declared:
Beautiful Savior!
Lord of the Nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor,
Praise, adoration Now and forevermore be Thine! 6
It is impossible to predict what will happen when God’s Spirit becomes real in your life.
Several months after Good Morning, Holy Spirit was translated into the Spanish language, a minister from Buenos Aires, Argentina, flew to Orlando to spend time with me. His name is Claudio Freidzon. 7 Claudio is the founding pastor of a church in Buenos Aires that had grown to 3,000 people in just four years. Claudio read Good Morning, Holy Spirit and was convinced that God was leading him to come to Orlando so I could pray with him. Although many of his friends tried to talk him out of it, he obeyed the Holy Spirit.
During the Sunday evening service, I laid my hands on him and prayed that God would do a great work in Argentina. What I didn’t realize was that the message of that book had totally transformed his life. The Holy Spirit had become powerfully real to him and was about to become powerfully real to multitudes of Argentineans.
When Claudio returned to Argentina, we began to hear some amazing reports. He began preaching the message of the reality of the Holy Spirit and revival swept the country. As Claudio led people into an experience of worship and praise, missionaries reported that the Shekinah glory of the Lord seemed to descend on the meetings. The Assemblies of God magazine, Mountain
The Change in Claudio
Movers, reports that “In December 1992, Claudio rented a 12,000 seat auditorium, Buenos Aires’ largest, for a service. When the building was filled and police closed the doors, 25,000 people were still waiting in line, closing off 2 major avenues. They waited 3 hours for a second service.” 8 What began with Claudio’s willingness to follow the Holy Spirit has now spread to hundreds of pastors and churches.
More than 2,000 ministers have flown from Argentina to our crusades in the United States to witness the power of God in action, and returned to their country with the power of God for their life and ministry.
And recently when we conducted a crusade in Buenos Aires, more than 100,000 attended the first service alone. But it all began with Claudio Freidzon coming to Orlando.
If you are ready to experience the work of the Holy Spirit, let me invite you to first know Him as a person. As R. A. Torrey said, “Before one can correctly understand the work of the Holy Spirit, he must first of all know the Spirit Himself. A frequent source of error and fanaticism about the work of the Holy Spirit is the attempt to study and understand His work without first coming to know Him as a person.” 9
He is a Person, yes, but you must also understand that He is a divine Person. Just as the Father (John 6:27; Eph. 4:6) and the Son (Heb. 1:8) are divine, so is the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3, 4).
The Lord Jesus fully communicated the Spirit’s deity when He said: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name
The Holy Spirit Is Divine
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). If the Holy Spirit were not divine, we would not find Him linked equally with the Father and the Son in the Scripture.
Peter refers to the Holy Spirit in Acts 5:4 as “God.” When Ananias and Sapphira held back some of the proceeds from the sale of their property and pretended that they gave the full amount, Peter asked, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself?” (Acts 5:3, emphasis added). Then he said, “You have not lied to men but to God ” (v. 4, emphasis added).
There is no difference between lying to the Holy Spirit or to God for the Holy Spirit is divine, that is, fully possessing all the attributes of deity.
Not only is the Holy Spirit God, He is also Lord. The Bible declares, “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17, emphasis added). And furthermore, “We . . . are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit ” (v. 18 NIV, emphasis added).
Psalm 95 is a wonderful declaration of praise to the Lord. Verse one calls us to sing “unto the Lord,” and then goes on to praise who He is and what He has done. We find this same Scripture quoted in Hebrews 3:7-11, but where the Psalmist uses Lord, the author of Hebrews attributes the same words to the Holy Spirit: “Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness. . .’” (Heb. 3:7, 8).
Who is speaking? The “Holy Spirit” who spoke in Hebrews 3 is the same “Lord” who spoke in Psalm 95.
The Holy Spirit is just as much God as the Father and the Son. They are Three in One. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Always remember that both the Old and New Testaments recognize the Holy Spirit as God and Lord.
My friend, you can never begin to give the Holy Spirit the place that belongs to Him until you see who He is. But once you see who He is, you can begin to appreciate what He does.
To fully comprehend the work of the Holy Spirit, we need to realize that He is not merely an ambassador of the Almighty—He is a divine member of the Godhead. As Billy Graham said, “There is nothing that God is that the Holy Spirit is not. All of the essential aspects of deity belong to the Holy Spirit.” 10
As a young Christian, before my life-changing encounter with the Holy Spirit, I did not really know about or fellowship with Him. He was an inscrutable, distant entity whom I reverenced and feared more than loved. He had not been revealed in the light I see Him today. Now I know Him as God Almighty, equal to the Father and the Son in glory, majesty, honor, and beauty and have experienced His tender love. And like the other members of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit has three distinctive characteristics.
The Holy Spirit is omnipresent—present everywhere. Often when I’m away from my family on a Crusade or a speaking engagement, I’ll hear something funny and want to share it with my wife, but I won’t be able to because she’s back in Orlando. Or I’ll see a child do something that will remind me of one of my
The Holy Spirit Is Omnipresent
precious children, and in that instant I’ll miss them terribly.
For all the theological ramifications of omnipresence, the thing about omnipresence that means the most to me is that the most wonderful and gracious Person in existence is with me wherever I go. I never have to miss Him, never have to wish He was with me, never have to travel to a place and leave Him behind.
Wherever I go, He’s there. I love what the psalmist wrote:
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me (Ps. 139:7-10).
The Holy The Third Person of the Trinity is all- . . knowing. A host of verses make this clear.
Spirit S p Qr i nstance? Isaiah asked: “Who has di-
Omniscient reeled the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding?” (Isa. 40:13-14, emphasis added). Paul adds, “The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things 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 the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:10,
11 Kjv). Lewis Sperry Chafer says it well: “ . . none can deny that, if the knowledge which the Spirit possesses reaches to the deep things of God, all else would likewise be comprehended by Him. 11
Not only does God’s Spirit know about the things of God, He knows all about you; in fact—He knows you better than you know yourself. The words of the psalmist about God relate completely to the Holy Spirit: “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in— behind and before” (Ps. 139:1-4a Niv).
The Holy Spirit makes this knowledge available to His servants through the “word of knowledge,” which is an insight into the condition of a person’s life. In my case, not only does He reveal to me certain sicknesses, He also tells me what to do and sometimes reveals to me what He's doing in the service. That’s how I know whom He’s healing and from what, what choruses He wants me to sing and what to do next. I obey the Holy Spirit’s leading because of His omniscience. I trust Him completely.
The Holy The omnipotence of the Holy Spirit is demonstrated conclusively by three powerful acts: