of the living God or else portray Him in a milk toast manner. Casual reference to God he s the heavenly buddy. He s the man upstairs.

Transcription

1 Broadcast #7332 All right, thank you very much. And hello again, my dear radio friend. How in the world are you? You doin all right today? Oh, I trust so bless your heart. Been praying that God might have something special for you today. May he answer that prayer abundantly. As we look again at Ephesians 4: The unity of the Spirit. What is it? One body, that s all the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That s called the body of Christ. One Spirit, that s the blessed Holy Spirit. One hope would be your calling. That s our Lord Jesus Christ crucified, buried, resurrected, ascended, seated at the right hand of God and coming again for you and for me to take us to Himself, our hope is Christ. One Lord, the Lordship of Christ means let Him give the orders. One faith, that s dependent upon the Lord Jesus for salvation and then a lifestyle of trusting God and obeying Him thereafter. One baptism what is this? Well, there are some who call water baptism. Whatever this is referring to. I think, however, that we re talking about the fact that when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior, you re baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit. He says, No, you re not. That so many of us that were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death. Therefore, we re buried with Him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead, but the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life. Now, this a symbol of this, of course, is water baptism, where the believer goes down into the water, comes up out of the water symbolizing and testifying in obedience to Christ s command that he has committed himself to the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Now, some of you, of course, who listen have different views. And please don t write and argue with me because we ll be in heaven one day and we ll all be straightened up. My father used to say when I would argue with him as a teenager, he d say, Well, we ll be in heaven someday and you ll know I was right. (Laughs) I wouldn t presume to say that

2 about this. But here s what I understand this scripture teaches. When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God comes to dwell in your life. And He baptizes you into Christ, a spiritual oneness with the Lord Jesus Christ and He dwells within you. The Holy Spirit dwells within you from that time on. Now, there are many who feel that there is a second definite work of grace and that they call the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I m not going to quarrel with that. I m hardly in favor of a filling of the Holy Spirit of God. Hardly in favor of seeking God and do your whole being. Every room, as Oswald J. Smith used to say it. Every room in your heart house is filled with the Holy Spirit. No quarrel with that concept at all. And the more we depend upon the blessed Spirit of God to fill us the more effective will be in Christian work. But there is differences of opinion and we need to be charitable to each other and loving and understanding that, one of these days, we ll get to heaven and we realize that the main thing is that Jesus Christ should be Lord and the Holy Spirit of God should have his way in the believer s heart no matter how He, the Holy Spirit, chooses to manifest Himself. I remember when I was a boy, I went to the First Church of the Nazarene in Cleveland, Ohio down on 156 th Street in Hayden Avenue. I don t know if they re still there or not, but that s where it was when I attended as a little boy. And one of the dear ladies, who was kind to me as a motherless voice, she sort of mothered me and looked after me now and then, was a [Mrs. Hartman 0:04:10]. When I see was generously built, I suppose she would have tipped the scales to probably 225 or 230 pounds at least. So, you can see that for her to do very much quick moving around physically would entail a little effort, we might say. And yet, this dear lady now, when the Spirit of God was moving in the congregation and people s hearts were filled with praise, she would get up from her seat. I see this in my mind as though it were a photograph, across all the years. That would have been in 19 (Inhales) I suppose 23 or 24. She would get up from her seat and she take a little handkerchief and she d wave it. And then, she would walk with the daintiest of steps up and down the aisle and around the congregation and just say softly, Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Now, I never did that. First of all, I never had a lace handkerchief to wave. (Laughs) My handkerchiefs, generally, were black. They gave me a black handkerchief because it didn t show the dirt quite so much I guess. But I never did that nor have I since. I think the Holy Spirit works in different ways with different people. Don t you really think so? The thing that you have to remember is there s one Lord, one faith, one Holy Spirit and He wants to fill your life. Now, you call it what you will. Call it what you will. But what

3 is important, what is important is that the Spirit of God fill every room in your heart house. I think, so often, what [Dr. Vasosoon 0:06:03] told me when [Helen Paxon 0:06:06] had gone through the area in Switzerland where [Mrs. Vasosoon 0:06:12] was with her husband running a Bible Institute. And she said, I was busy but I wasn t. And I was barren, I didn t have any fruit. And then, it was explained to me that by faith, I could receive the Spirit of God and to every part of my life. And as I ve told you before in these broadcasts, she pointed up to a boulder, great rock outcropping halfway up the mountain above us. And she said, See that big boulder up there, Mr. Cook? I said, Yes, I see it. Well, she said, I climbed up the mountain and I sat on that big rock outcropping. And one by one, I gave my faith, every part of all of my life to the Holy Spirit to control. And when I was finished, I looked out across Lake Thun over and toward the Matterhorn and the Young [frou 0:07:01] and the other mountains. And then I looked heavenward and I said, I thank Thee that thou hast filled me with Thy Holy Spirit. Well, she said, I didn t have any experience then. I didn t hear any bells ringing or any lightning flashing or thunder. But she said, The next time I gave out the gospel, people were saved and that s been happening ever since. This, I think dear friends, is what we re getting at. Do you know in any really effective way the presence of the Holy Spirit of God in your life, beloved? Don t let denominational arguments get in the way here now. We re not talking about pyrotechnics and fireworks and emotional outcroppings. We re talking about the Lordship of Jesus Christ and they control of the blessed Holy Spirit who exalts the Savior day by day. He comes to dwell when you get saved. He wants to fill every part of all of your life with Himself. And when He does, the Lord Jesus will get the glory and you will be an effective witness. The Lord Jesus linked the touch of the Holy Spirit and effective witnessing together. Did you notice that? He used to receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and, you might add, as a result, ye shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the outermost part of the earth. You, my dear friend and I, have the privilege as well as God s command that we be filled with His blessed Holy Spirit. Now, all of that grew out of that phrase, one baptism. The Spirit of God baptizes you into the body of Christ when you re saved. He wants to fill your life with Himself if you let Him. Then, what else? One baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and true all and in you all. now, that s a mouthful and we re not going to get through it before time runs out today. You start with the concept of God. In these days, we have an awful lot of casual reference to God. Hollywood has produced films that either mock at the traditional Judeo-Christian concept

4 of the living God or else portray Him in a milk toast manner. Casual reference to God he s the heavenly buddy. He s the man upstairs. He s somebody who loves me up there that sort of a thing. The songwriters, you know, they say, Well, I dreamed that I went up to the pearly gates. And on my way, I thought I ll never get in because of all I ve done. But then, I remembered that God loves me. Well, that s partly true, you know, and partly untrue. There s only one way to get through the pearly gates and that s through the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn t depend on what you ve done. It depends on whether you ve made Him your Lord and your Savior. So, anyway, one God. We start with God. He s not your heavenly buddy. He is Almighty God. That s how God spoke to Abraham. He said, I m Almighty God. You walk before me and be perfect. Watch your step, in other words. When thou comest into the presence of God, be careful what you say., said Solomon. Be careful what you say when you come to God. Why? Because every word counts. Jesus said, For every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof on the day of judgment. How many of words of gossip or either criticism or downright slander or whatever it may be? How many of those words are going to greet you in the judgment? Well, you better get them under the blood of Jesus. You better get them covered with His precious cleansing blood so that you re heart is clean and your record is clean. And you ll be then in position for the fulfillment of John 5: shall not come in to judgment, but is passed from death unto life. Hallelujah for that. Now, he says, God and Father. You start with the Almighty God. He is the sovereign God. He is the creator. You re the creature. He s the potter. You re the clay. He s the source of life. You re the objective of his life-giving power. He could destroy you just by looking away from you. He s God. I think we need a resurgence, a renewal of all in the presence of the Almighty God. We re too casual with Him. We need to learn to worship Him. Read the sixth chapter of Isaiah. And here, the Seraphim saying one to another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole of earth is full of His presence, full of His glory. See? Then he says, And Father. Now, if they stop just with the word God, you and I would be absolutely hopeless. But there s Father. He s our father through the Lord Jesus Christ. We ve been adopted into the heavenly family and the Spirit of God has been sent forth into our hearts, Paul says, crying Abba, father, papa, God. He s our father. Yes, there s a sense of all when you come into His presence. But there s also a sense of loving trust because you know that He loves you and

5 the everlasting arms are wrapped around you and they hold you safely as days go by. We ll come back to that verse the next time we get together. Dear Father, may the Holy Spirit who dwells within us have full sway in our lives. May God, our Father, be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ I pray. Amen. Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today, and be a blessing. You've just heard Walk With The King, the ministry of Dr. Robert A. Cook. This program is listener-supported. For more information or to find out how you can help continue this ministry, write to us at Walk With The King, P.O. Box 43, Trumbull, Connecticut 06611, or visit us on the web at WalkWithTheKing.org. Thank you for your support of this ministry. This transcription was free of charge to you, but it does cost to prepare. We appreciate your financial support to help keep materials like this available for use free of charge. If you can, please visit walkwiththeking.org/support and make a tax-deductible donation. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for listening to Walk With The King. All rights reserved Walk With The King, Inc.