Who Will Show Us What Is to Come?

Tom: We’re continuing with the gospel—we’re in the Gospel of John:16:12I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.
See All...: “I have yet many things to say unto you…” Of course, this is Jesus speaking. “…but ye cannot bear them now; howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come.” About the Holy Spirit.

Dave: Powerful passage, Tom. It says so much, we could spend the next ten segments on this. It tells us, of course, that the Holy Spirit hadn’t yet come. And we got that back in chapter 7, verse 37, remember? On the last day of “the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” And John gives us the commentary, “This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Tom: “Given” here doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit wasn’t in the world convicting of sin or empowering the prophets...

Dave: Exactly!

Tom: Inspiring the…

Dave: The Holy Spirit had never indwelt anyone permanently. That happened on the day of Pentecost, and it could only happen when Christ—remember, He said, “It’s expedient for you that I go away. If I don’t go away, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to come—the Comforter.”

Tom: So this couldn’t apply to David, who said, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me.”

Dave: A good point, Tom. Don’t sing that song, please. We do sing the psalms, and they’re beautiful, and some of them are applicable to us. But it is not proper for Christians to sing, “Take not thy Holy Spirit from me,” as I’ve heard some do.

Tom: Because we’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit until the Day of Resurrection…

Dave: Exactly. And I was at a church recently, and they were singing, “Come, Holy Spirit, come.” Well, wait a minute. The Holy Spirit has come. He has indwelt us. And then they were singing, “Come, Jesus, come into our midst.” Wait a minute! Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am…” So if you are gathered in His name, He is there. You don’t have to invite Him or beg Him.

Tom: Yeah, well, Dave, some people might say, “Come on! You’re just nitpicking here,” and so on. But you know, a lot of those little nits develop into a view of God, and an understanding of the Scripture, which is erroneous, and that’s why…You know, we’re not trying to pick on this, and pick on that, but, you know, these things do accumulate in our mindset, in our theology, which is a problem.

Dave: Now, Tom, it’s significant—the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. “I’ve got things to say to you, but you can’t bear them. You will only understand them by the Holy Spirit.”

Of course, Paul talks about that in 1 Corinthians 2: He says, “The natural man doesn’t understand the things of God. They’re spiritually discerned.” The Spirit searches all things—the deep things of God. And Jesus, of course, is saying the same thing here.

You know, the Bible is an integrated message, and it is too complicated…It’s simple, on one hand, but on the other hand, it is  so interwoven! And there are no contradictions! There is a reinforcement from Paul or Peter or James or John, and it goes back to the prophets, as well. But this is something, Tom, we could spend a little more time on, but I guess we shouldn’t.

“The Spirit of truth—he will guide you into…part of the truth—but unfortunately he can’t lead you into all of the truth because that has been reserved for those great prophets of God who will come along: Freud, and Jung, and Rogers, and Maslow, godless anti-Christians to a man! But, oh! They’re going to have part of the truth, too, you know. All truth is God’s truth, and you don’t find it all in the Bible, but we’re going to get some of it here and there.” I mean this is an absolute refutation of that idea—the foundation of so-called Christian psychology. “All truth is God’s truth.” Yeah, all truth is God’s truth. But what is truth?

Well, truth comes from the Holy Spirit—the Spirit of truth—and the Holy Spirit leads into all truth. So if you are not indwelt with the Holy Spirit, if you not on the Lord’s side, you are not going to know any of the truth, okay?

And we got that back in John 14…

Tom: Now, Dave. Somebody out there is listening, and they say, “Wait a minute! I thought your position was that unsaved humans could respond to truth.” Now how do you reconcile that?

Dave: Yes, but they must be taught it by God. It is revealed in the gospel so that unsaved people can understand the gospel. We know that because they are told to believe. And we are told to go into all the world, preach the gospel! But I don’t preach deep spiritual truths to unsaved people. It’s only after they respond to the gospel, which they can understand, and they have the law of God written in their conscience, Romans 2 tells us.

But the Holy Spirit will lead into all truth. That’s the point that Jesus is making here. So whether it’s the gospel or whatever it is, you’re going to get this from the Holy Spirit.

So, Freud was not inspired of the Holy Spirit; he was an anti-Christian. In fact, Tom Szasz, a Jewish psychiatrist, said Freud had one motivation in life: the destruction of Christianity!

But John:14:17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
See All..., Jesus says, “I’m not going to leave you comfortless. I’ll send you the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. It doesn’t see him. It doesn’t know him.”

So we know that those who are not Christians do not have the Holy Spirit indwelling them. And it is only through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that the truth of God that sets free—Jesus said, “You continue in my word, you will know the truth; the truth will set you free.” Now it is a fact—a scientific fact—that, well, e=mc². Well, we think that’s pretty accurate at the moment. It seems to work. Or that the attraction between two bodies is directly proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers; the law of gravity, or the acceleration is 32 feet per second per second, you know—bodies falling out of this earth. Those are facts. But that is not the truth that sets people free. And even when you stand in front of a judge and say, “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me, God,” that’s not going to set people free. It could put people in prison.

So Jesus is talking about something special. This is the truth of God, only known and understood by the Holy Spirit, and Freud did not have it, Jung did not have it, Rogers turned against—he was in seminary, as you know, when he converted to psychology and turned against Christianity. But then Jesus moves on, Tom. He says, “He will not speak of himself.”

I can remember many years ago, I used to say, “Hey, those Pentecostals out there, they’re always talking about the Holy Spirit. That couldn’t be of God, because it says He won’t talk about Himself.”

No, it doesn’t say He won’t talk about Himself. It says He won’t speak on His own initiative—of Himself, or from Himself. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work in conjunction with one another. Jesus said, “I only do what the Father tells me to do.” And so, the Holy Spirit, when He’s come, He doesn’t make up something; He doesn’t invent something on His own. He doesn’t have His own agenda, and then the Father has His, and the Son has His. But He is going to show us what the Father wants us to know. And He will reveal things that are to come, and “He will glorify me [John:16:14He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
See All...] for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.”

So the Holy Spirit is the revealer of Christ to the world. He reveals first of all Christ in redemption, as the Savior for sinners to believe in, and then He reveals Christ in a deeper way to the believers: He’s our life; He’s our all; He lives His life through us.

Tom: Dave you sort of jumped over the verse: “He will show you things to come.” To me, that stands out because this demonstrates that the Holy Spirit must be God because only God—He’s the Alpha and the Omega—only He knows the beginning from the end.

Dave: Exactly.

Tom: And it’s major point that’s trying to be undermined today through all these psychics and all these perverters of truth.

Dave: That’s a very interesting statement there by the Lord: “He will show you things to come.”

So the prophets in the Old Testament foretold Christ’s coming. They foretold much that has happened to the Jews. They foretold the fact that Jerusalem would be a cup of trembling, a burdensome stone. But there are also prophecies in the New Testament that reveal things to come. Of course, Revelation, the book of Revelation would be the great—a great example of that.

Tom: And John, who wrote the book of Revelation…

Dave: Under the inspiration of the Spirit of God…

Tom: Right. Dave, that’s the point I’m trying to make—that John had to do it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So it’s just an example of what’s being said here.

Dave: And it certainly tells us things that are to come.

Tom: John:16:15All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
See All...: “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

Dave: The Father’s given everything to the Son. It belongs to Him because He’s the heir. And we have become joint heirs with Christ. And that is so amazing and so wonderful.

Tom: And here we have the Holy Spirit: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.