Sometimes it is hard to determine just who is telling the truth. There are times when two people, who are for the most part very believable, are telling two different stories. Whom do you believe? How do you really know who is telling the truth?

During the last twenty years the lie detector business has been growing. While these tests are not used in court, they are being used more and more by businesses. Companies want to know if their employees are lying and/or stealing while in their employ.

In East India thousands of years ago those who were suspected of committing a crime were taken into a darkened room. There in that room with the suspect were only the person who would question them and a donkey. The suspect was asked to hold the donkey's tail and was told that the donkey would bray if he told a lie. What the suspect did not know was that the donkey's tail was covered with black soot. If the suspect was going to lie when questioned he would never touch the donkey's tail. The liar could always be identified as the one who walked out of the room with clean hands.

Adapted by Paul Harvey, More of Paul Harvey's the Rest of the Story (New York City: William Morrow & Company), p. 68.

The hours were passing rapidly. Time was running out. Jesus was trying to get everything in before the end of his ministry. He had so much to say, and yet, he was aware of the fact that the disciples were just not ready to take it all in.

Up to this point, they were struggling just to understand what he had been trying to tell them. They were still stumbling over the meaning of the parables, attempting to put some flesh on stories that seemed to be like a gossamer cloth spun with gold thread, yet impossible to grasp even when they had their hands on it.

They were constantly bickering with each other, trying to get a more prominent place in the order of things, a little like first graders lining up at the water fountain at school. For twelve grown men, you'd think that they would have been more sophisticated, but we have to remember that these were commoners, men of passions, used to living lives of intensity on fishing boats, on farms, in workshops, and in tax offices. They were the blue-collar workers of their time, skilled and yet not educated, used to the basics, not interested in what the future might hold because they found life difficult enough in the present.

In other words, the disciples were like you and me. Our educational levels might be different, our cultural experiences might lead us to believe that we "know" more, but when it comes down to living day to day, we are not so far apart. Jesus was trying to talk to a group of people who could be sitting in this room at this very moment right alongside of us.

Jesus wanted to speak to his disciples in a clear and direct manner. But how could he expect them to hear all that they needed to hear with so little time left? The more he spoke about the future, the more fear and anxiety filled their minds and faces.

Did you ever notice how it gets harder to hear when someone is telling you something you do not want to hear? Like when the doctor comes in with test results that you have been dreading. Or when your boss calls you in to tell you about some restructuring that is going to have to take place. Or when the principal asks for a special conference about the report card that is about to be distributed. You would think that would be the time when you could focus in and increase your ability to listen. Instead, we tend to get fuzzier and more confused. I have a feeling that is what Jesus could see in the disciples' faces as they listened around the table in that upper room.

Jesus, at this moment, aware of the chaos they will soon be thrust into, offers something new, something entirely different, something that would ease the confusion and soothe the furrowed brows of the disciples.

William Cowper was an English poet and hymn-writer. He had studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1754. Strangely enough, he never practiced. Shy and gentle by nature, he was not emotionally equipped to deal with the stress and strain associated with the profession. He suffered intense fits of melancholy and spiritual despair. It is told that one evening he summoned a London cabby and directed him to drive to the Thames River. A heavy fog blanketed the city and for more than an hour, the cab driver cautiously drove along the obscured streets in search of the river. Little did the driver know that his noticeably impatient passenger had resolved to relieve his troubled mind by plunging into a watery grave. Cowper had weighed everything in the balances of life no longer seemed worth the bother. Angered by the delay and anxious to get on with his plan, Cowper lunged from the cab and set out to find the river on his own.

He wandered and groped for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, he discovered himself standing at his own doorstep! Coincidence? Not in Cowper's judgment. He went directly to his room, took up pen and paper and wrote the words to the new familiar hymn: "God Moves in Mysterious Ways His Wonders to Perform." Again, the guiding presence of the Holy Spirit is frequently best acknowledged by hindsight.

Clarence Macartney tells of a certain Canadian river which flows through a forbidding chasm. Looming on either side of the river are rugged, uninviting crags which bear the names "Eternity" and "Trinity." Macartney suggests that the opposing crags invite an analogy (you understand of course, that to a preacher, most everything invites analogy). "Inseparable from any true conception of God," he says, "are always the two doctrines of God's eternity and God's trinity ... The threefold experience of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit." The great preacher then goes on to conclude that both doctrines lie helplessly beyond human comprehension.

When a large ship enters a harbor, it takes on board what is called a harbor master. This is a man who knows that harbor; he knows the length of it, he knows the depth of it. He knows where the hazards are. He knows where the tides and currents are; what direction they flow in and how strong they are. When that harbor master comes on board, he takes control of that ship, and he gives order to the captain who steers the ship. He is an outside expert who is brought in to make sure that ship docks safely.

As we sail through the sea of life, we have been given a harbor master. He is the Holy Spirit. He knows the currents, the tides, the hazards, and the flow. If you will let Him guide the ship of your life, He will guide you safely through the hazards of earth, right into the harbor of heaven. Because He is the only guide you need.

A few years ago in the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, a float stalled. Frustrations increased quickly because other floats could not move, and this event was televised around the world. Mechanics quickly descended upon the stalled float, searching all over for the problem. Finally, someone had the presence of mind to check on the fuel level of the vehicle. It was empty, out of gas. This became even more embarrassing when the crowd realized that the float's sponsor was one of the major oil companies.

Did you know that Christians can run out of gas too? It happens all too frequently. A Christian's inner resources can be depleted by struggles, temptations, trouble, and grief. Unless that Christian is receiving fresh resources from a reliable source, he or she will be in trouble.

We have such a source, available and inexhaustible. That source is the Holy Spirit.

As Chuck Swindoll wrote, "What fuel is to a car, the Holy Spirit is to the believer. He energizes us to stay the course. He motivates us in spite of obstacles. He keeps us going when the road gets tough. In short, he is our spiritual fuel."

Some while ago three other drivers and I all arrived at a Four Way Stop intersection at virtually the same moment. Although altogether too many drivers seem unaware of this fact, the rule at Four Way Stops is that drivers take turns in a clockwise fashion or according to whoever got to the intersection first. In this case, the four of us arrived simultaneously and so there was no logical starting point for even a clockwise rotation. What happened instead is that each of the four of us was making hand gestures to encourage someone to go first. After being momentarily stuck with no one moving, the next thing you knew, all four of us crept forward a bit at the same moment! Again we all stopped and again we all encouraged each other to go first. After lots of silly grins and even laughter among us four strangers, eventually we managed to get someone to go first. It was the complete opposite of what often characterizes road rage—we were terminally deferential! But it was hilarious and wonderful at the same time.

I think that something of that kind of deferential joy must characterize the interior life of God. There is something wonderful about a shared love and a shared enthusiasm one person for the other that is so intense, it results in a never-ending dance of affirmation and celebration. This Trinity Sunday lection from John 16 is pretty brief. Yet packed into this short section is the animating energy and verve and effervescence that exists at the bright center of the universe: that holy community that just is God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

When I was a student, we had an assignment: "Prove or disprove the existence of God" in ten pages.  One clever answer used less than a page, and got top marks for the effort.  The student wrote to the effect that the assignment was not possible using the rules of logical proof.  For in using the available conventional starting point, we would only be able to use the things that can be observed and verified by human senses within the known created world.  All one could do, the argument supposed, in that instance is prove that something in the created world was God.  In other words, you could prove that something was God that could not possibly be God.  The second part of the argument suggested that in order for such a "proof" to be valid, a student would have to be objective, from the start, about that answer.  A student would need not to care if there was or was not a "God".  Since everyone has a stake in the answer, one way or another, it was reasoned that such a proof was impossible to attempt.

How would you prove the existence of God? The point of the exercise was to get the students to think about who or what God is. The reality of the exercise, at least for the student in question, is that we cannot approach the answer through logical thought, through reason alone.  Now this is not to say that reason and logic do not have their place in the realm of faith. It is just to say that they alone cannot do the job.  The IS-ness of God is just too different from our experience to be able to fathom.  So the language of the Trinity in the Christian witness may serve mostly to humble us.  It serves to remind us that God is indeed beyond our complete comprehension.  All the language that we have about God must be metaphor.  Most of the language in the bible is just that, with one notable exception: "God is love."

Well-known biblical scholar and translator, J. B. Phillips, has lamented that many Christians today are living on the spiritual capital of the past a spiritual capital that is rapidly being depleted. Says the Rev. Dr. Phillips, "Our society ... bears all the marks of a God-starved community. There is little real moral authority because no ultimate Authority is known or acknowledged. "As a result, says Dr. Phillips, many see little purpose in life. "Most ... hold on, without much reason or authority to the moral standards of what is commonly supposed to be the good life." Consequently, many of us become locked into a comfortable materialism and cozy agnosticism.  But that is not the way of the Spirit. It is the advocate of truth, willing to do its work with men and women open to it.

Stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon or fly over the Pacific Ocean. Gaze on the pyramids at Giza that were already more than a thousand years old at the time of the Exodus or hold in your palm a piece of pottery shaped by another hand when Jesus was a boy. Suddenly you see your life for the fragile and brief breath it is. Suddenly you realize the magnitude of this eternal mystery we call "God." You catch your breath. You feel in the pit of your stomach what the psalmist felt when he looked at the starry sky and wrote, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?" Amazing! We are small. We are infinitesimal. Our minds are too primitive to comprehend the majesty of God. Our hearts are too small to contain the love of God. Our lives are too short to search out the works of God. Yet! God cares for us.

During the Italian occupation of Ethiopia in the days of Mussolini, Christian believers suffered considerable persecution. In his book, Fire on the Mountains, Raymond Davis tells of the love demonstrated by believers for each other during this period of affliction, which in turn made a major impression on unbelievers. For example, no provision was made to feed the prisoners in jail by the invading army. This was the responsibility of relatives and friends. Christians in the prisons had no problem, though. They were well cared for by friends and family. In fact, so much food was brought them by fellow believers and church groups that enough remained to feed the unbelieving prisoners also. This observable love, vibrant though nonverbal, brought many to seek the Lord. Such love was previously unheard of. As a result, the word spread far and wide. Non-believers sought out believers to learn more about the Christian faith. When prisoners who had come to know Christ while in jail were released, they went back home and attended the nearest church.

There is a story about a newly appointed preacher who preached a very fine sermon on his first Sunday in the church. The text was Matthew 26.24. No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other. You cannot serve God and Money. Everyone loved it. The next Sunday she preached the very same sermon. The people were perplexed but since it was a fine sermon no one spoke to him of the duplication. The next week he preached the sermon again. After the service the Chairpersons of the Personnel and Worship ministry teams came to the pastor and asked him why he was preaching the same sermon over and over again. The pastor said, "When we start doing what Jesus has invited us to do, I'll move on to something new!"

Tertullian, one of the theologians of the early church, explained the Trinity in a metaphor. God the Father he described as "a deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit as that which spreads beauty and fragrance."

Henry Augustus Rowland, professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University, was once called as an expert witness at a trial. During cross-examination a lawyer demanded, "What are your qualifications as an expert witness in this case?"

The normally modest and retiring professor replied quietly, "I am the greatest living expert on the subject under discussion." Later a friend well acquainted with Rowland expressed surprise at the professor's uncharacteristic answer. Rowland answered, "Well, what did you expect me to do? I was under oath."

The church must speak the truth, like the Physics professor. We are not the bearers of some of the truth or half the truth. We Christians are the bearers of All the Truth. Jesus is not a way to God he is the way. The Christ is not, as Mohammad said, a prophet. He is God incarnate. Our heavenly Father did not send a representative to earth; he sent his only Son. It may sound arrogant to those outside the church but we can do nothing less. We are under oath. We are His followers bound by what we have heard the Spirit reveal to our hearts and obligated to speak it to the world.

The Fathers of the Church used examples to explain the Trinity. They said: Look at a tree if you want to try to understand God. There is the root, the trunk and the fruit. The root is like God the Father, invisible but you know it's there, the trunk is like God the son, sent forth by the Father, visible and tangible, the branches and fruit is like the Holy Spirit. We are connected to Christ through the Spirit dwelling in us and by the power of the Spirit we bear fruit in the world.

Or look at a steam: the water rises from a source, but usually that source is hidden, the source of the stream is like God the Father, the stream which we can see and touch is like God the Son, visible because it flows from the one who sends Him, but the water as it flows into the fields, irrigating the plants and giving them life, allowing them to bring forth a harvest is like the Holy Spirit.

Or look at the light. The light comes from the sun, the source of light, but we see the light most clearly when it pierces through the clouds as a sunbeam. When we are sitting in a room and the light shines in and touches us, we are warmed and can feel the light. So, the sun is like the Father, the beam like the Son and the warmth like the Holy Spirit.

What each of these illustrations has in common is that they are all analogies, God isn't the tree or the stream or the light but like them. All our language about God can only hint at the reality never grasp or contain God in one image.

There's a trend on social media to cancel peoples livelihood for even the slightest offenses that the person attacking them doesn't like. It's been billed the "cancel culture." It's an evil behavior often by anonymous sources. But it's not new. More prevalent but not new. And it certainly has been in the church for a long time. Let's use the acrostic CCC: Christian Cancel Culture.  

A religious weight loss program called Weigh Down created in 1992 by a woman named Gwen Shamblin grew from a small business conducted out of a home garage to a multimillion-dollar Nashville corporation with over 30,000 churches and organizations participating. But last year the whole movement was threatened and her business placed in jeopardy when Shamblin, on August 10th made comments regarding her beliefs in the Trinity. Here is what she said, "As a ministry, we believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. However, the Bible does not use the word "trinity," and our feeling is that the word "trinity" implies equality in leadership, or shared Lordship. It is clear that the scriptures teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that God sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not send God anywhere. God is clearly the Head."

Her comments sent shockwaves through her community of followers and business partners. She was removed from the Women of Faith Web site, influential evangelical churches dropped her program, even some key employees left. Thomas Nelson, her publisher, quickly canceled the publication of her book that was then scheduled for release in one month. All of this because she trifled with the Trinity.

If you are confused as to why her words got her into so much trouble, that is quite understandable. The church has struggled to explain how God can be both One God and three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Where Mrs. Shamblin went wrong was in her statement that God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were not equal in leadership. In an interview, she agreed that Jesus was both Lord and God but she maintained that Jesus held only a secondary and unequal relationship to the Father.

If you are still confused, let me ask you this: What is the conclusion of such a statement? It is this: Jesus is not fully God. This cuts at the heart of the church's historic teaching that Jesus Christ, in his very nature, was both fully God and fully man. It's a mystery which we accept through faith. Yet Shamblin tries to argue her point by saying that Christians grieve Jesus if they adhere to doctrines not found in Scripture. She says, "If God wanted us to refer to Himself, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as the 'trinity,' He would not have left this word completely out of the Bible."

We must tread carefully when these kinds of claims are made. Just because a word is not in the bible doesn't mean that it is unbiblical. There are a lot of words that we use in the church that are not found in the Bible. In fact, the word Bible is not in the Bible.

Now we find ourselves this morning, on Trinity Sunday, struggling with this ancient doctrine. What are the essentials of our faith and why is the Trinity one of them? And how can we safeguard our pursuit of truth?

Augustine, while puzzling over the doctrine of the Trinity, was walking along the beach one day when he observed a young boy with a bucket, running back and forth to pour water into a little hole. Augustine asked, “What are you doing?” The boy replied, “I’m trying to put the ocean into this hole.” Then Augustine realized that he had been trying to put an infinite God into his finite mind.

Kay Strom was teaching third grade in a large elementary school. One morning all of the teachers were called to the teachers' room for an emergency meeting, and they hurried over, leaving their classes unsupervised. Everyone was worried, but none as much as Mrs. Whiting, because her class of first graders was especially mischievous and unruly.

When they got to the teachers' room, Mrs. Whiting said, "I think I had better listen in and find out what's going on in my classroom." She turned on the intercom, and sure enough, her room was in chaos. Children were yelling and jumping and throwing things. But one little voice shrieked out above all the rest of the uproar.

Mrs. Whiting recognized that piercing voice. She picked up the microphone and in her sternest voice said, "Elizabeth, sit down!"

Immediately the room fell silent.

After a few seconds, a small humble voice answered meekly, "Okay, God."

The teachers knew all about intercoms and microphones, but little Elizabeth, from her perspective, could think of only one explanation for a voice coming from nowhere and admonishing her by name.

What do you know about God? Certainly you're more sophisticated than Elizabeth. But what do you really know about God?

Pastor Michael Walther tells of listening to a radio program (Focus on the Family) about a famous test pilot. This pilot was flying a fighter jet in bad weather and about to make his instrument approach to an airport. The air traffic controller called and asked how much fuel he had. "Plenty," he said. "Well," the controller said, "we've got a little problem. There's a young pilot who is not instrument rated. He's lost in the clouds, and we were wondering if you could intercept him and lead him back to the airport." "Sure," the pilot responded. He found the lost plane and pulled up beside it. He called on the radio and told the pilot to look out to his left. There the pilot of this small plane saw the powerful fighter jet, and the man burst into tears. As far as he was concerned at that point his life was about over. He would soon run out of fuel and crash. "Don't worry," the test pilot said. "Everything's going to be OK. I'm going to pull in front of you several hundred yards. Do everything I do. When I turn, I'll turn gently. All you have to do is do exactly what I do." So carefully the leader and the follower turned on the course to the airport and slowly descended. When they finally broke through the clouds at 500', the frightened pilot saw the most beautiful sight. There in front of him was the runway, and he was perfectly set up to land.

There are times when we need a guide we can depend on. Where would we be without mentors, coaches, counselors, consultants, when we are engaged in tasks that are beyond our expertise?

C. S. Lewis once said that the most frequently spoken word in heaven would be, "OH." As in, "Oh, now I understand." Or, "Oh, now I see what God's plan was." Or, "Oh, now I see the reason for the trial I went through."

We do not have that luxury in this world. We walk by faith, not by knowledge. But one day it will be revealed to us. We will be in the presence of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. How can we be in the presence of all three at the same time? It beats me, but as St. Paul says in another place, "I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me."

Athanasian Creed: Athanasius, known as Athanasius of Alexandria, was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His intermittent episcopacy spanned 45 years, of which over 17 encompassed five exiles. He is traditionally thought to be the author of the this Creed named after him. It was created to guard Nicene Christianity from the heresy of Arianism. It is widely accepted as orthodox and some abbreviated versions of it are still in use today. And yes, the intro and outro are actually part of the original text. 

Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.

Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.

Now this is the catholic faith:

    That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
    neither blending their persons
    nor dividing their essence.
        For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
        the person of the Son is another,
        and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
        But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
        their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

    What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.
        The Father is uncreated,
        the Son is uncreated,
        the Holy Spirit is uncreated.

        The Father is immeasurable,
        the Son is immeasurable,
        the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.

        The Father is eternal,
        the Son is eternal,
        the Holy Spirit is eternal.

            And yet there are not three eternal beings;
            there is but one eternal being.
            So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings;
            there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.

    Similarly, the Father is almighty,
        the Son is almighty,
        the Holy Spirit is almighty.
            Yet there are not three almighty beings;
            there is but one almighty being.

        Thus the Father is God,
        the Son is God,
        the Holy Spirit is God.
            Yet there are not three gods;
            there is but one God.

        Thus the Father is Lord,
        the Son is Lord,
        the Holy Spirit is Lord.
            Yet there are not three lords;
            there is but one Lord.

    Just as Christian truth compels us
    to confess each person individually
    as both God and Lord,
    so catholic religion forbids us
    to say that there are three gods or lords.

    The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
    The Son was neither made nor created;
    he was begotten from the Father alone.
    The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;
    he proceeds from the Father and the Son.

    Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers;
    there is one Son, not three sons;
    there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.

    Nothing in this trinity is before or after,
    nothing is greater or smaller;
    in their entirety the three persons
    are coeternal and coequal with each other.

    So in everything, as was said earlier,
    we must worship their trinity in their unity
    and their unity in their trinity.

Anyone then who desires to be saved
should think thus about the trinity.

But it is necessary for eternal salvation
that one also believe in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.

Now this is the true faith:

    That we believe and confess
    that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
    is both God and human, equally.

     He is God from the essence of the Father,
    begotten before time;
    and he is human from the essence of his mother,
    born in time;
    completely God, completely human,
    with a rational soul and human flesh;
    equal to the Father as regards divinity,
    less than the Father as regards humanity.

    Although he is God and human,
    yet Christ is not two, but one.
    He is one, however,
    not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
    but by God's taking humanity to himself.
    He is one,
    certainly not by the blending of his essence,
    but by the unity of his person.
    For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
    so too the one Christ is both God and human.

    He suffered for our salvation;
    he descended to hell;
    he arose from the dead;
    he ascended to heaven;
    he is seated at the Father's right hand;
    from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
    At his coming all people will arise bodily
    and give an accounting of their own deeds.
    Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
    and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.

This is the catholic faith:
one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.

This ecumenical creed (428 A.D.) is probably unknown to most Christians because it is seldom, if ever, used in worship services. It is probably not used because of its length. The Nicene Creed has eighteen printed lines, whereas the Athanasian has 69. It is difficult for congregations to use because of the creed's intricate and complex terms.

Though the creed carries the name of Athanasius, he did not write it. It was the product of the church of his time. The creed was named after him to honor him for his brave and forceful defense of the Trinity. Athanasius (289-373) was a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt.

The creed deals primarily with the Trinity and Jesus as the Son of God. At this time, the heresy of Arius was prominent. He taught that Jesus was not fully human or divine and that the Holy Spirit was not God but only a divine influence. The Athanasian Creed denounced these false teachings and upheld the doctrine of the Trinity. Luther's high regard for this creed was expressed: "I doubt, since the days of the Apostles, anything more important and more glorious has ever been written in the church of the New Testament."

This statement (Matt 12:32, par Mk. 3:29, Luke 12:10) has been the subject of much questioning. Obviously the reference here is not to the naming of the Holy Spirit in a blasphemous utterance, for in Matt. 12:32 even blasphemy against the Son of man can be forgiven. Among the many attempts at exegesis, the most convincing is the suggestion that the man who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit is he who has recognized that God is working through the Holy Spirit in the actions of Jesus, and who quite consciously "misrepresent faith in God as faith in the devil.  This saying is an extremely serious warning against the demonic and scarcely conceivable potential in man: To declare war on God.  This is not done in weakness and doubt, but by one who has been overcome by the Holy Spirit and who knows very well on whom he is declaring war" (E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Mark, 1971, 87; cf. H.W. Beyer, TDNT I:624; O.E. Evans, "The Unforgivable Sin", ExpT 68, 1956-57, 240-44). This is the blasphemer who does it deliberately, after encounter with the God of grace, as the context shows. For Jesus has just been accused of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons. "Therefore he who blasphemes the Spirit is no longer speaking against a God who is distant, about whom he entertains mere foolish thoughts, but against the one who makes evident to him his gracious work, and confirms it with his manifest, divine seal. He is a man who ought to give thanks, not to blaspheme" (A. Schlatter, on Matt. 12:32).

W.L. Lane draws attention to Sifre on Deut. 32:38 (end): "The Holy One, blessed be he, pardons everything else, but on profanation of the Name [i.e. blasphemy] he takes vengeance immediately" (The Gospel of Mark, NLC, 1974, 145) Lane goes on to comment: "This is the danger to which the scribes exposed themselves when they attributed to the agency of Satan the redemption brought by Jesus. The expulsion of demons was a sign of the intrusion of the Kingdom of God. Yet the scribal accusations against Jesus amount to a denial of the power and greatness of the Spirit of God. By assigning the action of Jesus to a demonic origin the scribes betray a perversion of spirit which, in defiance of the truth, chooses to call light darkness. In this historical context, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit denotes the conscious and deliberate rejection of the saving power and grace of God released through Jesus' work and act" (ibid). Thus blasphemy here is much more serious than the taking of the divine name in vain which a believer may have done before coming to repentance and faith.

It may be said to those who have been tormented by fear that they have committed the unforgivable sin that their concern is itself a sign that they have not committed the sin envisaged in Jesus' teaching here. Lane's interpretation also helps to explain the distinction drawn between blasphemy against the Son of man and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The distinction suggests that "while an attack on Jesus' own person, as son of Man and therefore 'hidden', is pardonable, any speaking against the power by which he works (i.e. the divine endowment for his messianic ministry) will not be pardoned" (D. Hill, The Gospel of Matthew, New Century Bible, 1972, 318). For such an action would be deliberately to attribute to Satan the action of God himself. (NIDNTT, v. 3, pp. 343-344)

What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Though many suggestions have been offered, I think the answer lies in the context here (Luke 12:7-12) and in the context of redemptive history. Remember that the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out, and it is the Spirit who causes men to recognize who Jesus is. Hebrews 6 and 10 contain discussions of unforgivable sins, but the distinction between blasphemy against Christ and the Spirit has disappeared. Jesus seemed to be saying this: Because the Holy spirit has not yet been poured out in fullness, the Jews will be forgiven for blaspheming the Son of Man. They will be given a second chance to repent, as we see in the book of Acts. If, however, they continue to blaspheme after the Spirit has come, they will not be forgiven. But what is the sin, specifically? Since it is blasphemy, we must see it essentially as a verbal sin. In context it is the sin of saying that Jesus Christ is of the devil. Jesus was willing to excuse this blasphemy before Pentecost; but, in the new covenant era it is not longer excusable. If a person curses Jesus, but does not really know who Jesus is, that sin is forgivable. But if the Holy Spirit has borne witness to a person that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, and that person curses Him, it cannot be forgiven.

Acts 1:4-14 contains certain encouragements to the followers of Christ to be an "expectant" fellowship. With this in mind, let us consider some specific instances where expectancy is implied.

1. Acts 1:5: "For John baptized with water but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." What is the difference between John’s water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

a. John’s baptism. Water baptism was commonly practiced by the Jews long before the appearance of John. It symbolized religious purification, and in a more specialized use it was applied when new converts entered into Judaism (proselyte baptism). John, however, baptized both Jews and Gentiles as a rote of moral purification for the approaching Kingdom of God. Although John’s baptism would enable those who submitted to it to meet the "Day of the Lord," it was to be distinguished as different from a future baptism, administered by one who "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

b. Baptism of the Holy Spirit. This baptism consists not in symbolic gestures of initiation, but in the receiving of "power." It does not ordain anybody for, or against, the future but rather manifests itself in a spiritual experience in the present. An initiatory baptism is symbolically accomplished once, whereas the baptism of the Holy Spirit may occur quite unrehearsed many times over. The element of expectation is contained in the selected scripture by the phrase, "But before many days, you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

2. Acts 1:7-8: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father had fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." The disciples have just asked Jesus a legitimate question regarding the nature of his mission. A simple "yes" or "no" answer would not have been sufficient inasmuch as if he replied, "Yes (I have come to restore the Kingdom of Israel)," it would have been a lie, and if he had replied "No," they would have become disillusioned with him in the beginning. Instead, he informs them that it is not for them to know all the mysteries of God - but there is a consolation: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." Perhaps it is like saying to someone, "You cannot adequately define love, but nonetheless you can experience it." Here, the power of the Holy Spirit is promised, and they are encouraged to expect it in their own experience.

3. Acts 1:11: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?" I suppose the most logical answer would have been, "Because we are bewildered!" It would have been extremely difficult to have acted otherwise while witnessing their Lord being lifted up into heaven on a cloud. If that were not enough, two men in white robes suddenly appeared to stand by them and question their amazement. In all probability, at least one of the inferences here is that rather than gazing into heaven, it would be more proper to get on with the business of the Kingdom, teaching and preaching, and doing "whatsoever I have commanded you." However, they should pursue their tasks of soul-winning with an attitude of expectancy because "this Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way."

4. Acts 1:14. "All those with one accord devoted themselves to prayer." And we may be sure that their prayers contained expectancy. Expectancy for what? For the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the return of the risen Lord.

On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the waiting disciples, there were a number of extraordinary events occurring: there was the sound of a rushing wind, cloven tongues of fire appeared, and they all began to speak in other languages and the Holy Spirit gave them ability. The Jews who were visiting Jerusalem, from all nations, hearing them speak in their own tongues, were amazed at this startling phenomenon. They came to the hasty, false conclusion that the disciples must be drunk, and accused them, saying, "They have had too much wine!" "Not so!" said Peter. "It is only nine in the morning -- far too early to be fixed. They are not drunk, but rather filled with the new wine of the Spirit. This is what Joel the prophet foretold many years ago."

In other words, the Holy Spirit is New Wine and it cannot make you drunk. The Spirit will not cloud your mind, it won't cause you to talk stupidly, it won't make you an unsafe driver, and it won't give you a hangover. The disciples were not inebriated, but rather filled with God the Holy Spirit. They had not imbibed on the fruit of the vine, nor had they drunk the nectar of the gods, but they had been filled with the Divine Nectar, the New Wine from heaven. This Spirit will be a wine for all occasions, for all people.

Before his Ascension, Jesus had wanted his followers to know that the same Lord who had called them and ministered to them in his physical presence would now, through the Holy Spirit, always be with them. They must realize that the crucified, resurrected, and now ascended Lord would return. The same Spirit which dwelt in him would now dwell in them.

On this anniversary of the Day of Pentecost, when the Christian Church was born, let us be deeply grateful that the Spirit of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, has come to us. Without the Holy Spirit, Christian discipleship would be impossible. We would have no understanding of spiritual things without the Spirit of Truth. We would never enjoy Christian fellowship with one another without the unity of the Spirit. We could never be effective Christian witnesses without the Spirit's power. In fact, we would have no life without the life-giving Spirit. Just as the body without breath is a corpse, so a church without the Holy Spirit is dead!

The rest of the sermon follows this outline:

1. They Waited And Prayed
2. The Specifics Of The Spirit's Coming
3. This New Wine Makes A Difference

You are because I am. I was there from the beginning. My Father, God, and I fashioned the world that you enjoy. We hung the stars in the sky, scooped out the lakes, formed the mountains. But our genius was no more evident than when we made you. You are so magnificent. Consider yourself - your ability to think and reason. Do you realize how special you are? We had such a great thing going in the garden.

Unfortunately, the devil talked your forebears into trying to be like God, and they both fell for it. My Father and I had no choice but to show them the exit from Eden. Because of their sin, we had to face the decision whether or not to save what we created or to destroy it all. Save it, we decided. Later, in response to a promise made to your father Abraham, I, the son of God, was implanted by the Holy Spirit in a young virgin’s womb. They called me Jesus, for I had come to save you and all humankind from the consequences of your sins.

The plan of salvation was not complicated, although it was generous perhaps to a fault. You had sinned and continue to sin. It is your nature from the time of the Fall. Therefore, you cannot save yourself. Although some of you sin less than others, none of you is perfect. My Father demands perfection - he will not stand for any imperfection in eternity. Fortunately for you, my Father is also compassionate, and his love goes beyond human love. He wanted to reclaim you as his own, therefore, he decided to be inflicted with suffering and death. To accomplish this, he sent me - part of himself - to become a person like you and to receive punishment and death in your place.

Some of you only see me as an Alka Seltzer for an occasional headache, rather than a Savior for a whole new life. You call upon me and my Father for help only when all else seems to fail. Voices we haven’t heard in years make their way heavenward in dying breaths. Others make a puzzle out of our plan for your salvation. You continue to believe that you must add some of your goodness and righteousness (which is really in short supply by heaven’s standards) to my sacrificial death on the cross. Friends, I paid the price - one hundred percent at Calvary.

Can you imagine how I feel as your God, having humbled myself by becoming a human being, giving up heaven for a stinking stable, being misunderstood, mocked, tortured, spit upon, and hung, all because of you and your wretched sinfulness ... and then to have you believe that this was not enough. To have you, in your pride, believe that some goodness of yours would need to be added in order for the Father to receive you into heaven angers and disappoints me. You can do nothing to save yourself; I did it all because I love you. Please get it into your head, once and for all, I am your only way out of the pits of hell. As I said while I was with you on earth, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me!" May the Holy Spirit convince your hearts of my love, and may you understand that believing in me is the only way to be saved; sufficient in itself, needing absolutely no human works, no false pride, no human righteousness, nothing ... nothing ... nothing at all to be added to it. I died to purchase a place for you in heaven which I offer to you as a gift which you must receive totally and exclusively by faith.

Celtic Christians chose, not the dove, but the wild goose as a symbol representing the Holy Spirit. It sounds strange to us, but it has a long tradition in Ireland.

While the Roman Church imagined the Holy Spirit in the form of a peaceful, graceful dove, the Ancient Celts understood the Holy Spirit to be like a wild goose. When you hear of the Spirit descending like a heavenly dove on you, you hear harps and strings softly playing and get a peaceful feeling. The image of the Holy Spirit as dove has become so familiar and domesticated an image we pay little attention.

The image of a wild goose descending upon you is a different matter altogether. A wild goose is one noisy, bothersome bird. I like this image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose because it jars us out of our complacency. We need such an image to correct our overly safe and overly sweet image of the Spirit. One preacher friend asked, "How many times can you sing 'There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in This Place' without your blood sugar reaching diabetic levels?"

When the Spirit comes in the Bible, it never seems to be sweet or safe. God's Spirit called the prophets to speak to Israel in words that were bold and sometimes dangerous. Ezekiel saw a vision of God's Spirit blowing through a valley of dry bones and bringing them to life. John the Baptist dressed in camel's hair and eating wild locusts proclaimed, "I baptize you with water but he who comes after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Paul gave this advice to young Timothy, "For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

Neither safe nor tame, the Spirit inspired Paul to proclaim, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28).

It was this wild Goose that Jesus referred to when he preached his first sermon and quoted Isaiah, saying, "For the Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of God's favor" (Luke 4:18).

In the season of Epiphany we look at those special events in Jesus' life where his presence was especially manifested with power. Jesus' baptism is one of those epiphanies. You heard Luke's version read this morning. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came from heaven,"Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."  In newer translations, which are thought to be more accurate, the adjective "beloved" is made a separate phrase to emphasize the intensity of the personal nature of this experience. "You are my Son. My beloved. In thee I am well pleased."

That is Luke's version. All four gospels portray this scene. But Luke's version is a little different than the others. In each version, though, the Spirit descends"like a dove."   The Holy Spirit is not a bird. Luke and the other apostles use the dove as a metaphor for the Spirit's coming into our lives. It is a beautiful metaphor. Have you ever seen a dove descend and land? It is graceful, gentle, and quiet. That's the point being made. That is the way the Holy Spirit will enter into our lives. The Holy Spirit came to Jesus gently, quietly, and in Luke's version, privately.

That is why Luke is different than the other three gospels. The other writers imply that the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism, apparently when he was still in the water. That is the way this scene is often portrayed in religious art, especially those beautiful paintings out of the Middle Ages. Jesus, standing waist deep in water. John the Baptist standing next to him, pointing at Jesus, as if to say, "This is the one!" or, in the words of the Gospel of John, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!" Above Jesus' head in these scenes is the Spirit, as a dove, descending. It is like the symbol that is in the baptismal font here, a nimbus around the Holy Spirit as he hovers above Jesus' head.

That's the way all the other gospels picture it. But Luke is different. He says,"Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the Holy Spirit descended upon him." Which means that the Epiphany, this special presence of God in this event, came to Jesus when he was by himself, praying. In other words, it wasn't a public event. It was a personal and private experience. No one else saw it. No one else heard that voice from heaven. He came out of the water, went off by himself, and prayed. That is when it happened.

Luke, more than any other gospel, emphasizes that Jesus prayed…

Pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. One falls into pride when one lacks trust in God and his mercy and becomes arrogant, hypocritical, and self-centered. Reinhold Neibuhr, who has been referred to as the twentieth-century theologian of sin, summed up humanity's basic sin -- our unwillingness to acknowledge our creatureliness, our self-elevation, in one word: PRIDE.

Neibuhr described the four types of pride:

1. The pride of power wants power to gain security for self or to maintain a power position considered to be secure.
2. Intellectual pride rises from human knowledge that pretends to be ultimate knowledge. It presumes to be final truth.
3. Moral pride claims that its standards for virtue test and measure all righteousness. Neibuhr observed that most evil is done by "good" people who do not know that they are not good.
4. Spiritual pride is self-glorification. It claims that "self's righteousness" conforms to God's righteousness.

Pride is the first of the seven deadly sins. One falls into pride when one lacks trust in God and his mercy and becomes arrogant, hypocritical, and self-centered.  Reinhold Neibuhr, who has been referred to as the twentieth-century theologian of sin, summed up humanity's basic sin our unwillingness to acknowledge our creatureliness, our self-elevation in one word, PRIDE. Neibuhr described the four types of pride:

1. The pride of power wants power to gain security for self or to maintain a power position considered to be secure.

2. Intellectual pride rises from human knowledge that pretends to be ultimate knowledge. It presumes to be final truth.

3. Moral pride claims that its standards for virtue test and measure all righteousness. Niebuhr observed that most evil is done by "good" people who do not know that they are not good.

4. Spiritual pride is self-glorification. It claims that "self's righteousness" conforms to God's righteousness.

The earliest known mention of the expression "Apostles' Creed" occurs in a letter of AD 390 from a synod in Milan. The most traditional version of the creed is as follows:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
      creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
      who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
      and born of the virgin Mary.
      He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
      was crucified, died, and was buried;
      he descended to hell.
      The third day he rose again from the dead.
      He ascended to heaven
      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
      From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
      the holy catholic* church,
      the communion of saints,
      the forgiveness of sins,
      the resurrection of the body,
      and the life everlasting. Amen.

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

The Old Roman Symbol (Latin: vetus symbolum romanum), or Old Roman Creed, is an earlier and shorter version of the Apostles’ Creed. It was based on the 2nd-century Rule of Faith and the interrogatory declaration of faith for those receiving Baptism. It is said that this earlier and first adopted version was based on the Trinitarian formula found in The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19. It was widely accepted in the 4th century, that, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, each of the Twelve Apostles contributed an article to the twelve articles of this creed:

I believe in God the Father almighty;
and in Christ Jesus His only Son, our Lord,
     Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
     Who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried,
     on the third day rose again from the dead,
     ascended to heaven,
     sits at the right hand of the Father,
     whence He will come to judge the living and the dead;
and in the Holy Spirit,
     the holy Church,
     the remission of sins,
     the resurrection of the flesh
     (the life everlasting)

The Apostles' Creed (100 A.D.) is the oldest and shortest creed with only 109 words in the traditional version. Only the New Testament creed, "Jesus is Lord," is older. It is also the most often used -- practically every Sunday, except for festivals and seasons when the Nicene Creed is confessed. Undoubtedly, it is the most universal statement of the Christian faith.

By 100 A.D. the Apostles' Creed became the basic statement of faith for the church. In the first century, it was the rule of faith for baptismal candidates. In 390 it became known as the Apostles' Creed, even though it was not written by the apostles but contained the beliefs of the apostles. An ancient legend has it that after Pentecost the apostles agreed on a summary of what they were going to preach. The summary was the Apostles' Creed. Yet, the creed did not reach its final form until the sixth or seventh century. Martin Luther held this creed in such high regard that he used it in his Small Catechism to teach families what a Christian believes. To this day the Small Catechism is used as the basis for youth and adult preparation for church membership in Lutheran churches.

There are two aspects in the manifestation of tongues: first, the sign of tongues in Acts 2, 10, 19 (and probably in Ch 8); second, the gift of tongues in the early apostolic church. The gift under the second aspect evidently was not permanent (1 Cor 13:9-13), nor given to every believer. It required the concomitant gift of interpretation (1 Cor 12:10; 14:1-40). This sign gift with interpretation was meant to instruct the church before the completed NT Scriptures were given. Under the first aspect tongues were a means by which the Holy Spirit witnessed to Israel on the day of Pentecost (2:4-13).  They were a sign of the truth that Jesus was the Messiah and an indication of the new age of the Spirit. The Jews were again challenged by the Samaritans' receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17), and, although this is not specifically mentioned, they may have been given the evidence that the despised Samaritans had actually received the same gift as the Jews, by the sign of their supernatural utterances (cf. 11:17).

This is the use of tongues in the introduction of the gift of the Holy Spirit to Gentiles (Acts 10:44-47). Nothing could have been more convincing to skeptical, unbelieving Peter and his Jewish colleagues than the fact that Cornelius and the other Gentiles spoke in supernatural languages just as the Jews at Pentecost.

The disciples of John the Baptist who received the Holy Spirit and spoke in languages they had never learned (Acts 19:6-10) were a similar witness to the strong Jewish community at Ephesus. For the disciples of John the Baptist, whom the Jews generally accepted as a God-sent prophet, to be blessed by the Holy Spirit after being baptized in the name of the rejected Messiah, was of the deepest significance. 'But some of them [the Jews] became obstinate; they refused to believe' as Isaiah (Isa 28:11-12) had predicted (1 Cor 14:22).

Jesus was preparing his disciples for tough times. He was about to ascend to the Father and they would be on their own left to find their way through this world alone. And yet, they would not be alone. For he would be with them in the presence of the Comforter, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit.

In 1520 Ferdinand Magellan battled for an entire year to find a passage around South America. There at the very tip of the continent, in its icy waters he encountered some of the worst weather anywhere on earth. Raging seas, towering ice floes, and a mutinous crew plagued his efforts. When he finally made his way through those straits (which today bear his name the Straits of Magellan), he entered into a great body of water that lay beyond, and as he and his men lifted their faces to heaven and gave thanks to God, he named the new ocean the "Peaceful Ocean." The word pacific is from the word pacify.

In his words this morning, Jesus desires to lead us in the same way to a place of peace. It is his hope to direct our feet and steer our lives from the paths that would lead to hell to his place of peace. "Let not your hearts be troubled," he says, "neither let them be afraid." 

There's an interesting story behind Jimmy Reed records. In placing the phonograph needle again and again in the grooves of Jimmy Reed's records, you began to notice something curious. If one listened very carefully, there could sometimes be heard, ever so faintly in the background, a soft woman's voice murmuring in advance the next verse of the song. The story that grew up around this -- and perhaps it is true -- was that Jimmy Reed was so absorbed in the bluesy beat and the throbbing guitar riffs of his music that he simply could not remember the words of his own songs. He needed help with the lyrics, and the woman's voice was none other than that of his wife, devotedly coaching her husband through the recording session by whispering the upcoming stanzas into his ear as he sang.

Whether or not this story is accurate, Christians will surely recognize a parallel experience. Jesus tells his followers that the role of the Holy Spirit is, in effect, to whisper the lyrics of the gospel song in the ears of the faithful. When Jesus was present, he was the one who instilled in them the right words, coached them through the proper verses, taught them the joyful commandments. But now that Jesus approaches his death, now that he draws near to his time of departure, now that the disciples will be on their own without him, that task is to be handed over to the Holy Spirit:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth ..." (John 14:15-17).

The primary task, then, of the Holy Spirit is reminding the faithful of the truth, jogging the memories of the followers of Jesus about all of his commandments so that they can keep them in love, whispering the lyrics of the never-ending hymn of faithful obedience in their ears.

The year was 1887, and a humble music professor named A.J. Showalter received some sad news. Two of his former students had just lost their wives. Both of these men were in despair, and looked to their old music professor for comfort.

Showalter had always been deeply devoted to his students. He had no comforting words of his own, so he turned to Scripture, where he found this verse from Deuteronomy 33:27, The eternal God is your refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms . . ." Out of this verse, professor Showalter wrote a chorus to send to his students. You might recognize it:

Leaning, leaning, Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Jesus did not tell his disciples that they would not have problems. In fact, their problems would dwarf most of our problems. What he did promise them was peace of mind. He would send upon them the gift of the Holy Spirit to give them courage and comfort. They would be warriors and not worriers. And that is the same promise Christ offers us today. Perhaps you have come to this house of worship today like Jake seeking "the assurance from someone that things are going to be okay." I can give you that assurance. God's Holy Spirit is here to give both courage and comfort. Let go and lean on the everlasting arms of God.

1 Chronicles 27:32 - "Jonathan, David’s uncle, was a counselor, being a man of understanding and a scribe;"

Ezekiel 7:14 - "For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand."

Counselors were, apparently, the king’s state advisers, and it is even possible that the counselor was next in power to the king himself. These were worldly men of high intelligence, good education, and polished graces, as indeed they would have to be to be in such an honored position.

Nor were they exclusive to Israel. We find them mentioned as serving the rulers of surrounding nations: the Pharaoh of Egypt (Isaiah 19:11), Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon (Daniel 3:2, etc.), and the Persian Artaxerxes, whose seven counselors (Ezra 7:14) probably correspond to the "seven princes of Persia and Media" who were consulted by Ahasuerus (Esther 1:14).

The split between Israel and Judah was said to have occured because Rehoboam listened to the wrong counselors (1 Kings 12:6-14). Instead of listening to his senior advisers, he listened to the young, inexperienced ones, and, as a result, he lost most of his kingdom. And, from then on, the path of the people of Israel went steadily downward.

We can see, then, that the counselor was held in very high regard and his advice was accepted as being the path of wisdom. This is further pointed up by the fact that the Messiah was called "Counselor" (Isaiah 9:6), and, in the New Testament, John speaks of the Holy Spirit as the "Counselor" (John 14:16).

Today, we use advisers for many situations. The President has advisers who are familiar with all phases of our economic and social lives to help him determine policy. Some lawyers are used in this way, as advisers in specific situations. In the complex world in which we live, it is virtually impossible for any one person to know the best procedure in every case in which he must make a decision. And so we turn to counselors, or advisers, to help us in making these decisions.

"How the mighty have fallen." King David of old once spoke those words concerning the death of King Saul. "How the mighty have fallen." These words have transcended the Bible and become the language of popular culture. A newspaper report a few years ago on some pastors who had fallen from grace used this biblical passage as its headline. The article was about two well-known television preachers -- Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker -- whose sins had been publicly exposed. "How the mighty have fallen" the newspaper headline gloated! Jimmy Swaggart is an interesting case in point.

Newsweek magazine once carried an article that featured this highly talented preacher. The article quoted one man as saying that Jimmy Swaggart was one of the most entertaining people on television in any field. The man didn't believe what Swaggart preached but he was dazzled by his entertainment and communication skills. "How the mighty have fallen!" Swaggart's sin seemed to be his fascination with pornography. One who knew him well over the years said: "His weakness for pornography finally beat him. He's fasted and prayed many times to overcome this weakness." Swaggart's weakness for pornography often led him to Louisiana brothels. It doesn't appear to be the case that Swaggart had sex with these women. He just asked them to pose for him in some suggestive ways. One night as he was leaving a brothel, however, someone who was out to expose him took some pictures. The pictures undid him. Scandal raged. Swaggart faced his congregation with tears running down his cheeks and remorse in his heart.

The response to Swaggart's fall was highly judgmental. People judged Swaggart harshly because he had been so judgmental in his preaching. In his judgments he came down on all sorts and varieties of people, including Christian people. Of the ministry of Jim Bakker, for example, Swaggart had said: "He's a cancer on the body of Christ that needs to be excised." Swaggart's preaching was judgmental indeed.

Swaggart was also judged harshly because of the peculiar nature of his message. Swaggart's message went beyond the proclamation of Jesus Christ to be a message fundamentally about the holiness work of the Holy Spirit. He proclaimed over and over again that through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives we can overcome all sin. Thus he judged sinners. He invited sinners to be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to overcome all sin. Victory over sin would belong to all those who did business with the Holy Spirit.

What are we to think of this promise in light of Swaggart's own dark side? It's no wonder that some people relished the chance to defrock Swaggart in public. The mighty had fallen indeed. Hopefully he learned something from his trials.  A hint of wisdom is evident in some of the things he says. For example, he said reflecting on his experiences: "I have seen that the gospel is perfect but its messengers are not." Jimmy Swaggart could now identify with Peter, who began his ministry with these words: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Ministry always begins in confession!"

Oswald Chambers, the great Christian writer, noted, "Someone who is constantly criticized becomes good for nothing; the effect of criticism knocks all the gumption and power out of the person. Criticism is deadly in its effect because it divides one's powers and prevents one from being a force for anything. That is never the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit alone is in the true position of a critic: He is able to show what is wrong, without wounding or hurting.

"The counsel of Jesus is to abstain from judging. This sounds strange at first, because the characteristic of the Holy Spirit in a Christian is to reveal the things that are wrong; but the strangeness exists only on the surface.

The Holy Spirit does reveal what is wrong in others, but His discernment is never for the purposes of criticism, but for the purposes of intercession."

Gordon Brownville's Symbols of the Holy Spirit tells about the great Norwegian explorer Ronald Amundsen, the first to discover the magnetic meridian of the North Pole and to discover the South Pole. On one of his trips, Amundsen took a homing pigeon with him. When he had finally reached the top of the world, he opened the bird's cage and set it free. Imagine the delight of Amundsen's wife, back in Norway, when she looked up from the doorway of her home and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above. No doubt she exclaimed, "He's alive! My husband is still alive!"

So it was when Jesus ascended. He was gone, but the disciples clung to his promise to send them the Holy Spirit. What joy, then, when the dove-like Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. The disciples had with them the continual reminder that Jesus was alive and victorious at the right of the Father. This continues to be the Spirit's message.

How important is faithfulness in prayer? Dr. Wilbur Chapman often told of his experience when, as a young man, he went to become pastor of a church in Philadelphia. After his first sermon, an old gentleman said to him, "You're pretty young to be pastor of this church. But you preach the Gospel, and I'm going to help you all I can."

Dr. Chapman thought, "Here's a crank."  But the man continued: "I'm going to pray for you that you may have the Holy Spirit's power upon you. Two others have covenanted to join with me in prayer for you."

Dr. Chapman said, "I didn't feel so bad when I learned he was going to pray for me. The 3 became 10, the 10 became 20, and 20 became 50, the 50 became 200 who met before every service to pray that the Holy Spirit might come upon me. I always went into my pulpit feeling that I would have the anointing in answer to the prayers of those who had faithfully prayed for me. It was a joy to preach! The result was that we received 1,100 into our church by conversion in three years, 600 of whom were men. It was the fruit of the Holy spirit in answer to prayer!"

Truth. We all want truth. The search for truth is deep within the human spirit. Deep down inside all human beings, is the desire to know the truth, however good that may be or however painful it may be. A sign of health in us is that we search for the truth.

The opposite is also true. We human beings don’t want to be deceived. We don’t want to be deceived by lies, distortions, and half-truths. A sign of sickness in us as human beings is that we try to avoid the truth or distort the truth or manipulate the truth. And we want to find the truth out about everything. All human beings have this spirit of truth, the desire to find truth in all aspects of our lives.

For example, we want to find out the truth about our universe and how it works. We want to find out the truth about the sun, moon and the stars. We want to find out the truth about the origins of our universe and the destiny of our universe. We want to find out the truth if there is life living out there somewhere in the universe. The purpose of the science of astronomy is to discover the truth about how our universe works. We want to know the truth. That is just the way we human beings are.

We want to find out the truth about ourselves. What makes us tick? Why we do things. Why we don’t. We are interested in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Why are human beings such warring animals? Why were there so many kamikaze pilots in World War II and so many terrorists willing to be human bombs? There is so much about human beings which perplex us.

We human beings want to know the truth about everything. It is like we human beings are on a quest, not for the Holy Grail, the cup of Christ from the Last Supper, but we are on a quest to find the Holy Grails, the truth about life in all of its infinite variations.

The Holy Spirit is described in many ways in Scripture. One of my favorites is that he is called, the Spirit of Truth. I think this desire within us for truth mirrors God's Spirit. Our spirit bears witness with The Spirit that, not only we are children of God, but we are children who seek truth and understanding. 

Mee Spousler of the Mount Hope United Methodist Church, in Aston, PA., tells how she was trying to put her three-year-old son to bed for a nap.

When she was unsuccessful, she put him in her bed and laid down with him to encourage him to rest. She fell asleep, but he didn't. When she woke up, she saw him sitting on a chair at the end of the bed, and asked, "Luke, what are you doing?"

"I'm playing God," he replied.

"Playing God?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I'm watching over you while you sleep."

Children understand more than we do sometimes. God IS watching over us.  Jesus gave that promise here in talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Not only will God watch over us but through the presence and reminder of the Holy Spirit, we will be reminded of what it means to "Love Jesus and keep his commands." And God will help us to create the environment of love, grace, faith and security that we need for our homes today. Our challenge is to listen to the Holy Spirit and to trust Christ.

Forgiveness is part of the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives. More accurately, it is the action of Christ through the Holy Spirit in our midst. By the power of the Spirit, Christ is present both forgiving us and forgiving through us. The Spirit is given to us by Christ himself. He breathed upon the disciples and they received the Holy Spirit.

In one of her books, Corrie Ten Boom tells of meeting the guard from the concentration camp where she and her family had been held by the Nazis. She had been speaking at a large church meeting, and after the meeting he had come forward. He put out his hand to her, and she instinctively pulled back, remembering the horrors to which that hand had been put or in which it had cooperated, but then, she testified, something came over her, she knew not what, and she reached out and grasped his hand and extended her forgiveness as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

There will be those who say this is merely sentimental and who grit their teeth, as they demand more obvious vengeance; I cannot judge them. I only know that to forgive in such a manner is beyond human comprehension; it is the work of God and can only be done by us through the grace of God at work in us. Nor, is it an attitude we Christians carry around with us all the time, like little Mary Sunshines. Corrie Ten Boom received the grace to forgive in the moment the grace was needed, and not before. Our Lord, upon the cross, forgave his executioners while he was being nailed to it; there was no plenary absolution in advance. Forgiveness, like the resurrection, breaks in upon us through shut doors.

We are called and sent to participate in Christ's message of forgiveness because we have been forgiven. "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." Christ was sent to be the agent of reconciliation, and we are to be such agents in the world. It seems to me a sad fact that forgiveness has been for sale in the church during so much of its history, when it should have been given away.

The Nicene Creed is a statement of belief widely used in Christian liturgy. It is called Nicene because it was originally adopted in the city of Nicaea (present day İznik, Turkey) by the First Council of Nicaea in 325.

We believe in one God,
      the Father almighty,
      maker of heaven and earth,
      of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
      the only Son of God,
      begotten from the Father before all ages,
           God from God,
           Light from Light,
           true God from true God,
      begotten, not made;
      of the same essence as the Father.
      Through him all things were made.
      For us and for our salvation
           he came down from heaven;
           he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
           and was made human.
           He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
           he suffered and was buried.
           The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
           He ascended to heaven
           and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
           He will come again with glory
           to judge the living and the dead.
           His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit,
      the Lord, the giver of life.
      He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
      and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
      He spoke through the prophets.
      We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
      We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
      We look forward to the resurrection of the dead,
      and to life in the world to come. Amen.

The Nicene Creed (325-381 A.D.) provides a fuller explanation of the Christian faith. It is called Nicene because a general council of the church, similar to Vatican II held in the 1960s, met in the city of Nicaea in Asia Minor. The Council was called to deal with the heresy of Arianism, which was a denial of the Trinity. The Nicene Creed goes into more detail than the Apostles' Creed on the Trinity and the person of Jesus.

A final version of the creed was formulated by another Council which met in Constantinople in 381 A.D. The creed is and has been from the start a topic of contention. In 598 a provincial church council meeting in Toledo, Spain, added the "filioque clause" which says that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father "and the Son." This added clause was accepted by the Western but not the Eastern church. It became one of the causes of the schism between East and West in 1064 A.D. Today the clause is still proving to be a stumbling block to closer relations with the Eastern Orthodox church. The Nicene Creed is familiar to most churchgoers in liturgical churches, because it is used in the worship service on festivals and certain seasons such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with one who is already there, in our hearts. Take up a sponge and while it is in your hand squeeze it. In that condition, plunge it in water and submerge it, keeping it in there. It is now in the water and the water is in it. As you hold it in the water, you open your hand, and as you do so the water fills all the pores which you release in this way. It is now filled with the water. When we receive Christ we are born anew and put into that sphere where the Holy Spirit is operating and the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us!

It was one of the most wonderful and exciting moments in the history of the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit had fallen fresh on the lives of believers. People were filled with the passion and fires of the Holy Ghost. They were shouting joy from all directions. They were gathered from every persuasion and city, every nation and province, all glorifying God, speaking in foreign tongues but understanding each other, expressing different voices but still in one accord. This was the time of Pentecost, when God saw fit to pour out the spirit which spawned the birth of the Christian Church.

Today we need the fervor, fire, tongues, passion, and Spirit of Pentecost. Today the Christian Church needs a rebirth of the spirit, where souls are on fire with the love of Christ, where barriers are broken down and superficial divisions which sequester and divide people are bridged through a unity of the Spirit. Today more than ever the church needs to recapture the fires of Pentecost so that souls can break free from bondage, and healing, deliverance, and the full power of God's anointing can be experienced in every medium and every idiom by people filled with Holy Ghost madness.

Too many churches today are devoid of the Spirit of Pentecost because they are dry, stale, and discordant, where parishioners are in a somnambulist stupor; where worship services are vapid, staid, and wooden; where the preaching is dull, flat, and insipid; where the singing is Geritol-tired and without the vim, verve, and verse which speaks of a crucified, died and risen Lord; where if anyone taps his foot and says, "Amen," he is stared into silence, and if anyone shouts, "Thank you, Jesus," or "Help me, Holy Ghost," parishioners call EMS, the DS or 911! Too many churches have become mausoleums for the dead rather than coliseums of praise for a living God. They have lost the spirit of Pentecost! They have lost their enthusiasm. They have lost their joy for Jesus and find themselves suffering from what William Willimon calls "Institutional and Spiritual Dry Rot." Pentecost marks the beginning of a new spiritual movement in Christ; a movement birthed through the fires of the Holy Spirit; a movement steeped in the spirit of hope, renewal, and spiritual transformation. It is a movement where souls are on fire with the passion of the Holy Spirit and the Church today more than ever needs to recapture that spirit. If the Church is to survive the next millennium it must recapture some of the praise and enthusiasm it had two millennia ago. The spiritual energy and vitality of Pentecost has sustained the Church through two millennia.

In his book On a Wild and Windy Mountain, Dean of the Chapel at Duke University William Willimon tells of being in New Haven, Connecticut, as a student in 1970, during the famous Black Panther trial. Perhaps you remember those days -- the 1970s? It was a turbulent time for our country -- a time of strife, discord, and agony that threatened to tear our country apart. Much of the unrest of those days came to a focus during the trial of those Black Panther leaders. It was just at that time that Willimon happened to attend a choral mass at a Catholic church near Yale University. A boy's choir was singing a great Ascension composition called "Deus Ascendit – God Has Gone Up." As he sat there listening to those young voices, Willimon found himself thinking, "How appropriate. God has gone up. Gone up and away. God has left us to our confusion. Abandoned us in the midst of the angry shouts of the mobs, the sound of gunfire and the rhetoric of the revolutionaries." God indeed has abandoned us.

However, as he sat there and continued to listen, Willimon noticed that the boys were not singing "Deus Abscondit," which would mean "God has abandoned us," but rather they sang "Deus Ascendit," God has gone up. And the words of that song led Willimon to understand that God had not given up on us. Rather the Ascension of Jesus signaled that what Jesus had begun on earth would be brought to completion in heaven even after his ascension to heaven. As we say in the Creed each week, "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father." He ascended not to abandon us but to complete what he began -- through the work of the Holy Spirit, through his church and through his faithful people, Christ still is at work to rule with love and mercy.

Christ has not abandoned us -- but he has ascended into heaven and that's what the focus of our worship today is about. So important is this event that Luke describes it twice -- in the last chapter of his gospel and the first chapter of Acts. The setting is the Mount of Olives. Forty days had passed since the resurrection of Jesus. It was time for him to return to heaven. And so once again, Jesus appears to the disciples. He joins them in worship. He breaks bread with them. He announces to them that they will soon receive the Holy Spirit, and when the Holy Spirit comes to them, they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. And after he has given them this assurance, he is lifted up before them into the heavens until a cloud hid him from their sight. Deus Ascendit. God has gone up.

God’s grace is amazing in the lives of all his people. For even the most righteous man falls painfully short of the perfection that God requires of those who will be with him in heaven. The Bible says that at the end of time only those without any sin, none at all, will be able to stand in God’s presence. This causes us problems, big problems, for none of us qualifies.

If I were to ask you whether you were sure of your salvation, I wonder if every one of you could honestly say, "When I die, I feel certain that I would be with God in heaven." Anyone who loves the Lord and cannot state that conviction does not understand how amazing God’s grace really is.

The reason that many of us are uncertain about eternal life is because we are so aware of our faults, and we believe that we must somehow do better before we can come to God and receive complete forgiveness. We think that we must change, keep the Ten Commandments, not get angry so easily, and a hundred other things.

Those of us who feel that way are heading down a dead end street - we’ll never make it to heaven under our own recognizance. Instead we must recognize that we need help and lots of it. We need to tap into God’s unconditional love. A love that inexplicably hangs in with us even when we spurn it again and again. A love that accepts us in spite of our faults. One that flowed from the lips of a crucified rabbi when he said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

God’s grace is tough love - no slushy sentimentality - love that flows out of the cross where all demands of justice were met. God’s grace through Jesus Christ provides us a place to stand where we do not need to try to do what we can’t do anyway, that is, make things right with God by our own efforts.

God’s good news for us today is that we are accepted. We have been accepted by that which is greater than we. We did nothing to earn that acceptance - nor can we do anything to merit it.

We must simply accept the fact that we are accepted. And when we do, we can then experience God’s amazing grace. Grace is God’s gift of acceptance that becomes ours by faith.

I can’t believe for you, you must do it for yourself. God’s grace can only become amazing for you when you accept the fact that you are accepted.