By John A. Huffman Jr.
You know the rest of the story. How approximately 120 of them were gathered in that Upper Room for prayer. Suddenly, a violent wind came from heaven as very tongues of fire. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Holy Spirit enabled them. With this, the Holy Spirit, who had been present from the beginning of time, was ushered into the era of His most pronounced activity, the era in which you and I live now.
Third, let's look at some crucial biblical facts about the Holy Spirit.
Fact One: The Holy Spirit is the revealer of TRUTH.
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Are you aware that the Holy Spirit is actually the author of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? That is a very important function. Paul wrote to young pastor Timothy, "All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Inspiration literally means God breathed through His Holy Spirit.
As the revealer of truth, the Holy Spirit also is the One who answers our prayers for God's special help and guidance. He is the One who makes good on God's promise of wisdom to those of us who ask for it.
It is very important, though, to emphasize that wisdom which the Holy Spirit gives is always congruent with His revealed truth in the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
This is a problem we have today in the whole debate over human sexuality. Do we get our wisdom from the spirit of this world and the prince of this world, Satan, who is constantly challenging God's truth with that which is opposed to God's truth? God's Word says that there is no sin that is unforgivable but that of the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, which I understand to mean as the refusal to repent of what the Holy Spirit calls sin, and come to the foot of the cross, receiving God's amazing grace. It isn't that a sexual sin is that much worse or more unforgivable than any other kind of sin. All sin is sin. All disobedience to God breaks the heart of God. Read Romans 1, and you will see sins of a homosexual and heterosexual nature alongside every other kind of wickedness, including envy, deceit, gossip, slander, faithlessness, heartlessness, rebelliousness toward parents. Root sin is worship of the creature rather than the Creator. We are the ones who tend to put a hierarchy on what's a real sin and what's not so serious a sin. All sin breaks the heart of God. And we dare not declare that what the Bible says is sin is no longer sin.
