There are 3 questions for consideration for this sermon topic. The questions include: “What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit in the last days”, “Why is it that in the present times we feel that the moving of the Holy Spirit is lacking?” as well as “How do we work with the Holy Spirit?”

What is the purpose of the spirit in this last days?

We’ll read the Bible. We turn to John 16:7-11;

7 ‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.’

Before the Lord Jesus left His disciples, He told them that they would send them the helper, the Holy Spirit, to be with them. V7;

‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

Jesus was to return to the Father. He came from the Father, then came to earth, and He was to leave the earth. His purpose of coming on earth was to accomplish the work of salvation. He said, “I came not to be served but to serve and to give My life for the sake of men.”

He was put to the cross by lawless hands and before He gave up His spirit on the cross, He said, ”It is finished.“ He had finished the plan of salvation and became the source of salvation. He came to this earth to save His people from sin and at the same time came to fulfil the promise as said of Isaiah, that there shall be a virgin with child named Immanuel; meaning God be with us.

Jesus came as a manifestation of God to stay among men to let people know Jesus. If not for the revelation or manifestation of God, no one would be able to know Him. We have the opportunity to know our Lord and obtain salvation; this is part of the salvation plan of God which He prepared and accomplished. For Jesus to come and go is to our advantage.

When the Helper comes, it is evidence that Jesus has returned to the Father. What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit on this earth? V8 says;

And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

This is the work of the Holy Spirit and is the reason why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to earth. V9 says;

of sin, because they do not believe in Me;

To not believe in Jesus is sin. V10 says;

of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;

When Jesus returned to the Father, it signifies that the plan of salvation is complete and in the future the Lord will come again. The Holy Spirit is able to help men to return to the Father as well and be justified in the judgment to come. After Jesus ascended, the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem and on the day of Pentecost the promised Holy Spirit was poured down. 120 of them received the precious Holy Spirit. Peter stood up and bore a testimony testifying that Jesus is the Christ and is the saviour. The sermon that he spoke moved people and pierced their hearts; they convicted themselves and asked Peter, “Men and brethren, what should we do?” Peter told them, “You must repent. Be baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of your sins, then you shall receive the promised Holy Spirit.. This is in Acts 2:38;

‘Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ‘

The Holy Spirit can help us to understand the truth. When we’ve received this salvation and can understand the truth of the Bible, then we can live according to the will of God. We can preserve the holiness God has given to us and on the day of judgement we won’t be condemned with the rest of the world. We see that the work of the Holy Spirit is to help men obtain this salvation and gospel.

The work of the Holy Spirit is the work of the gospel. We look in the time of Acts of the apostles, the growth of the church and gospel. If not for the working of the Holy Spirit, this wouldn’t have been possible. If Acts 2 didn’t happen, there’d be no chapter 3 to chapter 28.
All the works in the times of the Acts of the Apostles is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Similarly, TJC is established by the Holy Spirit and now we are writing the Acts of the apostles. The Holy Spirit is guiding us to do His work to bring people to know Jesus to obtain salvation to be able stand on the day of judgement. This is what we can understand of the work of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit also helps us grow in our faith. The Holy Spirit can teach us to convict ourselves. In front of others, we can be on our best behaviour; our abilities, wisdom and talents are the best. However, in front of the Lord, this mask cannot hold. In front of God, we are exposed. God knows us though we may not know ourselves. Sometimes when we do something, we think we’ve done well but we’ve actually fallen short of God’s standards.

Just like David. David in 2 situations found himself convicting himself. Once was when he cut off the corner of Saul’s robe and the other was when he did the census. After he did these things, he rebuked himself in his heart, “How can I lay my hand on the Lord’s anointed?”

How did he come to have this arrogance to want to number the army of the Lord? At first when he did it, he thought it was right but the Holy Spirit in him later caused him to convict himself of this sin.

The Holy Spirit also allows us to see where we’re lacking and fallen short of God’s standard so that we can come before God with a clear conscience. The Holy Spirit is able to help the church and expand the work of the gospel and also helps us grow in our faith.

Why is it that in the present times we feel that the moving of the Holy Spirit is lacking?

Why is it that it seems that during the SM very few receive the Holy Spirit? We spend the same amount of time during prayers and are praying hard, but why does it seem like there’s no abidance and moving of the Holy Spirit? This is one of the encounters of the last days. We turn to Matthew 25.

How shall we prepare ourselves in this last days? In these 3 parables, let us consider these questions.

The first parable is the parable of the ten virgins, the second is the parable of the three servants, and the last parable of the sheep and the goats.

Why do we seem to lack the moving of the Holy Spirit? We can think about this while reading the first parable. Matthew 25:1 says;

‘“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ‘

Among these 10 virgins were 2 groups; 5 were foolish and 5 were wise. The distinction between the wise and foolish weren’t based on their education. They were classified based on whether they prepared oil. V3-4 says;

The distinction was whether they prepared oil. While the bridegrooms were delayed, they all slumbered and slept.

In present times, they could just call the bridegroom and ask and it’d be more convenient. But the second of the coming of the Lord is like this; when He comes again, we do not know. They have entered into this stage of slumbering in their faith. Everyone is in a very peaceful state in their lives. When things seem to be peaceful and stable is the time the Lord is coming. When the bridegroom suddenly comes will apparent the wise and foolish; those who didn’t prepare would realise they didn’t prepare their oil. When the door shuts, they won’t have the opportunity to enter; no matter how much they call out. This causes us to think that they’re pitiful. Just because they didn’t prepare oil, they lost their right to enter the feast. This is the crux.

When we lack the moving of the Holy Spirit, we must think: have we entered into this state where it’s so peaceful we’re in spiritual slumber? On the other hand, are we constantly seeking to fill ourselves with this spiritual oil? Let’s look at an example in Acts 20:9-12;

9 ‘And in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead.
10 But Paul went down, fell on him, and embracing him said, “Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him.”
11 Now when he had come up, had broken bread and eaten, and talked a long while, even till daybreak, he departed.
12 And they brought the young man in alive, and they were not a little comforted.’

There was a young man named Eutychus. While Paul was speaking, he was sleeping. While he was awake, he was safe but when he slept, he lost his sense of alert and fell out of the window and fell down three stories. When people went down, they discovered he was dead. In a medical perspective, if someone hits his head from that height, people would be afraid he’d lose his sense of feeling. There’s a medical term called coma index; it’s an index to see whether that person is conscience, and whether his eye reacts to stimulus, whether his mouth is capable of speaking and if his limbs have reaction. If he lacks any reaction, his coma index is 3. If he doesn’t recover, things would get complicated. From a medical perspective, perhaps Eutychus was in a coma.

When Paul went down, he realised that his life is in him because of the body doesn’t have a soul, then he is dead. But his spirit is still present. So he continued with his sermon and talked for a long while and the young man was alive. From a medical perspective he was in coma but the mercy of God let him be alive.

From this example we can learn about the spiritual status. When we’re alert in our faith, wherever we’re seating, we’re safe. But if we fall into a slumber in our faith, we’re overcome by this sleep. If we’re overcame, we lose and we fall in our faith.

This is the testimony of a brother.

He was sick and was hospitalised. When he was hospitalised, he had a dream that he was at the edge of a very deep cliff. At the edge of the cliff, there was a group of people wearing black trying to pull him down the cliff to be like them. He panicked. On the other hand, there was another group in white trying to pull him up. There was one person but there were forces from two sides; one trying to pull him down and another one trying to pull him up.

When he was discharged, he became very serious in coming to church because he was a believer who had taken a long leave of absence from the Lord Jesus. When he came to church, he met a brother and told him, “I saw you! You were one of those in white trying to pull me up!”

When he was sick, the church prayed for him that through this incident he would come back to church. Sometimes in our faith, we have entered this stage where we’re so at ease and peaceful rest we fall asleep and lose our alertness. The more we’re at ease, the more we are in danger. We must remain vigilant.

We must also prepare oil in our lamps. This oil must be ready anytime and we must constantly prepare this spiritual oil, unlike these foolish virgins who think what we have is enough and we don’t need to prepare so much.

Some drivers think it’s fine when their fuel tank is only left with 1 bar as long as the red light does not start to blink. On the other hand, some people will top up their fuel immediately when the meter is down to 1 bar.

Once the speaker drove out and was trying to start the car but it couldn’t move. He found it strange as his fuel tank was full. He called the mechanic to find out what’s wrong. The mechanic came and found out there was a motor that was spoilt. This motor is the one that will draw the one out of the fuel tank. If it spoils, the fuel can’t draw out. The mechanic told him that this motor has to always be submerged in the oil and if he always let the car run down till the fuel is low, then the motor will spoil. The speaker would only pump petrol when the red light flashes. In this parable, he’d be the foolish virgin.

We must always be full with oil; but for us to be full with oil is not as simple as to just be full by ourselves, we must ask God for this spiritual oil to be in our hearts. We turn to 1 Kings 18:36-37;

36 ‘And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “ Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your word.
37 Hear me, O Lord , hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”’

This is the prayer of Elijah asking the Lord to send down fire. We can learn from this prayer on how to ask from God to give us this spiritual oil.

How did Elijah pray? In v36; “Let it be known this day that You are God in Israel”. V37: that this people may know that You are the Lord God, and that You have turned their hearts back to You again.”’ He keeps saying this word “know”; it means experience.

In our pursuit of faith, we must experience God and this is our initial faith. Whether we came to believe by ourselves or we’ve believed since young, we must experience this God whom we believe in. The Bible says that if we hold fast to this initial faith that we have then we can persevere to the end. This initial faith that we have can help us persevere to the end. We must often remind ourselves what our state of faith like initially.

We must also know this heart of turning back to God. This is like the prodigal son returning. The prodigal son had to suffer outside to realise the comfort and warmth of home. Just like the believer from the testimony earlier; his life was going so well and only when he experienced suffering then he realised it’s better to be in the Lord.

Often when we encounter troubles and are suffering, we receive reminders from the Lord. The Lord is asking us to come back to His house. In this house, we have our loving Heavenly Father. Our Father is waiting to receive us with love. Hence, this prodigal son had this heart to return; this is the initial love. This love will move you to return to the house of God.

For this prodigal son, he didn’t think of his brother. If he did, he may not want to return home. His brother was angry, “How could you come back?! My inheritance would be affected!” The prodigal son didn’t think of his brother but father.

Sometimes in our faith we may fall but we must think of God. The love of God will receive us. Often we hear testimonies of believers testifying of the love and grace of God. When we hear their testimonies, we are moved and we can see that the grace of God upon them is truly great. We must know that this God that they testify of is also our God. If they have received God’s love like this, what about me? They have so many testimonies of God’s grace, do I have any?

If our children tell us that we don’t love and care for them, as a parent, would you be sad? Definitely. Similarly, with our Heavenly Father, “God, You don’t even love me!” Don’t you think our Lord would be very sad? Our God takes care of us everyday and yet we tell Him that He doesn’t love us. In our prayers we should think of His love and count our blessings. Won’t this move us? Are we someone numb to the blessings of God?

How then should we ask God for His grace and to be moved by His grace? We must return to this initial faith and think of the love of God. Think of the relationship we had with God when it was pure and simple. Also think of the blessings God has given us. This is a type of oil that we cannot lack in our faith. When we have this assurance in our faith and are constantly reminded of the love and blessings of God, we can live with this hope. In every service, we’ll be moved by the word of God and in every prayer we’ll be moved by the spirit of God. May the Lord help us.