<TITLE>05. Par 25-31</TITLE>L-25 Now, the first place, the Holy Spirit has been promised. We could take ten weeks and never--just skip the edge of this subject: What the Holy Spirit Is. But the first thing, I want to approach it just enough to give an outline each night, then see the following night if there's any questions.
How many in here has not received the Holy Ghost, been baptized with the Holy Ghost, raise your hands. You know you haven't been... Just look at the hands.
Now, I want to talk on It, as the Holy Spirit being a Sign, for It is a Sign. We realize that--that all promises is given to us by... Abraham was the father of the promise, because God gave the promise to Abraham and to his seed after him. The promise was made to Abraham and to his seed. And this Sign is to a covenant people.

L-27 Now, there is a vast difference between just a Christian and a Holy Ghost filled Christian. And now, we're going to get this from the Scripture and place it just exactly in the Scripture. The first place, there is a Christian, professed to be a Christian. But if this Christian has not yet been filled with the Holy Ghost, he's only in process of being a Christian. See? He is professed to believe it; he's working to it; but God has not yet given him this Spirit of the Holy Ghost. He's not yet reached that goal with God, that God's recognized it.

L-28 Because that God made a covenant with Abraham after He'd called Abraham, which is a type of calling the believer today... He called Abraham, and Abraham moved out of his country and went into a strange land to dwell among strange people. And that was a type of when God calls a man to stop his meanness, repent of his sins. He turns then from the crowd that he was in, to live in a new crowd, among new types of people.
And then after God found Abraham to be faithful to the promise that God gave him (that he would have a child and through this child all the earth would be blessed), then God confirmed his faith by giving him a sign; and that sign was circumcision. And circumcision is a type of the Holy Spirit.
Just the very next verses of this chapter that we have just read, if you want to take it down... And the... Stephen said in the 51st verse, "Ye stiffnecks, uncircumcised in the heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do you."

L-30 The circumcision is a type of the Holy Ghost. And God gave Abraham the--the circumcision sign after he had accepted God on His promise and walked out into a strange country. See? It was a sign. And all his children and his seed after him should have this sign in their flesh, because it was a distinction. It was to separate them from all other people, this sign of circumcision. And that's what God uses today. It's the sign of circumcision of the heart, the Holy Spirit, that makes God's church a separated church from all other creeds, faiths, and denominations. They're in all kinds of denominations, but yet they are a separated people.

L-31 You let me talk to a man two minutes; I can tell you whether he's received the Holy Ghost or not. So can you. It separates them; It's a Mark; It's a Sign. And the Holy Spirit is a Sign. And it's... Any child that refused circumcision in the Old Testament, which was a foreshadow of the Holy Ghost, was cut off from amongst the people. He could not have fellowship with the rest of the congregation if he refused to be circumcised. Now, pattern that to today. A person that would refuse to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost can have no fellowship among those that has the Holy Ghost. You just can't do it. You have to be a nature.
Like, it's... My mother there used to say, "Birds of a feather flock together." Well, it's an old proverb, but it's a true one. You don't see doves and crows fellowshipping. Their diets are different; their habits are different; their desires are different. And that's the way it is with the world and with a Christian when you have been circumcised by the Holy Spirit, which means to cut off a flesh.


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