Welcome to Studies with Stearman.

Join us as we look deeper into the Bible.

Strengthen your faith with us, even as we see the day approaching.

And now, here's Gary.

I've been following Paul in his missionary journeys for the purpose of studying the working

of the Holy Spirit.

And my contention is the Holy Spirit works today exactly the same way he worked in the first

century.

There has been placed in the church this very negative idea about the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm a dispensationalist, for example. I believe that the church began at Pentecost, will end at the

rapture. Other people are not dispensationalists, but they say, well, you dispensationalists really don't

believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. You believe that somehow, are not dispensationalists, but they say, well, you dispensationalists really don't believe

in the power of the Holy Spirit. You believe that somehow, during the first part of the

dispensational period of the church, say the first 50, 60 years, that the Holy Spirit was very

active, and he was performing all kinds of miracles and things, but he quit doing that.

That's not what I believe at all. I believe the Holy Spirit is as active today as he was during

the first century. But the other side of the story is you cannot trap the Holy Spirit in a bottle

and say, aha, I've got the Holy Spirit. You just can't do that. You

cannot command him to do what you want him to do. Rather, you serve him. He does not serve you.

And this is the thing that I am particularly looking at as we go through Acts. Paul did not

control the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit controlled Paul.

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