Why we need the Holy Spirit!

Clearly we need the Holy Spirit for many reasons, and it is not my goal to discuss that entire topic in depth here. However, as I was studying for a sermon on Jesus' coming back form the mountain after His transfiguration in Matt. 17, I was struck by the parallels with what happened while Moses was on the mountain in Exod. 32.

As Jesus, Peter, James and John return from Jesus' transfiguration, we read this:

Matt. 17:14 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. ¹⁶ So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

¹⁷ Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you?... (NKJV)

We find this additional information in Mark 9:14 And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them. (NKJV)

So Jesus returns, after being out of their presence for a time, and things go a little pear shaped. The disciples who remained are in some controversy with the scribes, the multitude is all stirred up, and only Jesus is able to get things back on track!

Compare this scene and Jesus calling them "faithless and perverse" to what happened when Moses was on the mountain:

Exod. 32:7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. ⁸ They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” ⁹ And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! ¹⁰ Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them... (NKJV)

OK, now I realise that the disciples, scribes and multitude that Jesus returned to did not make a gold calf to worship, but the rebuke they receive from Jesus, "faithless and perverse" is very similar to what God said of the Israelites while Moses was away from them, as He called them "corrupted" and "stiff-necked".

The issue is that without being converted by the Holy Spirit, without receiving the faith that He supplies, without God "in" us, we are not going to obey God, especially when He is not visible to us! Moses as God's spokesman, and Jesus, God in the flesh, can't be physically present with all of us all the time in this world, so we need something better, as these passages clearly affirm, we need God in us through the Holy Spirit!