Thank God, The Holy Spirit is our Parakletos!
July 2023
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“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” —John 14:16
Several weeks ago, Donna and I decided to take a few vacation days and spend the weekend on Galveston Island on the Texas Gulf Coast, where we had vacationed many times with our three sons. Donna and her only sister, Jonon, grew up on the island and loved it. Their dad, Mr. Harper, was stationed there in the U.S. Coast Guard in the mid-1940s. They moved to the mainland, La Marque, between Donna’s second and third year in school.
So, Jonon drove down from the Houston area, and we decided to have our evening meal at one of our favorite restaurants on the seawall. Later on, when we were walking on the beach and listening to the roar of the waves, Jonon reminded us that on that day—thirty-five years ago on April 29—both of their parents were killed in a car accident on I-45 near Dallas. As this very sad bit of history came into our conversation, I noticed that our countenance changed, our voices lowered, our words became very sober, and tears came to Donna and Jonon’s eyes. We discussed this for a moment, and then I suggested we pray. As we prayed and worshipped God, yes, the wonderful Holy Spirit came down right there on the sandy beach of Galveston Island and again we felt the God of all comfort.
Looking back, in April of 1988, we were living in Mobile, Alabama, and pastoring a great congregation—the Knollwood AG Church (formerly the Creighton AG) in Mobile. On April 29, 1988, I was in a funeral home, visiting a family that had lost a family member in death. I had just completed a time of visitation and prayer with them, and I received a call from my church staff telling me that I needed to hurry back to the office. Once there, I returned my brother-in-law’s call, and he told me what had happened. He and Jonon had received a phone call from the police in Corsicana and the police told them what had happened. The Harpers, Donna and Jonon’s parents, were traveling by themselves in their car on I-45 and experienced a single-car accident. They were driving in a major thunderstorm, and their car hit standing water on the highway. The car hydroplaned, control was lost, and it crashed. Both parents died as a result of the wreck. After hearing about the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Harper, I had to drive home and tell Donna what had happened. Believe me, it was not easy. The news devastated Donna and our family. In the years that followed, Donna and Jonon greatly needed the Holy Spirit to be the God of all comfort. Thank God, they both believed strongly in the Holy Spirit and in heaven. Their parents were devout believers in Christ.
Jesus, our blessed Lord, said, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). The Greek word for Comforter is parakletos, used four times in the New Testament, and it is specifically speaking of “one who walks along side” of you to “comfort you, assist you, strengthen you, and to console you.”
In II Corinthians 1:4, the apostle Paul wrote, “Blessed be God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” This Greek word for comfort used twenty-eight times in the New Testament is paraklesis, and it is directly associated with the Greek word parakletos. Jesus Christ and his servant, the apostle Paul, is telling us as believers that the Holy Spirit is available to every child of God, to be God’s presence to us, day by day, moment by moment, to lead us, to guide us, to heal us, to lift us up and encourage us—to be our parakletos. He is our friend, our advocate, our attorney; He is our comforter.
By believing in the reality and power of the cross, we know that Christ is in us, and the Holy Spirit is in us. If Christ and the Holy Spirit are in us and walking alongside of us, as our parakletos, then we know that God the Father is also in us and with us. So, dear child of God, our heavenly Father, His Son, Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit work in us and through us and is all about us, and the knowledge of this truth greatly comforts us and causes us to “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might” (Eph. 6:10).
Psalm 55:4-5 tells us that terrors of death can cause fearfulness, trembling and one can be overwhelmed. Donna and Jonon understood this fully on April 29, 1988.
Dear friend, when being forced to deal with death, study these four great truths:
1. Scripture declares that when a believers departs this world in death, he goes immediately into the presence of God. Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:8, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” Jesus said to the dying thief on the cross, “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). If you are a child of God, when you die, the next moment you will be in heaven in God’s presence.
2. We must remember that there will be a glad reunion of loved ones over there. Paul wrote, “Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him” (II Thess. 2:1). Revelation 7:9 reads “After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”
3. Heaven will be a place of many blessings. The apostles wrote about the crowns of heaven: there will be a victor’s crown (I Cor. 9:25-27); the crown of rejoicing (I Thess. 2:19); a crown of righteousness (II Tim. 4:8); a crown of life (James 1:12, Rev. 2:10); and a crown of glory (I Peter 5:4). Peter writes “To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Peter 1:4).
4. In heaven there is no pain, no sickness, and no death over there. In Revelation 21:4, the apostle John writes, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”
The incredible hope of heaven, the great doctrine of eternal life with God, is all made possible by our total belief in what Christ did on the cross, validated by what God did with Christ on the day of the resurrection. Yes, total faith in what Christ did on Calvary releases the Holy Spirit to comfort the believer in the darkest of times.
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