Wow! This is clearly going to get big. The Holy Spirit is a big subject, and one critical to understand fully. John tells us that because of the abiding anointing of the Spirit in us, we don't need to be taught by others. "His anointing teaches you all things" (1Jn 2:27). At the same time, he warns us to test the spirits so as to be certain that we are listening only Him who is from God (1Jn 4:1), because so many false prophets are about. With this, Paul concurs, warning that even Satan disguises himself as a messenger of the light (2Co 11:15). How utterly important it is, then, to truly know the Holy Spirit; to know His person, His office, and His character, that no deception shall overtake us! I must reiterate that for those of us like myself who populate the ranks of the charismatic movement, this is especially so. We must be particularly careful not to allow the freedom of worship in the Spirit to become licentious abuse of sound doctrine. We, who are most willing to hear a word from the Lord have it made incumbent upon us to make doubly certain that it is truly from the Lord we are hearing. With liberty comes responsibility.

With this purpose of understanding, I have gathered together all the Scriptures I could find which made reference to either the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of the Lord, and have considered what these verses have to say with regard to Him. As I have considered these things, I find that there are two major aspects that need to be established. First and foremost, we must establish a Biblical foundation for who He is - of His office. Only then can we move into looking at the role He plays in the life of the believer. As I believe we shall see, who He is fits Him for that role, and may help us to discern His move from ecstatic pretensions of inspiritation.

One With God and Christ (3/10/04-3/11/04)

To begin with, we need to establish this fact. The Lord our God is One (Dt 6:4). Yet, the very first mention we have of the Holy Spirit in Scripture identifies Him with God. David is the first to pen those words, 'Holy Spirit,' and in speaking of the Holy Spirit, he is speaking of God's presence. Don't send me from Your presence, he writes. Don't take Your Holy Spirit from me (Ps 51:11). This is a clear example of parallelism, a stylistic device common to Hebraic poetry, as well as prophecy. It is a dual statement of the same idea. To have the Holy Spirit taken away is to be cast from God's presence. The common concern here is separation from God, whether by Him taking Himself away, or by Him sending us away. Both halves refer to God, one half speaks of His presence, the other of His Holy Spirit. The two are One.

This same parallelism of thought is present in Gabriel's announcement to Mary. "The Holy Spirit will rest upon you," he declares. "The power of the Most High will envelop you" (Lk 1:35). Here, we see the Holy Spirit equated with the power of God. Can God's power be separated from Himself? No. It is of His essence, just as our own meager power is a part of us. The person and his power cannot be separated. In that same verse is another confirmation of the equating of the Holy Spirit and God. Gabriel goes on to declare that the child will be holy because of this enveloping presence of the Holy Spirit, and that because of the Holy Spirit's role in the matter, the child will be the Son of God. It is by the work of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is conceived, and He is the Son of God. Apart from adoption, we are sons of the father who begot us. Jesus stands as God's only begotten Son (Jn 3:16), yet here we see that begetting attributed to the Holy Spirit. This is no surrogate parenting! The Lord our God, He is One!

Isaiah gives us yet another confirmation that the Holy Spirit and the Father are One, and in the course of doing so, also establishes the Father and the Savior as One. The passage in view, here, is Isaiah 63:8-14. Isaiah, through the Holy Spirit, is speaking God's words to Israel. God, in His Fatherly role speaks to them as an earthly father might correct his child, replaying their thinking for them, and pointing out where their thinking went wrong, and where it should have led. He begins with a father's view of his children, "They are My sons. They will not deal falsely." This is given as His reasoning in taking action. He sees His children in trouble, and good Father that He is, He moves swiftly to help, knowing that His children are not likely to be treacherous towards Him. What action does He take? This is so incredible, and so important to the Christian faith! He became their Savior! Notice, it is not that He sent somebody else to save them. He became their Savior, our Savior. It is firmly established here by God's own words that He and the Savior are One.

Here, also, there is evidence of the oneness God feels with His people. This is not to say that He and His people are One, but that, as a Father and as our Sovereign Lord, He empathizes fully with our trials. IN everything that we are afflicted, He was also afflicted, so He saved us by the angel of His presence. Wow! Here is God displaying the strongest of family ties with His adopted earthly children! "What hurts them hurts Me. You touch them, you're touching Me, and it's Me you're going to have to deal with." Has any bullied child ever had a more wonderful big brother? This is essentially God's message to Satan, isn't it? "You're messin' with My boy, and I'm gonna have to put a hurtin' on you for that." So, the verse continues, He redeemed them, and He has carried them throughout the whole course of history! Who? God, the Savior, the Holy One. Notice these two things: First, even in the hardest of moments, that last statement of His applies. Even when it seems that things are falling apart all around us, when we feel we can't go on, even when we feel like He Himself is against us, it holds true: He is still carrying us through. Secondly, He once more affirms that He and the Savior, the Redeemer, are One. Jesus, then, is wholly God, and it is because of this that we can know that our Redeemer lives. He is not just an historical character, He continues to be, and He continues to be active in our personal history!

Now comes a sad, sad, statement from this loving Father: In spite of His loving act, they rebelled against Him, and thereby grieved His Holy Spirit. Well, now we establish another link. He, Whom we have already established is both Father and Savior, is hereby shown once more to be also the Holy Spirit! Here, also, we begin to see some of the character of the Holy Spirit, for rebellion against God, rebellion against Truth grieves Him who is tasked with leading us into all truth.

What a rich passage this is! And what a sad result He must now recount to His wayward children. Because of their actions, He declares, He had to become an enemy to them, and work against them. What? The God of Love is bringing battle to His own children? How can that be? We, with our modern sensibilities, have so softened God that the very thought of Him doing anything like this offends us, but our offense is no reflection of God's character. It is only a reflection of the fallen society around us. We are far more concerned, these days, with self-esteem and image than we are with character and reality. Devoid of moral guidance, we decide that what matters is that folks be allowed to do what they want, just so long as it doesn't harm us, or keep us from doing what we want. God, however, is not changed by our foolishness. He knows all about tough love. He invented it. In declaring Himself their enemy, He is not indicating that He has changed from loving them to hating them. No! He is simply saying that He stands opposed to their will for the simple reason that their will is now opposed to Him. He brings affliction. He declares that of Himself repeatedly in Scripture, as much as we cover our ears when we hear Him admit that. However, He never brings it needlessly upon His children, but always with an eye towards correction. It is a miserable father who never brings correction to his wayward child. Far more reason we would have to take offense with our Father in heaven if He truly allowed us to go our foolish way to destruction.

His acts bring about the desired reaction in His children. They may not yet recognize their error, but they at least come to the realization that something is horribly wrong. Things aren't the same. It's not like it used to be, and they are quick to realize what's missing. He who labored through Moses and His other appointed shepherds, He who split the seas to let His children pass through to safety, is no longer with them. As His children bewail their present state, there come from them a pair of parallelisms that establish for us once more the Unity of Father and Spirit. He, the Father is known to be the One who led them through the sea. In the next breath, the Holy Spirit is identified as the One who was in their midst. Over and over, the scenes being recounted switch from the Father to the Spirit. The Father's own right arm was at Moses' right hand. The Father's power split the sea, and the Father's presence led them through the divide. But, it was the Holy Spirit who was in their midst, wasn't it? And, having led them safely through, they declare, it was the Spirit of the LORD that gave them rest on the other side. Notice in this that the two terms 'Holy Spirit' and 'Spirit of the LORD' are clearly shown to be identifying the same person. Their remembrances close with the fact that the Father, the Holy One, by leading His children as He had done, had made Himself a most glorious reputation.

Again, Lord, I am in wonder at the magnificence of this passage! So much it reveals of Your Holy character! So much it reveals of Your ongoing work amongst man! So early, You revealed Your triune nature, and yet, it remained invisible to eyes that would not see it. So early, You declared the work of redemption that You would accomplish in Christ, but it remained unheard by ears that were closed to it. Jesus, Your whole work in visiting us is summed up in that one sentence. You were afflicted by every affliction that ever has and ever will afflict Your brothers. Every painful consequence of sin and rebellion that was ever visited upon the least of Your adopted family fell upon You. Every disease, every punishment, every bit of anguish and remorse - You took it all upon Yourself, and saved us.

How can it be, Lord, that I cam so quick to take that for granted? How can it be that I can lose sight of what You have done on my behalf? How can I ever forget what I've put You through, and how can You ever forgive me for it? Oh! I'll never know the how of that, but I'll know the truth of it! However impossible it seems to me, You have indeed forgiven it all, did so even as You took the lashings, the beatings, the crushing, and the piercing that I had earned for myself. Truly, nothing is impossible with You! How, then, my Lord, can anyone reject You? God, it seems so impossible that any man could look upon themselves, and look upon You, and still choose to continue on unchanged. What blind fools we are, that we, having been shown the death and destruction for which we are headed, having tasted the first and least painful consequences of our determined path, would choose to continue on towards worse things to come, rather than to turn from our course and receive the life You gladly give!

Micah also points out this connection between the Spirit and the Father. He, too, is speaking the direct words of God. "Are you indeed saying that the Spirit of the LORD is impatient?" he writes. "Do you question whether these are My doings?" (Mic 2:7). Here again, there is that parallelism connecting the Spirit and the Father. Here, also, is evidence that man's foolishness is nothing terribly new to our age. The question God speaks on behalf of His children reflects the very same attitude in them that is so prevalent among us today. The people of God are wholly convinced that God is good. Of all His attributes, this is the only one we won't try to minimize or eliminate from Him. However, we will insist on our definition of what is good. We are just like a young child undergoing punishment, who looks upon his parents and declares, "You don't love me." The problem is not a lack of love on the parent's part, but a poor definition of love on the child's part. When we allow our opinion of what love should feel like to color our view of God's love, we must shrive Him of His Justice and Righteousness to fit Him into our view of Love. We fall into recreating God in our own image. Here, in Micah, God corrects our foolishness. His response to the "You don't love me" of His wayward children is simple, and reflects once more the Fatherly nature of God: "Have I ceased doing good to you when you obey?" It's such a parental response, isn't it? The connection is clear. If you will not adhere to the rules which your parents (or whatever authorities now have say over your conduct) have set out, you will be punished. If, on the other hand, you do adhere to those rules, things will go well with you.

The connection between Holy Spirit and God is hardly confined, however, to the Old Testament. Paul also establishes that same connection. The first passage I want to consider from him is one I recall Augustine using in his writing on the Trinity, and I will follow his line of reasoning in looking at it. In 1Corinthians 6:19 Paul declares something incredible in regards to the believer. He declares that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit dwells within us. Here, also, is a declaration that the Holy Spirit is given us by God, but that's a point I want to save for later. As regards the present point, the Unity of the persons of the TriUnity, we need to turn to 2Corinthians 6:16 and consider it alongside this verse. There, Paul tells his readers that they are the temple of the living God, and quotes God's words to them, to prove the point. 'God said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them; And I will be their God, and they shall be My people."' So, then, whose temple are we? Are we a temple to the Holy Spirit, or a temple to the Holy One? Surely, we cannot be both! Even the pagans knew enough to keep their gods in separate buildings. The only reasonable answer, then, is that we are at one and the same time temple to both Spirit and Father, which can only be true because they are One. No god is going to tolerate the worship of another in His precincts, especially God who revealed Himself in the Law of Moses! "Thou shalt have no other god before Me." How can we comply with that, if we are the temple of another and His temple as well? Surely, that other will be before Him! It cannot be! Indeed, it is that very thought that Paul is pursuing in the second passage. You dare not allow idolatry to mix with your worship of God, for He cannot and will not tolerate such pollutions in His temple. Knowing that idolatry is, in essence the worship of anything other than God, if the Holy Spirit were other than God, and we had set up a place of worship within our hearts for Him, it would be idolatry, and we would be in flagrant violation of God's Law in His very temple. It cannot be so!

We are indeed the temple of the Holy Spirit and of the Father, and, for that matter, of the Living Christ! The Three in One has come to dwell in the temple of our flesh, as amazing as that should be to us. That His perfect holiness could deign to come into such imperfect houses as our earthly flesh should defy belief in us, were our belief not so wholly a result of His power! If it is possible for Him to so dwell in us, surely nothing is impossible with Him! But the very fact that He insists that He is in us, that Christ is in us, and that the Holy Spirit is in us must clearly establish for us that the Three as we know them are One, for He has also told us unequivocally that He is One. We may never, this side of heaven, fully understand how that can be. Our best efforts must fail in the face of describing the indescribable. Yet, we can know with absolute certainty that it is true. Scripture, without such an understanding, simply will not hold together. It will require unreason on our part to accept His revelation in any other light.

One final verse I want to consider in establishing the Unity of God, and that is 2Corinthians 3:17. Here is an outright statement of the unity of the three persons of the trinity. "The Lord is the Spirit," Paul writes. That second 'the' is important. True, God is spirit, as the Lord, Himself declared to us (Jn 4:24), but that is not the point Paul is making. Paul is equating two persons here. There is the Lord, and every tongue will eventually confess what we already know, that Jesus is the Lord (Php 2:11). There is also the Spirit, the Holy Spirit known also as the Spirit of the LORD. Paul establishes this connection, and then establishes for us a truth: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is [where, therefore, the Lord is], is liberty." Allow me to continue a bit further, to the next verse. "We are being transformed," Paul continues, "we look as if in a mirror upon the glory of the Lord. No veil separates Him from our view. And seeing His image in that mirror, we are being reformed into that same image. We are changing from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." Notice that he again establishes, for those who may have missed it in the opening statement, that the Lord and the Spirit are One.

Notice this, also, about that passage: I'll begin with a question. When I look in the mirror, who is it I see? I don't see another person staring back at me, I see myself. Consider again Paul's message with that in mind. We behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, for we are, ourselves, to be a reflection of His glory. It is to that end that He labors over our transformation. Our purpose is to attain to that place, through His transforming grace, where we, in seeing ourselves in the mirror, see His glory. Our purpose is to reflect His glory throughout our lives. Jesus told His disciples that if they had seen Him (which, of course, they had) they had seen the Father (Jn 14:9). He was the perfect reflection of His Father's nature. He was the 'express image of the Father' (Col 1:15). We are called to likewise reflect our Father's nature. That is part and parcel of what it is to be a son and not just a child.

One more point I'd like to make regarding this verse, and that is the distinction between liberty and freedom. Now, I'll point out that the sundry translations I have looked at are about evenly split as to which word applies in this case. In English, there is a distinction between the two which should be paid attention to. I looked in Webster's dictionary the other day and found these things. Liberty is 'freedom from despotic control, the power of choice, a granted right,' and this, which I think is a wonderful definition for our present context, "Permission to go freely within specified limits." Freedom, on the other hand, is "the absence of constraint in choice or action, unrestricted use, improper familiarity." Which one applies here? Let me turn to the underlying Greek. We have the word eleutheria [1657]: which Strong's simply defines as freedom, whether it be legitimate [liberty] or licentious [freedom], although he notes that there it is generally applied in moral and ceremonial matters. Thayer's, on the other hand, defines it as liberty, "the liberty to do or omit things having no relation to salvation." That text also notes a passage in James, which speaks of the Christian faith as being directed by "the Law of Liberty" (Jas 1:25, 2:12). Now, if freedom, 'unrestricted use,' is in view here, how is there any law involved? On what basis would such a law judge a man? If there is no rule, there is no rule to break. There is also the possible sense of licentiousness to the Greek, but I think it would be impossible to associate such a meaning with the Spirit of the Lord. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is licentiousness?" I don't think so! That would defy the whole message of the transforming power of the Gospel! We are to be transformed into His image, not His enemy!

No, I think we must understand that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is no unnecessary limitation, we are empowered to do or omit whatever has no bearing on salvation. We have God's permission to go freely within specified limits. That is the joyous liberty of the sons of God! We are free not to sin, and we are at liberty to live in the enjoyment of our God and Savior! Let us be very careful, then, when we speak of freedom. Freedom is a dangerous thing in the hands of fallen man. Liberty, on the other hand, is cause for rejoicing. But, we should, in light of God's liberty, recall the warnings of the founders of our nation. Liberty comes with responsibility.

Author of Scripture (3/11/04-3/12/04)

I think we have now established the unity of the Godhead. That determined, there remains a certain uniqueness in the three persons of God. While One in essence, and One in purpose, yet in the triune revelation of Himself, God shows Himself in different lights. The passage I looked at from Isaiah shows a great deal of the uniqueness of the Father. Looking upon His care of Israel, one could find no better role model than He for parenting. However, at present, my goal is to focus on the Third Person, the least known and least understood, perhaps of the revelations of God.

One matter that Scripture assigns to the offices of the Holy Spirit is the writing of the Scriptures. In 2Ti 3:16, Paul tells us that all Scripture is inspired by God. Other passages make it clear that it is in the person or office of the Holy Spirit that God so acts as to inspire men to speak His word. Jesus draws this connection in discussing the Psalms of David. "David spoke as the Holy Spirit inspired him" (Mk 12:36). And what the Holy Spirit inspired him to write was a foreshadowing revelation, a prophecy that pointed to the coming Messiah.

This prophetic inspiration of the Holy Spirit is again pointed out in Acts 1:16. In considering the betrayal of the Lord by Judas, the apostles must have gone through some serious soul searching. I wonder how many had arrived at the 'it could have been me,' point. However, in searching themselves, they turned to the best tool for the job, the Holy Scriptures. In that searching, they came to recognize something, something important: The Holy Spirit had foretold the betrayal! How? Through the mouth of David. Furthermore, what the Holy Spirit inspired was Scripture, and as Scripture - the record of God's Truth - it was absolutely necessary that it should be fulfilled. Now, by this necessity, nobody is suggesting that the thought of the apostles was that, 'well, somebody had to do it.' No, the necessity is simply a recognition that God's Word does not go forth void. What He has caused to be prophesied will assuredly come to pass. Scripture had to be fulfilled. It was impossible that it not be fulfilled.

Once again, in Acts 4:25, David's writings are attributed to the Holy Spirit. David spoke by the Holy Spirit when he asked why the Gentiles raged and the people of the world made futile plans of rebellion. In Hebrews 3:7-8, we find yet another reference to the Holy Spirit speaking through the Psalms, although David is not expressly mentioned there, it is simply "even as the Holy Spirit says…". Well, so far one could look at the evidence and simply conclude that David personally was writing under the Holy Spirit's influence when he wrote the songs that we find in Psalms. All of the examples thus far have these things in common. However, in Paul's writing it is shown to go further than just this one writer and the one book.

In Acts 28:25-28, Paul is in the midst of defending himself against the accusations of Jewish religious leadership. The two groups at the top of that order, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, had united in spite of their differences to fight against 'this Jesus,' and now joined together to fight against His followers, especially this one whom they had trained themselves, and who had once fought so fervently by their sides. However, their longstanding disagreements surfaced as they heard Paul's defense, for it struck at the core questions of which of them was right. Paul, a Pharisee's Pharisee, defended the Christian hope from a Pharisaic basis, and the Pharisees who listened could hardly attack their own tenets to get at him. The Sadducees, on the other hand, found in those tenets things foolish and unbelievable and were more than happy of the opportunity to say so in front of their Roman friends. Both groups began to leave, but Paul, himself inspired by the Holy Spirit, called after them. His accusation? That the Holy Spirit had spoken through Isaiah, and thus Isaiah's prophecies were quite accurate. This point, neither group was likely to debate. He presses on. Isaiah's accurate words concern you, he says. He said they would be deaf and blind to the Truth, and so you are. You know Isaiah's words, and you know his words are true. Therefore, he concludes, you certainly ought to know that because of your stubbornness, God has sent the salvation He offered to you to the Gentiles instead, because they will listen and accept.

The author of Hebrews concurs with the inclusion of the prophets among those inspired by the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit bears witness to us in Scripture," he writes (Heb 10:15). Notice, he does not limit this to the Law, nor to the Prophets, although his example is drawn from that portion. In simplest form, we can take this away from his words: The Holy Spirit bears witness to us in Scripture. That is a fundamental truth. The example he continues with offers us insight into the specific offices of the Holy Spirit as well. He quotes Jeremiah's words regarding the new covenant, "I will put My laws on their heart and write them upon their mind" (Heb 10:16). This labor of love is the unique task of the Holy Spirit among the faithful, as I think we shall see further on.

It is because of this labor of love that we have our great cause to rejoice, and in this labor of love the united purpose of the Trinity, the working of each person to one end is seen once more. The Father has determined the plan of redemption, has had the whole of that plan in place since before Creation, and He has been working to that plan ever since. Neither has He slipped schedule. The Perfect Planner, He is also the Perfect Executor of the plan. In Jesus, the final preparation was made for the time of which Jeremiah was writing, standing as the sacrifice necessary to the covenant. Note that He is not the seal of that covenant, but by Him the covenant was sealed and ratified. The Holy Spirit announced through Jeremiah what God's long-determined plan was going to entail. But this is not the whole of His involvement in the plan. It is by His office, we will see shortly, that the writing will be done. He is the Spirit of Truth, and it falls to Him to write that Truth, which is the Law of God, upon the hearts and minds of those who have been Redeemed by the Son according to the purpose and election of the Father. Because the Three are One, One in essence and One in purpose, the Holy Spirit could also declare the result of the Father's plan through Jeremiah: "Their sins and their lawlessness I will remember no more" (Heb 10:17)! The debt has been paid, and the court records are sealed, no longer to be reviewed by any eye. Because of the work of the Son, we are established as innocent in the eyes of the court of heaven, and the only debt we have before the Father is a joyful debt of eternal love and devotion. What a happy burden, that!

Witness to Truth (3/12/04)

It is impressed upon me, in looking at the Holy Spirit as He is revealed in Scripture, as He, therefore, reveals Himself, that He is particularly concerned with Truth. If we were to consider the Persons of the Trinity according to their specific concerns, the aspects of the Godhead that they most focus on and accentuate, I think we would have to attribute to the Father the great concern of holiness. His overarching concern is the purity of His creation. To Jesus, I think, would be attributed a concern for righteousness. More than anything, He is concerned with the obedience of His creation. This is what He demonstrated before the eyes of man, and it is the fundamental commandment He sought to impart to man. The Holy Spirit, as I said, is given the attribute of truthfulness. He is deeply concerned about the honesty of His creation. He is the spokesman of Truth, as He inspires the writing of Scripture, the recording of God's Truth. He is the imparter of Truth, as He brings to remembrance the very Scriptures He inspired, as He gives man the words to speak as the ambassadors of God.

He is also uniquely the witness to Truth. He is first and foremost the witness to Truth on the part of those who serve the kingdom of God as representatives. He assures them of the truth of the words they are given to speak. He is the great comfort and conscience of the Gospel preacher. We see Paul avail himself of that assuring testimony of the Spirit in Romans 9:1. What I have written here, and what I have consistently preached everywhere, is God's own truth. I have lied to no man in this, he writes. Of this fact, my conscience attests within me, as my conscience is informed by the Holy Spirit. The final resting place of our assurance, or the firm foundation thereof, is the Holy Spirit. He is the present spokesman for the Most High. God in heaven may seem remote at times, may seem unapproachable still, though we are given to walk into the very throne room of our King. But, throughout this journey through alien lands, we continue to have the constant company of the Holy Spirit, attesting to the truth we bear, and correcting the errors we introduce by our own thoughts, ensuring that when we speak in God's name, we speak in God's Truth.

Paul, then, has shown us the personal aspect of the Spirit's witness, bringing assurance to the speaker. The author of Hebrews shows us the inter-personal aspect of His witness, which brings assurance to those listening. As the preachers bear witness to God's plan of redemption, God also bears witness with them (Heb 2:4). How does He do this? He attests to the truth of the preacher's words by performing signs and wonders through them. These, however, must be made plainly distinguishable from the tricks of magicians and the forgeries of the enemy. Therefore, He also joins to His witness the miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit once more attests to the truth of the preacher. He has brought assurance to the preacher that the words he speaks are words of truth. Now, He brings that same assurance to the listener. He provides the listener with the evidence he requires to accept those words as the truth they are. In all this, the Spirit works in accord with the Father's will, which is only to be expected. After all, Father and Spirit are One, how could He then work at odds with Himself?

This matter of signs and wonders may raise questions amongst some folks today. Many a denomination insist outright that the time of such signs, and the time of the gifts of the Holy Spirit ended with the apostles. I am not sure how this can be squared with the testimony of Scripture. Scripture declares to us that God is not of such a nature that He would change. Indeed, it is His steadfast character that gives us cause for confidence in His promises and truths. The truths of science change with each new discovery, but the Truth of God remains the same! I have seen the opening verse of Hebrews brought forth as evidence that the time of such direct and manifest activity came to a close. In Hebrews 1:2, these would have us to understand that Scripture has declared a completion to the voice of God in the ears of man. He used to speak through the fathers and through the prophets, but now, having spoken through His Son, words are at an end. That is the understanding that they would require us to take from the passage, yet the passage doesn't necessitate any such understanding. "In these last days [He] has spoken to us in His Son." Where, in that statement, is any cause to declare that He thereafter ceased to speak at all? Were that the case, would not the writings of the New Testament have to be rejected, for they all, to the last comma, were written after the Son had spoken.

Another passage brought up in this regard is Paul's comment to the Corinthians that such signs as tongues and prophecy were for a time, for a season, and that season would end when the perfection of knowledge had come. Some theologians look upon this passage and determine for themselves that the time of the perfection of knowledge had come with the advent of Christ. Yet, how can we interpret this verse in that fashion? The imparting of the Holy Spirit, and the gifts that gave evidence to His presence amongst those early converts did not even begin to occur until Perfection Incarnate had both come and departed once more into heaven! Surely, the perfection of knowledge of which Paul writes remains a thing to be awaited. Surely, so long as we remain in this flesh, seeing only dimly, as through shadowed windows, knowledge remains far from perfect. Surely, as Augustine understood, until we have reached the fullness of time, and know perfectly, as our Brother and our Father know perfectly, there will remain a need for the special insights given by the Holy Spirit; the word of knowledge, the prophecy of things still future, the revealing of the hidden secrets of the heart.

Others turn to John's words at the end of the Revelation as a definitive closure. He writes there, in Revelation 22:18-19, that anybody who adds to or deletes from the words of 'the prophecy of this book' will suffer the ills outlined therein, and lose his part in the eternal life in the holy city, which 'this book' describes. Did John have the whole of Scripture in mind when he wrote this? I don't think there is any particular reason to believe so. The whole of Scripture is not prophecy. There is also the Law and the Wisdom. John was raised a good Jew, and would certainly understand the three divisions of Scripture. Further, the references he makes into 'this book' are specific to scenes and images from the Revelation. To understand him as referring to some greater body of writing would suggest that he considered the prophecies to be sacred and immutable, but the Law and Wisdom that were equally inspired by and through the Holy Spirit to be less so. I think John's respect for the revealed Word of God was much to high to accept such a thing of him.

If, then, there is reason in Scripture to declare that the Holy Spirit has ceased from working as He always had up to that point, I have yet to see it. That said, there is certainly sufficient ground in Scripture to be careful as to what we attribute to Him. We are warned that the agents of darkness disguise themselves as messengers of light. For every truth of God, the master of deceit has prepared a counterfeit. One need look no further than Exodus to find examples of this. Moses was sent in the power of God to perform miraculous displays of God's power before Pharaoh. Satan had his own agents on the scene, though, in the form of Pharaoh's magicians, and these were able to produce like displays which, though perhaps on a lesser scale, and always falling to the real power which Moses bore, were sufficient to delude Pharaoh into discounting what he was being shown of his Creator.

Simon the magician also stands as a caution to us. He saw in God's miracles nothing more than another magic, one he figured he could purchase for his own enrichment and amusement. We should learn from both of these examples. God has not, I think, ceased from speaking to His children with the revelation He gave through His Son. Indeed, if He has, then we need to dispose at the very least with the Revelation of John, for the beloved disciple has clearly written a prophecy, and if God's Word ceased to be delivered when Jesus departed the earth, then John's prophecy must be a false message. But, we know that all Scripture is inspired by God, written at the behest of the Spirit. No, Jesus' words do not constitute the last that God ever declared to a man. They do, however, constitute the Final Word. What Jesus spoke was ever and always of one accord with the previous record of Scripture. He spoke at one with the Law of Moses, however much He may have cut away at the impositions of man upon that Law. He spoke at one with the Wisdom, for He is Wisdom. He spoke at one with the Prophets, indeed lived and breathed the Prophets, ever careful to act in accord with the will of God revealed through them. The Living Word was not about to speak or act at odds with the written Word.

God is not a man that He would change. He has not changed in how He deals with mankind. He still speaks to the hearts and minds of men. He still, in the Holy Spirit, inspires men to speak the Truth, to speak to the enlightenment of those who hear Him through their words. He also speaks in full accord with all He has already spoken. This is the test we must always bring to bear on those who claim the position of His spokesmen. Truth cannot contradict Truth. That which is not Truth can only be Lie. If the words of the messenger do not accord with Truth, if they declare what is opposed to revealed Truth, they can only be declaring lies, and can only be messengers of the Liar. Even in the days of Jeremiah and Isaiah, there were those who walked about declaring, 'Thus saith the Lord.' Yet, the majority of these spoke not from the Lord, but from the father of lies, and by their lies, they led much of Israel astray. The Truth is not always the prettiest message, not always the pleasing message, but it is ever and always the Word of Life! Displays of signs and wonders are not always the proof of Truth. Antichrist will come performing signs and wonders right alongside the godly preachers, and by their deeds will mislead many. What, then, is to confirm the real from the fake? How shall we assay the worth of these teachers? The answer is simply to know the Word as He has been revealed, to understand to the full what God has said of Himself, what He has said about us, and what He has said regarding what is to come. What concurs with these things we may hold as truth. What does not, we dare not accept. We are commanded to test the spirits to know from whence they speak, whether from heaven or from hell. We are to train ourselves to the voice of the Holy Spirit, that we might not be deceived. He is the witness to Truth, the sole reliable witness we have in this life. It is imperative that we know Him. It is imperative that we accept that which truly comes from Him, for it comes for our edification, our strengthening, and our life. It is imperative that we also reject all that does not come from Him, that we be wise as serpents. True, Scripture tells us not to despise the voice of prophecy. It does not, however, suggest that we should blindly accept every claimant to the office of prophet. Discern first the worth of the messenger. Require the confirming witness of the Holy Spirit who has been assigned the very task of witnessing to the Truth in all things. Then and only then, accept the Word revealed by the prophet. To so lightly accept every would-be prophet is in itself a despising of the voice of prophecy, for it places no value upon the validity of that voice, but only gives currency to the 'wow factor.'

Witness Against Lies (3/13/04)

Given His position as Witness to Truth, it should come as no surprise to learn that the Holy Spirit also stands as the foremost witness against lies. The prime example we have of this aspect of the Spirit is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. It's a familiar story. The whole of the church at that time were sharing their goods together to ensure that the whole of the fledgling Christian community could survive. Those who owned property were selling it and bringing the proceeds to the apostles, as the community leaders of the church, to see to its distribution to those with need. One couple in the church apparently became envious of the reputation these selfless givers developed. They wanted to be seen in the same light. Yet, they were not willing to earn that reputation. They thought maybe they could get it on the cheap. So, they sold their house as others had done and, following the form of those others, Ananias came to Peter to donate the proceeds. The public display was flawless. However, it was a sham. He gave only a portion of what they had received for the property, yet declared that his gift was the whole. It was rather akin to lying to the IRS, except that God's audit is more thorough, and contributing was a voluntary matter.

One could argue that this couple was suffering from their Pharisaical training. All that mattered to them was appearances. They went through the motions of sacrificial giving, but they didn't really give sacrificially. They followed the right course, doing good towards their fellow believers, but did so not out of love for God, but out of love for their own reputation. What sealed their fate, though, was that they lied to God's representatives about what they had done. They sought to make their deed seem more than it was. Let's be very clear, here. The problem was not that they didn't give as much as they could have. They could have given nothing and been accepted by God and church. The problem was that they claimed to have given their all when they hadn't. Peter's reacts as God's emissary, as the ambassador of Truth, and asks Ananias why he Satan has filled his heart, which ought to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. He asks Ananias how it is that he can lie to the Holy Spirit (Ac 5:3). Had Ananias lived long enough, he might have asked Peter who he thought he was, for surely it was to Peter that Ananias had lied. Was Peter, then, claiming equality with the Spirit? Not at all! He does, however, recognize the absolute reality of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the temple of his flesh. I think it is this same recognition that led him to ask specifically why Satan had filled Ananias' heart. That heart ought to have been the temple of the Holy Spirit, the temple of Truth, but Ananias had allowed an altar to be built there to the father of lies. How could he expect the True Occupant of that temple to accept his profanity? Ananias would not live long enough to give answer. The Judge had already declared the verdict in this case. The Witness to Truth stood as witness against his lies, and His word was the final word on the matter. He who had dwells in the hearts of men, whose vision is not clouded by our fleshly deceptions, was in a unique position to testify as to the conditions of the inner man.

His wife was even more blatant in her deceptions, though she should, one might think, have known something was up. Peter gave her opportunity to admit to the fraudulent 'righteousness' she and her husband had tried to pull off, but she stuck to the story they had agreed upon. Oh, yes, that was the sale price, and surely Ananias has already come and given it all to you by now? Once more, it is the affront to the Holy Spirit of Truth that seals her fate. In Acts 5:9, Peter draws her attention to what she and her now deceased husband had attempted to do. How could you two have agreed to test the Spirit of the Lord, he asks. The timing of God's Providence is on display here, though in a darker form than we like to see. No sooner is the charge laid out against her than those who had buried her husband return to the house. One can almost hear their sigh of resignation as it becomes clear that they shall have to repeat their labors so immediately. Yet, there is also, perhaps, the relief of knowing that the camp has been purified. Too many examples are contained in the Scriptures that reveal the danger of allowing that impurity to remain undetected!

Had this couple truly been filled with the Spirit, had He truly taken up His abode in them, could they have done what they did? That is a difficult question to grapple with. I suspect any follower of Christ can find moments in their lives where they were less than completely honest. Every one of us knows the continuous struggle between sinful flesh and reborn spirit that is our daily walk. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of us also experience the reality that spirit does not always win in us. Peter knew this exceedingly well. What, then, defines the difference between his case and theirs? Well, there is this, if nothing else: Peter did not pretend to a goodness and righteousness that he did not have.

In Jesus' own words we may find the answer to this question. Those who speak against the Son of Man will be forgiven, He says, but those who speak against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven, neither in this life or the next (Mt 12:32). This seems shocking to me. How can it be acceptable to trash the Son of God, who is God, and yet be wholly unacceptable to trash the Spirit of God, who is also the very same God? What is Jesus really getting at here? The immediate context of this declaration is as familiar as the story I just looked at. The Pharisees were offended that their own definitions of righteousness were being questioned by this upstart, and felt it necessary to correct the popular opinion of Him. They could not deny His miracles, the physical evidence of healed parishioners would not admit of such a thing. What they could do, however, was claim that His acts were not the result of holiness, but the result of demon possession. Had not Scripture recorded a long history of false claimants? As we noted earlier, for every prophet of God, it seems there were numerous prophets of falsehood roaming the land. The Pharisees' attack on Jesus pursued this precedent.

Jesus, in reacting to their charge, points out the foolishness of their line of thinking. What sort of ruler would use his power to attack his own kingdom? How, then, could you truly think that My acts against Satan are done by Satan's own power? No, but if my actions are the result of the Spirit of God, than God's Kingdom has come. Wow! What a powerful declaration that is! Had their minds been open, surely they ought to have recognized the full import of His words! Indeed, perhaps they did, but they were more concerned with upholding their image and stature as the arbiters of righteousness than to accept that God was showing Himself faithful to His Word in their midst. They couldn't stand the thought of being wrong, even if it meant insisting that the God of Truth was lying!

Now comes the declaration we began with - you can be forgiven for speaking against the Son, but you will never be forgiven for speaking against the Spirit. Is Jesus really just defending Himself against their charges here? Is He acting as an apologist for His own ways? I don't think so. I think the issue He is raising has more to do with the unique offices of Son and Spirit within the Triune Godhead. It is one thing to be suspicious of this one who comes with claims of being Messiah. It's one thing to miss that. That can be forgiven, and, should recognition of the Truth come later, He is merciful to forgive us. The Spirit, however, is the essential display of essential Truth. To call Truth a lie, that is a big issue. To insist on the lie rather than the Truth is a big issue. This was the mistake of the Pharisees. It was not that they promoted actions deleterious to the spiritual well-being of man, it was that, when shown the mistakes they had made in their efforts, they preferred to declare God wrong than to admit their own failures.

I want to return, though, to that contextual declaration of Jesus. The issue of debate is this: how has Jesus done as He has done. Now, there are perhaps four possible explanations. The first is that He did not actually do them. This explanation is quickly abandoned because there is too much evidence that He did indeed do what was attributed to Him. The next possibility is that He did them by His own human power, that He did no more than any man could do. This explanation is also quickly abandoned, for the abounding evidence of human experience is that the power of man cannot do as He has done. That leaves two possibilities remaining: the first, that He operates by dark magic, under the influence of demonic possession; the second, that He operates by the infilling power of God. The Pharisees reject the latter argument out of hand, for surely, of the Son of God were coming, He would have informed them? Are they not the experts on such matters? Are they not the official representatives of God? However, as I noted before, Jesus is quick to point out the foolishness of their thinking. Were it by Satan that He so laid waste to Satan's works, then surely that dark kingdom must be falling apart at the seams, for no kingdom that so works against its own interests can expect to long remain a kingdom! What is left unsaid, here, is that if his kingdom is departing, then another must surely come to fill the void. There are, at root, only two kingdoms to choose between, Satan's and God's. If Satan's kingdom is so poorly managed that it is self destructing, then the kingdom that will fill the void of his demise must be God's. Jesus continues the argument by declaring that if they are wrong, and it is by the Spirit of God that He so attacks Satan's kingdom, then surely, the kingdom of God is here!

The full course of the argument comes down to this: If the Pharisees are right, then the kingdom of God is here, and if Jesus is right, then the kingdom of God is here. Either way, the kingdom of God is here! That is the fundamental, unavoidable conclusion to their debate. Notice, now, that He does not say the kingdom is coming, He does not say it is imminent. He says it is here. That much of the prayer He taught to the disciples is answered even then. "Thy kingdom come" has become in Him, "Thy kingdom is here." Yet, it is one of those events of Scripture which are both present and future. God's kingdom on earth was established in Christ. His kingdom has come. Yet, God's kingdom has not come in full. The tattered forces of the enemy continue to put up a fight even to our day. We have not yet reached, even in ourselves, the full answer to the next portion of that prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Full and instant obedience is not the established course of our walk yet. We have not yet seen Him as He is, and therefore, we are still not wholly like Him.

In Hebrews 6:4-6, we are given another view of this unforgivable blasphemy, and given to understand more fully the extent of the crime, the heinousness of the sin. Having once experienced the heavenly, having shared in the gifts, partaking of the abiding of the Holy Spirit, and having grasped the goodness of God's word, some have still fallen away. Having experienced the powers of the kingdom, still they have gone over to the enemy. For these, there remains no opportunity for restoration. Repentance has become an impossibility. How is this? It is because they have brought the Son of God to open shame, and have crucified Him once again as regards their own estate. Jesus, at His crucifixion, could look out upon those who had brought Him to that horrible place, and ask His Father to forgive them - even the Pharisees, even Caiaphas, even Pilate, even the soldiers who had so abused Him in their depravity. How could He do this? Because they had no clue what they were doing. They had not recognized who He was, and in this one instance, He would allow ignorance as an excuse. What changes in the case brought out in Hebrews is that ignorance is removed as an excuse. Such a one as is discussed there has learned the Truth, has experienced the Presence, has taken up the gifts and powers God provides for His workers. He has operated in full knowledge of God and Christ, and then turned around, with knowledge of the Truth, and called Truth a liar. Having known the power of Redemption, he has then spun around and claimed there is no Redemption possible. Having felt the power of Jesus' atoning sacrifice, he has then denied the efficacy of that sacrifice. Having met the resurrected Lord of all Creation, he has once more cried out, "crucify Him!"

There is ever and always, it seems, something in the nature of man that cannot abide the presence of Holiness. That something is sin. God offers reconciliation. He offers to wash that sin away in the blood of His Son, applied by the Holy Spirit. That is the church compact today, and notice that it is every bit God's doing. "Unless I wash you, you have no part in Me," Jesus told Peter. He tells us the same thing today. Unless He washes us, we cannot bear to be near Him, for we become entirely too aware of our own filthiness as we stand next to His purity. We suffer from the same problem as the Pharisees. We want to see ourselves as good people, we want to have a good reputation amongst our fellow men, and when God shows Himself to us, we cannot see ourselves as we would like. We can react in one of two ways. We can accept the bath He offers us, so that we can truly be as we would like to be seen, or we can reject His Truth and cling to our delusions of cleanliness. The one path leads to salvation and citizenship in the holy kingdom which is already established on the earth, and which will have no end. The other course is the course of resistance. "You continue to be stiff-necked, uncircumcised in heart, and deaf of ear!" Stephen tells his accusers. "You never stop resisting the Holy Spirit, and in this you act exactly as your fathers did" (Ac 7:51). This is his concluding remark, having laid out in brief the entire history of God's efforts on behalf of His people, and their constant rebellion against Him. He redeems and builds, they destroy and return to their bonds. It's a never ending cycle in the history of man, it would seem. But the kingdom that God has established in Christ will not end. The cycle is broken, and those He has redeemed by His blood will return to the bondage of slavery no more. They will no longer seek to destroy the works of His loving hands, but now labor with songs of rejoicing in the kingdom of God, in the land of their own inheritance!

The Promised Gift of Another Advocate (3/14/04-3/16/04)

If the Holy Spirit is the promised gift, it would be best, I suppose to start by establishing the promise. It is found in John 14:16, where Jesus is telling His disciples about His imminent departure. In reassuring this small flock of His, He declares that He will ask that the Father send another to them, and that the Father will do so. Running through various translations of this text, I see that 'other' referred to as a Helper, a Counselor, a Comforter, and an Advocate. The word is familiar to Christian circles, yet the meaning of it is clearly less certain to us. The word is parakleetos. Looking at Thayer's Lexicon, I find that the word indicates one called to your side, one coming to your aid. Then it gets a bit more specific. The Paraklete pleads our case before the Judge, He is our defense counsel, interceding on our behalf. It is in this light that He is also considered as our Helper, and one who gives us succor. With that in mind, I should think that Counselor and Advocate provide the most appropriate translation for us.

What gets missed - I missed it until it the significance was pointed out to me recently - is that it is not The Advocate that is promised, but another Advocate. In Jesus, we already have the Advocate. In the courts of heaven, we know that He stands as our Counsel for the defense, He is our defense, our only defense, for the only plea we can enter before the court is Jesus' own action on our behalf! In the courts of heaven, my case is covered. Yet, like the disciples before me, I am left for a time in this foreign land. There remain many challenges ahead of me as I journey towards my homeland, and throughout that journey, I shall have endless need for sound counsel. I shall have endless need for One to maintain my case and my rights against the accusations of the current despotic ruler of this land. That ruler would see me returned to the chains of slavery, laboring in sin to dig my own grave. But, I have an Advocate! I have a Counselor to remind me of my rights in this dark land, rights that are mine as the adopted son of the True King. I am an ambassador of the kingdom of God, and have diplomatic immunity, and I have a present Counsel in time of need to ensure that my diplomatic rights are respected.

Continuing to the next verse, Jesus identifies this other Advocate as the Spirit of truth, and gives us the wonderful news that this Advocate will not be at our side, He will be in us, abiding with us! A little later in this discourse, Jesus declares that this Advocate of whom He has been speaking is the Holy Spirit, that He is sent by the Father, and that He is sent in Jesus' name - in other words, on His authority, and as His representative (Jn 14:26). Jesus is, after all, the chief Counsel for the defense. If there is another Counselor on our case (and there is) then He must clearly be subordinate to the Chief. This does not necessarily imply a hierarchy of 'godness' in the Trinity. The subordination applies to this particular office of Counselor. In that office, the subordinate position of the Holy Spirit is clear. He will teach you all things, Jesus continues, and will help you to remember everything that I have said to you. That is a subordinate position. He does not tell us things from His own unique store of knowledge, does not teach us new things beyond what Scripture has declared, but reminds us of those things the Teacher has already taught us, replays for us the lessons the Chief has taught, and, where needful for us, expounds upon those things, perhaps, more thoroughly or more simply, that we might better understand the lesson. He is here to teach, as well as to remind, but His lessons expand upon the Truth already declared to us. Let this always be a check upon our charismatic tendencies! This is the joy of liberty and the responsibility of liberty. We cannot go off in any old direction claiming that we have the direction of the Holy Spirit guiding us. If our direction runs counter to the revealed counsel of Scripture, we are lying to ourselves, and, one might suspect, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That ought to give us pause before we make such claims! If we are wrong, and our error makes the Holy Spirit out to be what He is not, attributes our evil mischief to His pure leadership, have we not committed the unforgivable sin.

Jesus has made this promise to us, that the other Advocate would come. He also made clear just how certain we could be of that promise. Clearly, this Advocate is for our good, fills a need without which w should not survive our travels. In the course of His teaching, Jesus at one point lays before His hearers the example of a child asking for food. There is no parent out there, He notes, who would respond to that child by offering stones or poison. The worst among mankind would not fail to give the child what will nourish, rather than what will damage him. Having pointed out this simple truth, Jesus expands on it. You are all evil by nature, He reminds them, yet you will give good things to your children (Lk 11:13). Surely, then, the good God who is your Father in heaven will give you the great good of the Holy Spirit if you ask! There is but that one, small, qualifier. If you are hungry for His abiding presence, ask. Seek, and you will find. Ask, and you will receive, because the Holy Spirit you ask for is your good!

Jesus has not only made this promise to us, He has already received from the Father what He had promised would be given (Ac 2:33). He promised something from the Father, received that something from the Father, and delivers that something to those who ask according to the promise. When that something, the Holy Spirit is given out, something happens: the tongue of the believer is loosed to speak God's word, because the author of the Word has come to reside in them. On that first great occasion in Jerusalem, fifty days after Jesus had ascended, those He had left behind were gathered together in prayer when suddenly, Jesus' promise was fulfilled in their midst. The description of the event defies us to understand and accept. If it were to come about today in most churches - even the most charismatic, I suspect - there would be widespread shock. The chapter opens by describing the event. A great noise came into the room where they were, as though a hurricane were blowing through. Then, something like the flickering flames of a bonfire spread among them, until these flames rested on each person present. At that point, each one of them (of which there were about 120), began speaking in other languages, declaring the words the Spirit gave them.

The text is clear, here. There was audible noise in the place. Notice that it describes the noise of a wind, but nowhere suggests the accompanying movement of the wind. I could easily believe that no motion as of wind was found in that room, lest they mistake the entrance of the Holy Spirit for some stormy gale. The text is equally clear that it was not some invisible fire that was felt but not seen. No, this fiery presence appeared to them. They saw it! This was the Spirit come in power! Yesterday, I listened as a visiting pastor described an experience he had sat through wherein the one he was listening to threw 'fireballs.' These fireballs, however, were invisible to the eye, sensed only by the spirit. Perhaps, but I would have to ask where the Scriptural basis for this is to be found. Where is the undeniable truth of the Spirit of Truth? Where is the purposefulness of His presence?

This is, perhaps, the most valid of complaints against the denomination in which I serve. We thrill for the touch of the Holy Spirit, but we forget that His touch has a purpose. We get all excited about the evidence of speaking in tongues confirming somebody's receipt of the promised gift, but forget why the gift was given. Look again to the text at the start of Acts 2. True, they spoke in tongues, but not for entertainment, not to assure each other of their status as born again believers. Those tongues, which they may or may not have understood, were clearly understandable to those outside the building. A crowd was attracted by the noise and excitement in that room, and in spite of the cosmopolitan nature of that crowd, we are informed that each person in the crowd was hearing the message in their own language! Some, to be sure, would not accept the evidence of their ears, and accused the disciples of drunkenness, but more by far were convicted and convinced of the Truth of God who spoke through the disciples' voices. That is why, when we come to Peter's speech, we hear him declare that the Holy Spirit has produced what was just seen and heard. Now, that's an interesting thing, as well. Notice that the odd sounds, the distributed fires, were not just something the disciples experienced. They were evident to the unbelievers outside the building as well! We, who recognized the validity of the active gifts of the Spirit still today need to also recognize that His purpose in providing those gifts has not changed. He provides them for the edification of the Church, and He provides them for the saving of those still outside the Church. He does not provide them as toys for us to amuse ourselves.

Far from being amusing parlor tricks by which we can entertain each other, the gift of the Holy Spirit is our commission! This is made clear in John 20:22. Jesus greeted the apostles, and in the course of commissioning as His representatives, He breathed upon them, saying to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit." That this was a part of their commissioning is made clear, I think, in the wording of that commission. "Go and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:18). That the apostles took that directive seriously is clear from Acts 19:1-7. Paul comes to the regions around Ephesus, and finds that there are already disciples in the area. How does he react to this news? He asks them if they received the Holy Spirit. They respond that they were baptized into John's repentance. So, Paul explains that John's baptism was preparing for something greater, at which point they accept the Lord's baptism. Immediately, we are told, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they began speaking in unfamiliar languages, and prophesying. I must confess that in this case I see nothing to suggest the purpose of the Holy Spirit being anything other than to confirm to them their own conversion.

Returning to the events of Pentecost, Peter's sermon continues with what might be considered the first altar call. Open your hearts to what has occurred among you, he says. Repent and be baptized in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and receive also the gift of the Holy Spirit (Ac 2:38). Here was something that John's baptism could not offer. His baptism could stir up repentance, but it could not provide the forgiveness. He could prepare the way, but he could not deliver the goods. Only Jesus could do that. It should also be noted that there was and is no exclusivity in the giving of this gift. All believers stand on an equal footing before God in this regard. The gift He gave to the apostles and the other early disciples is just as available to any other believer, any other son of God who asks.

Now comes a verse which must be troubling to those who insist that the gift of the Holy Spirit accompanies conversion. In Acts 8:15-19, we have the record of Peter and John taking a trip to visit some believers in Samaria. They went to pray for the believers there. Now, if that does not sufficiently make clear that they were believers before Peter and John went, the text continues by saying that they had already been baptized, but only in Jesus' name. The full commission commanded in Matthew had not yet been delivered to them. Indeed, we are told expressly that the two apostles went to Samaria specifically to impart the gift of the Holy Spirit to these believers, and when they had laid hands upon this group of believers, the Holy Spirit was indeed imparted. I have heard the complaint that there is no second event that follows on Jesus' completed work, and that complaint is generally leveled against those of us who believe that the Spirit is still active in the same way He was active in the early church. This, however, does not declare a second event, it declares a degree of completeness in that one perfect work. Just as sanctification is a process in man, it would appear from this case that there is often a process in the conversion and commissioning of the Christian. I think we can say with certainty that the gift of the Holy Spirit never precedes faith to believe, but we can also say with equal certainty that the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of faith to believe are separate matters. These folks in Samaria already believed. They had saving faith. That was not in question. They had not, however, received the Holy Spirit. They had not received the power to be a force for change, to fulfill the commission of the believer, and for this, the apostles would gladly make a special trip, for the harvest even then was great, and the workers so very few.

This is a point that must be considered most carefully. What does it mean that there is this distinction between the events of belief and Spirit baptism? Are they both to be seen as necessary events for salvation? This, at least, we dare not say. If the work of Christ was sufficient, then there can be no further requirement in regard to the salvation His perfect work procured to us. If His work was insufficient, then there can be no point to the Christian faith, and we are once more without hope in this life, and damned in the next. How, then, do we relate this second event to faith? I think, perhaps, we need to consider the example of the apostles. We must recognize from the record of Scripture that they had received the Holy Spirit before the day of Pentecost. We saw that in John's record. When Jesus breathed upon them, and uttered those words, 'receive the Holy Spirit,' they received. This event was post resurrection, and yet pre ascension. He had not yet ascended to the Father, so the full promise was not yet His to deliver, yet He was already delivering in part. It was this same visit from Jesus that solidified the wavering faith of the apostles. In this respect, I think we can be assured that when the Bible calls for baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is one singular baptism that is called for.

The symbolic meaning of baptism ought to make that clear. It is, we are told, a declaration of our sharing in Jesus' death, of dying to the flesh. It is also a declaration of our sharing in His resurrection life, of living to God. It is appointed to man once to die. We are declaring that this death has occurred, and the life which Christ purchased for us has been entered into. The Holy Spirit is already part of that declaration.

Still, Scripture refers to this separate event of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Again, the passage from Acts notes specifically that the Samarian believers had simply been baptized in Jesus' name. Does that not suggest that they somehow lacked the full baptism? It seems to. But, can we infer from this that they were somehow short of salvation? No, I don't think so. They were declared believers. No intermediate term is ever given in Scripture. There are only believers and unbelievers. Unlike the Jewish faith, there is no provision in Christianity for the God-fearer - one not wholly separate from, but also not wholly part of the people of God.

Can it be said, then, that this second event is a requirement for the Christian? This might be a more difficult question. That it was of great import to the apostles is clear. That it was not restricted to the apostles is equally clear. That it was restricted to the first generation church, as some would have it believed, is not at all clear. Peter and John went to Samaria specifically to pray for the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Paul also shows concern for those he encounters, that they be sure of having received the Holy Spirit as well as their salvation. If the Holy Spirit is received at conversion, then what were they doing? Well, again, I think we must, by the apostles' example, accept that in some signification, the Holy Spirit is indeed received at conversion. But there was something more they wanted for every believer.

There are events in the record that could lead one to believe that the apostles required signs of this baptism of the Holy Spirit in accepting believers, but I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. The fundamental case is that of the Gentiles. There, I think some further witness on God's part was needful for the simple reason that the thought of Gentile inclusion in the church was so shocking to Jewish sensibilities. Hard enough for them to accept the Samarians into the fold, and here, too, we see the baptism serving to confirm faith not so much to the believers, but to the leadership. This same understanding, I think, must be applied in the case of the Gentiles. Those the apostles went out to meet already had faith, already believed, and had already secured salvation unto themselves. They were already confirmed among the elect. It was a question of the church accepting the Truth. The church needed the edification of witnessing that the Holy Spirit empowered these outsiders in exactly the same way that He had empowered them.

That said, I can find nothing in the record to suggest that they would have rejected these believers if they did not exhibit the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Amongst Jewish believers, it was not needful to see such a display for faith to be accepted. When Paul was brought to Jerusalem to meet the apostles, even though he had been such a vehement enemy to faith, there is no mention of his having spoken in tongues in order to be accepted. He was a Jew, and it was more natural to the thinking of the apostles to see a Jew come to Christ. Earthly testimonies sufficed in such a case, the word of man was enough. It was only in these extraordinary additions to the church that we see any sort of need for the signs.

From this, I would surmise that, while this second event, termed by Scripture a baptism of the Holy Spirit, cannot be held up as a necessary proof of saving faith. It is not a matter of saving faith. Such infilling of the Spirit as was needful for saving faith came at conversion. That much was necessary for us to open our eyes to the Truth that was displayed before us in Christ. It is not the gifts of the Spirit that are held out as visible confirmation to us that the person next to us is a believer, it is the fruits of the Spirit. Where He indwells the man, the man will bear the characteristic traits that rebirth leads to - love, joy, peace, patience, etc.

Perhaps we can make this distinction. This first infilling of the Spirit, that which comes at conversion, is common to all who can truly lay claim to being a Christian. Yet, that first infilling is personal, as it were. It is given for the inner life, and, as Paul later describes the gift of tongues, it is given primarily to edify the inner man. This second event, the infilling of the power of the Holy Spirit, is a different matter. It is a preparation for service, an equipping for duty. Jesus told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they had received power from on high. The events of Pentecost were clearly the coming of that power they were to receive, yet they had also clearly received the Holy Spirit prior to that day, when Jesus breathed upon them.

We must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking that our fellow Christian is somehow a second class citizen because they have not experienced this Pentecostal outpouring. Again, there is no Scriptural basis for declaring a second class within Christianity. There is only believer and unbeliever. Neither is it a sign of special prestige to have experienced this baptism. It is simply an equipping for service. If there is to be any boasting in the possession of these gifts, let it be in the form of using them for their intended purpose, to bring increase to the kingdom of God, and to magnify the glory of Him from whom these good gifts have flowed! If we do no more with these gifts than display them to each other as badges of faith, proofs of purchase as it were, we do our God a great disservice.

First and foremost, we find that the Holy Spirit stands as witness, and it becomes clear that this was the primary motivation behind the promise of His coming. Repeatedly we see Him in this role as confirming witness. It is not just we who witness of Jesus Christ, declared Peter, the Holy Spirit joins in that witness (Ac 5:32). The Holy Spirit also bears witness to us in Scripture (Heb 10:15). Because of this role as witness to Truth, Paul writes to the Thessalonicans that the one who rejects them as they proclaim the call of sanctification is not rejecting them personally, but is rejecting God who gives the Holy Spirit to them (1Th 4:8). Why? Because the Holy Spirit stands as confirming witness to their call, making it impossible to reject their call without likewise rejecting God, for the Lord, He is One.

The promise we have fulfilled in the Holy Spirit, however, goes beyond this simple provision of witness. His counsel exceeds simply testifying on our behalf. As nice, and as necessary as it is to have this One who confirms the veracity of our words, isn't it wonderful that His presence also has tangible, personal benefits! How confused we are when we make His gifts the personal benefit, rather than the equipping for service. The benefits we have personally are far greater than titillating displays of the supernatural. Consider the list: We have godly comfort through the Holy Spirit (Ac 9:31). We have the experiential reality of God's love for us poured out within us through the Holy Spirit (Ro 5:5). In His company He brings righteousness, peace, and joy (Ro 14:17). Most importantly, and perhaps as a result of the preceding benefits, we have hope (Ro 15:13)! Here, there is another parallel connecting Father and Spirit in the unity of the Triune God. The God of hope fills us, and therefore we abound in hope by the Holy Spirit.

Finally, there is a beautiful statement of the Trinity in 2Corinthians 13:14. As Paul prays blessing upon the Corinthian church, he does so in a threefold formula, specifying each person of the Godhead. Of each person, a specific aspect of blessing is drawn. From or through Jesus we receive the grace of God. His grace is made available to us because of the work of the Christ of God in His office as Redeemer of mankind. From the Father we receive love, the love that comes from the one perfect parent. From the Holy Spirit we receive fellowship - fellowship with God Himself! That is something I don't think any other religion ever existent among mankind has been able to offer. What audacity in that claim! Every believer in the Church is given the immeasurable blessing of fellowship with God. Every Christian is given the present day experience - at least in part - of what Adam was created for in the first place. We have the foretaste of Creation restored to its original, perfect state. We have abiding fellowship with our God and King. He promises that He will never leave or forsake us, not for the least moment of eternity! There is never a moment when we need face trial or decision without His sage advice. Indeed, each one of us shares in the blessing which Mary received of God. To each one of us, He declares "I am with you. I am your companion and guide!"

Mind you, we may not always be comfortable with the path He guides us to. Our eyes may distract us from His presence at our side. Jesus, almost immediately upon being baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit was led by that very same Holy Spirit into a forty day test in the wilderness (Lk 4:1-2). Honestly, this is not something we like to hear, because He is our example, and as His disciples we must expect the same as He was given to suffer. If the perfect Son of God was tried for forty days, left with nothing but faith and the abiding fellowship of God to lean upon, can we truly expect to skate through life without similar times of testing? Well! One does not go into battle with untested weapons. We are indeed weapons in a battle, a battle of titanic proportion, and as the battle belongs to the Lord, so also do the weapons. We can hardly be offended if He makes sure of the readiness of His weapons before He deploys us! We can also take comfort in knowing that He is a master strategist and the paragon of leadership. In testing His weaponry He has no interest in wrecking that weaponry. He tests so as to strengthen, as one applies strenuous processes to steel in order to make it stronger, more able to keep its edge, and more stolid in its ability to support.

Even now, I am in the midst of such a process, albeit on a much lesser scale than that which my Teacher was caused to experience. It is a time of testing, and it is a time I cannot claim to fully comprehend. It is odd, in that I can see ways out of the difficulty, but it is being made clear to me that at least for the present time, those ways are not the ways I am to choose. My guide sees those paths as clearly as I, more clearly to be sure. Some of the reason that they are closed to me I understand, but doubtless, it is not the whole of the reason. There are pitfalls in that direction which I cannot see, but my Guide and Companion knows of them full well, and will not suffer me to fall into them. I am left to go through. The road is not at all pleasant. What I can see of where it leads seems nothing but wilderness. I have moments, long moments, of wondering how I am to derive sustenance for myself and my family, but He who dresses the lilies in their finery is with me, and He is clear on which path is mine. Somewhere in that waste there is apparently an oasis I know not of. But He knows, and in knowing Him, knowing He is here, I can be at peace.

He is our comfort, and He is our Advocate. He also stands as guard over the treasure of righteousness and life which God has entrusted to each one of us (2Ti 1:14). Isn't it reassuring to know that we are not left on our own to defend such a precious treasure! I know myself too well to think my attention won't lapse. This is, indeed, the part of my present testing that I understand. He has created in me an integrity which was once wholly foreign to me. My word, which was once about as steady as the wind, is now something that matters to me. The God of Covenant has given me to understand how seriously He takes my word, and it has made my word far more important to me. I serve a faithful God. I walk as a temple of the proof and seal of His faithfulness inasmuch as I am a temple of the Holy Spirit (1Co 6:19). He's my Father and I want to grow up to be just like Him, even as my Brother is just like Him. No, I have not pretensions to godhood, I just know the promise He has made, a covenant promise: "I will put My laws upon their heart and write them upon their mind, and I will remember their sins and their lawlessness no more" (Heb 10:15-17). The same Holy Spirit who declared those words, the same Holy Spirit who caused those words to be recorded by men of old for me to read, that very same Holy Spirit dwells in the temple of my flesh, standing guard over the treasure of that Holy Law engraved upon my soul, and He will not suffer it to be defiled or lost.

Father, inasmuch as it is in me to do so, I thank You for this trial. I can certainly thank You that I can see the victory in the struggle. I can certainly thank You for keeping me from mis-stepping, from abandoning the path of righteousness in favor of pragmatism. Still, I know I lean upon Your forgiveness for the weakness I displayed along the way. Sadly, I have little doubt there will be further weaknesses to seek forgiveness for ahead. That in mind, I am more thankful still that I have You here, standing guard over the progress You have made in me, giving light to my feet, that I can see the step to take, and just as importantly, the step to avoid. Truly, You are too wonderful for me, and yet You are here - my constant Friend and Companion. Oh Lord! Never cease to speak to me, lest I forget Your nearness! Let Your hand be constant upon my shoulder, that I may never lose awareness of Your presence surrounding me, enveloping me even as You enveloped Mary. All praise be to You, Lord God! All praise be to You, for You have been faithful thus far, and You surely will not cease from Your faithfulness!

The Seal of God's Promise (3/16/04)

Oh! As if we have not seen enough of the Spirit yet to be wholly overwhelmed by God's generosity! Yet, there is more! Not only does He come as the fulfillment of promise, but in His coming, and in His abiding, He stands as the seal of those promises yet to be fulfilled! His very presence is assurance to us that those things which God has promised regarding righteousness, sanctification, and life, things we are too self aware to believe He has delivered on, He will also deliver on, and deliver in full. We heard the Gospel, and we heard it with the ears of faith, a faith given as a gracious gift to us. We heard and, thanks wholly unto God, we believed to our own salvation. Believing, we are also sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph 1:13)! He who never leaves or forsakes us, He who abides in us and envelops us, He who teaches us of the promise, guides in the paths of righteousness, and guards us from the snares of the enemy, is an ever present reminder of God's faithfulness, a constant bolster to our faith!

His presence, evidenced by a life filled by His fruits of purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, and genuine love, is assurance not only to ourselves as to our status as the elect, but also to those around us (2Co 6:6). By the inward working of His presence, our outward ways reflect the life God is recreating in us moment by moment. It is through His constant ministration that we are being renewed (Ti 3:5). What a wonderful thing! Saved because of His mercy, clean because of His regeneration, renewed because of His Holy Spirit: truly, nothing is left to our own merit because God's love cares too much to leave eternal matters in our fallible hands, and because God's wisdom and knowledge of us understands full well that only His own abiding guardianship can properly protect the wondrous gift He has sealed within us!

How sad, then, that we need the admonition not to grieve this steadfast guardian of our soul! How sad, that we can even consider such a grievous action in the abiding presence of Him who seals us for redemption (Eph 4:30). Yet, the admonition is there, and every honest believer knows just how needful it is. I don't doubt for a moment that there is not a one among His Church who can honestly claim to have gone a day without causing Him grief. Still, He never leaves us, never forsakes us, never abandons us to our just punishment. Even with all He went through in the person of His Son to procure our redemption justly, even with all the torment and anguish He took upon Himself, still He puts up with us. Still, He calls us His own!

How, Lord? How do You do it? How can You, who cannot so much as abide to be in my vicinity, never mind dwelling in me, never mind declaring me Your own temple? Your sacrifice is powerful indeed, to have so purified this vessel that even present defilement cannot dissuade You from considering me holy and set apart. Can I even begin to fathom just how great a salvation You have wrought? It defies my abilities! How could free will ever choose not to gladly lay hold of that which You offer? It is not possible that a mind clear and well-informed could choose to disregard that offer! Lord! Open the eyes of those who still ignore Your open hand! Take away their blinders, Holy One, that their own senses, the senses You created in them can be free to make the sensible choice of accepting You. I know, Father. I know it's Yours to decide, it's Yours to determine whom You will show compassion to, but Lord, what joy will You have in their destruction? None, Father. You will be glorified in Your justice to be sure, but will there be joy in it? It is not Your desire, Lord, for You tell me that Your desire is for all to be saved. Why, then, should You suffer Your enemy the least victory in this matter? Why should he be allowed to deceive, and to thereby deprive You of Your desire? Arise, oh Lord! Scatter Your enemies before You and free those he has held captive! Now is the acceptable day, Lord! Let Your joy be made full!

Speaking God's Words (3/17/04-3/20/04)

In establishing the person of the Spirit, His place in the Trinity, a great deal of His purpose among us, and His benefits towards us have already been explored. What has not necessarily been made clear is that there is that initial baptism of infilling, but there is also record of the Spirit filling a man after that event. Peter, in particular comes to mind. He was clearly present at the Pentecost event, indeed delivered his first great sermon there. However, when he is brought before the temple officials, the Holy Spirit once more fills him (Ac 4:8), this time with a specific purpose - the purpose of declaring God's Word. In this event, it would seem that we are seeing the Holy Spirit in His most usual mode of operation among man.

This should not come as a surprise, considering what Scripture reveals of Him. As the author of Scripture, and the Witness of Truth, He is of course deeply concerned with those who are called upon to speak in God's name. He is the author. What surprise, then, that He provides the words? Through both Old Testament and New examples of His work in this regard are found. In the Old, we find Him most often mentioned in association with prophets and prophecy. In 1Samuel 10:6, Samuel informs Saul that the Spirit will come upon him, and he will prophecy 'and be changed.' Here, there is a double display of the Spirit's work. As was shown previously, His is the task of renewal in us. This passage would indicate that renewal is not a new task He recently acquired, but part of what has always been His mission.

There are many other examples to be found in the pages of the Old Testament. "The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, His word was on my tongue" (2Sa 23:2). The Spirit of the Lord came, telling me to declare God's message (Eze 11:5). The Spirit came upon Jahaziel, and he spoke regarding the coming battle and the Lord's role in it (2Ch 20:14). The message? "You don't need to fight the battle. Just position yourselves to see the salvation of the LORD" (2Ch 20:17)! Indeed, He has not changed! Even then, He was in the salvation business just as He is now.

Two examples bring out just how fully the Holy Spirit was associated with true prophecy. The chronicler of the king's court records the event of a prophetic struggle between Zedekiah and Micaiah (1Ki 22:24). Micaiah came with the true word of God, pointing to the false message of Zedekiah, and how God was sending that message to punish the king for his wickedness. Zedekiah jumps up to defend himself, and slaps Micaiah for his insolence. He follows this with an angry question: "How is it you claim that the Spirit of the LORD has passed from me, and now speaks through you?" Notice that even the deceiving prophet in this scene knows where the real prophecy comes from!

There is another prophet by this name whose experiences seem very similar. However, the ISBE indicates that the Micah whose words are preserved in Scripture is from a different period than this Micaiah. That said, consider the words of Micah in Micah 3:8. Unlike all these false diviners around me, I am filled with power! I am filled with the Spirit of the LORD. As such, I have courage to tell it like it is! In the power of God, I justly declare Jacob's rebelliousness to him, and I tell Israel of his sin. That there is power associated with the filling of the Spirit, then, is clear, but it is power with a distinct purpose: to speak what the Lord has declared, to speak boldly and truly.

That role doesn't change in the New Testament, for God is not a man that He should change. Jesus taught His disciples to have this understanding of the Holy Spirit. You will be arrested, delivered to the authorities, but when this happens don't get all worked up about how to defend yourself. In the moment of your defense, you will be given the words to speak, for the Holy Spirit will be the one to speak through your mouth, not you (Mk 13:11, Lk 12:12). He reinforces this understanding when He speaks to the apostles after His resurrection. Seeing His victory over death, they are caught up in questions about the timing of the final days, when the kingdom would be fully established, and God's victory complete. In response, Jesus declares that these are not matters for them to know, it is sufficient to remember that God has established fixed times for them. That knowledge is not your place, He says. However, you will receive power to fulfill your purpose. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and by His power you will be My witnesses in Israel and beyond (Ac 1:7-8).

With these teachings, Jesus firmly establishes the linkage between the Old Covenant and the New. Indeed, the New has not displaced the Old, but improved upon it. It supercedes the Old, because it covers the same promises and terms, but does so in better fashion. God's role, then, does not change. The offices of the persons of the Godhead have not changed. Jesus did not suddenly become the Redeemer at His birth to Mary. He was the Redeemer from the foundation. He was the Redeemer long before the prophets, the poets, and the fathers of Israel saw Him. By the same token, the Holy Spirit did not cease to be the voice of God among men at Jesus' coming. The same One who spoke through men before Christ continues to speak through men after His ascension, continues to speak through men today. God does not change.

However, He is not the only voice speaking through men today, any more than He was the only voice heard of old. We saw the issue with Micah and Micaiah. Many voices spoke, all of them claiming the authority of God behind them. It required power to distinguish the true from the false. In this, the Holy Spirit is seen both as the voice of Truth, and as the Witness to the Truth. There is one other unchanging facet of the Holy Spirit which serves to keep us from hearing the false as true. His message is consistent. He is the voice of Truth, and Truth will not contradict itself. Knowing that God does not change, we can stand assured that His message to man does not change. His testimony is constant, for the One He testifies of is constant.

We have established this about the Spirit, that He fills for the purpose of speaking. Examples abound in the New Testament, both before and after Jesus' ascension, although it can be said that every example we find occurs after His arrival in the flesh. The first one we see so moved by the Spirit is Mary's older relative Elizabeth. She was filled with the Holy Spirit, and cried out loudly (Lk 1:41). The words she spoke were clearly prophetic, and clearly a declaration of Truth. A few months later, her husband experiences the same thing. At the birth of his son John, he, too, is filled with the Holy Spirit, and he also prophesies concerning the Truth of God (Lk 1:67). Notice that both of these cases point directly to Messiah, point directly to what God is bringing to pass upon the land. One other prophetic infilling is recorded in connection with Jesus' birth. His parents, being godly Jews, bring Jesus to the temple on the eighth day for circumcision in obedience to the Law of God. There at the temple is Simeon, who has long sought for Messiah. The Holy Spirit, it is written, rested upon him. What a wonderful thing! He didn't just fill for a moment to get the word out, He rested there! As He rested, He revealed to Simeon that he would see Messiah before he died, which, being the word of Truth, he did. Not only did he see Messiah, he recognized Messiah, and delivered the blessing of God over Him (Lk 2:25-26).

The balance of the examples we have of the Holy Spirit filling for the purpose of witness and declaration occur after Jesus' ascension, expressing fulfillment of His parting promise: "I will send another Counselor." The first, most well known occasion of this post-ascension fulfillment occurs at Pentecost, several weeks after the events of that final week in Jerusalem. The disciples were gathered together to pray, some 120 of them, when things suddenly got exciting. The end result was that every one of them was filled with the Holy Spirit, and every one of them began speaking the words the Holy Spirit gave to them (Ac 2:4). All was disorder, and the words that tumbled from their mouths were quite likely incomprehensible to them, and to each other, for they were in languages other than their native Aramaic. Yet, they were not words without purpose, it was not a display of power for their own amusement, nor even for their own edification. The words were for the crowds beyond their upper room, who had been attracted by the events leading up to this. In that crowd were people from many lands. Yes, they all may have understood Aramaic. The message could have been given to them in that language. Certainly, they all knew Greek, which would have served even better. But, their amazement was increased in that they were all getting the message in their own language! This was a powerful display for them. Here were simple men, not the educated elite, speaking to them in their own languages, and speaking such a powerful message! Truly did the Spirit confirm their words by wondrous signs, the signs of the languages themselves.

Now, this was not the only time that the disciples experienced such an event, which is a point we would do well to remember. The working of the Holy Spirit pervades the book of Acts, and chapter four of that book is particularly full of His labors. What is interesting is that those whom He is filling in the course of that chapter are those who were present in the upper room back in chapter 2! This indicates to me that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not to be confused with the filling with the Holy Spirit. They are not synonymous events. In Acts 4:8, Peter is standing trial before the Sanhedrin for preaching Jesus' Gospel. It is as Jesus warned them, he has been delivered before the authorities. Also in full accord with Jesus' statement regarding the situation, when it comes time for Peter to speak in his own defense, it is not his words that come from his mouth, but the Holy Spirit who provides the words. Eventually, he is released with the official admonition to go and preach no more. What is his reaction? He returns to the rest of the disciples and leads them in earnest prayer to God. What are they seeking from Him? Retaliation? Vindication? Nope. Their prayer acknowledged God's command of events, recognizing even Pilate's outrageous miscarriage of Roman justice as an act which was in full accord with God's predetermined purpose. Then, they close their prayer with on simple request: "Since You are in control, Father, recognize their threats, and in light of them grant us bold confidence to speak Your Word" (Ac 4:29)! True, they point out the plots against them in high places, but they don't ask for vindication, nor do they ask for protection. They ask for boldness to obey God rather than man! Here is a prayer God is more than happy to answer, and He does so most immediately. No sooner have they finished this wonderful prayer than the building begins to shake under the power of God. No earthquake this; the Holy Spirit has come once more, and once again, He fills all in the room. The result? Every last one of them began speaking God's word with boldness (Ac 4:31)!

What are we to make of this? Did they all remain in that place preaching to each other? What boldness is required for that? True, one must overcome whatever fear he may have of public speaking, but this is nothing. The boldness of their speaking would seem to require that they went out from that room, and spoke God's word to any one whose ear they could grab. The remainder of the chapter makes clear that the effect on these believers was life-changing. All concern was given to spreading the Gospel, to the point that personal property was subverted to the cause. Properties were sold to provide the cash flow needed to support the mission. Preaching the Word, saving people, this was all that mattered to them. I'm reminded of the Vineyard song - "Nothing Else Matters". "Nothing else matters but You, Lord Jesus, but You." That was the reality of their lives from that moment. Labor did not cease. Men still had to work to provide support. Even Paul continued in his day job to provide for his physical needs. However, what labor was done was done in service and support of ministry. Thus, even their mundane work was made holy because even their mundane work was done with an eye towards God's purpose and command.

More examples of the Spirit's purpose in filling man come from Acts. In Acts 10:45-47, we see the mission move outward to the Gentiles. This requires confirmation to the Jewish mind. Peter, who himself required a bit of convincing that this was truly God's intent, has come around. Acting on a confirmed vision from the Lord, he goes to the house of Cornelius, a Gentile, to speak to him of this Jesus, and he takes with him some fellow members of the Jerusalem church. Peter speaks the Truth to Cornelius, and even before he is finished, the Holy Spirit falls upon his listeners. What is the result? The gift of the Holy Spirit is evident in the Gentiles, for they speak with tongues, and exalt God! This is utterly amazing to those who have come with Peter, for they have not had the advantage of his vision. By this event, God confirms more fully the validity of that vision, and provides the requisite two or three witnesses to the inclusion of the Gentiles within the fold of faith.

One question that might be asked in regard to this is, if the Gentiles were speaking in languages unknown not only to themselves but also to Peter's companions, how could those companions be certain of their meaning? Was it sufficient evidence of God exalting intent that these Gentiles utter some gibberish incomprehensible to all? I'm not sure I can accept that. Many a Greek oracle would do the same, and claim to be speaking on behalf of this god or that. Surely, this fact did not escape these men. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to think that this Roman household might be at least minimally familiar with Aramaic. That could be seen as a necessity for service in Palestine. How much, though? Enough to clearly declare the goodness of God? Enough to speak out Scriptures in proper terms? Enough to properly evoke the regional dialects? Recall that even between Galilee and Jerusalem there were distinct differences in the language, enough so that Galileans could be identified by their speech. There's also that other event from the Old Testament, where the tribes of Israel were at war, and in order to identify friend from foe, a particular word was required from each man. Again, the pronunciation of that one word was sufficient to identify which of the two camps the man was from. How many such differences of accent were present in Peter's company? How many of them were hearing from this foreign family a message perfectly attuned to their own accent? Once again, it seems to me that the purpose in the Holy Spirit's effect on this family was not to have them utter nonsense syllables, not to induce some utterance from them that was not only unknown to them but unknowable by their hearers. He induced them to speak in such a fashion as would confirm to these witnesses that their faith and their acceptance was real. That required intelligible evidence, words that the witnesses could comprehend, and yet at the same time words that would not naturally come from such as they were visiting.

Paul's record offers further incidents reflective of the purposeful nature of the Spirit's vocal inspirations. At one point after his conversion, Paul encounters a magician. Signs and wonders may impress such a man, but only in the sense of causing him to lust for the signs, not in the sense of standing as proof of holiness. He knows that he is not a holy man himself, and he knows he can perform signs and wonders, too. Indeed, in this case, the magician he faces is an out and out adversary, for he sees in Paul an opponent, a competitor for influence in the courts of the land. But, Paul had an advantage. He was filled by the Holy Spirit, and spoke as the Holy Spirit gave him words (Ac 13:9). He accuses this man of his sin, seeking to make those he deludes blind to truth. Because of this, the heavenly justice is served: the blinder will be blinded. The sentence having been announced, it is carried out immediately, and without so much as the touch of a hand, this magician finds himself unable to see, even as Paul had once found himself. The result? The official believed the Gospel.

We are not given to know what happened to this magician. However, when I consider that parallel between himself and Paul, I wonder if he might have had a similar healing at the other end of that blindness. It was imposed for a time. It would be allowed to pass from him, as it had Paul. It is possible, certainly, that this time of humbling brought him to a place where Truth could penetrate. It is equally possible that the humbling only served to increase his rebellion. Pharaoh had faced a far worse humbling without turning from his nonsense. Scripture records both outcomes. Peter, prior to the resurrection, was repeatedly shifting from the right path to the wrong and back again. His grief and remorse after denying the Suffering Servant must have been severe, as severe as that of Judas. But their reactions to that grief are wholly different. The one merely sunk into darkness, was swallowed up by his remorse until it destroyed him. The other turned and sought a way back to the light. Seeking, he found, and his vacillation was at an end. Conquering himself in the power of God, he finally achieved the nature that Jesus had prophesied over him. He had become the rock, steadfast in faith, steadfast in determination, unchangeable in purpose.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit inspired men to speak God's words, to prophecy. In the New Testament, His purpose in filling believers is much the same. He fills that men might speak boldly about the Gospel of Christ. He fills that men might record the Truth of God for future generations to read and know. He also filled many a believer for the same longstanding purpose of prophesying, declaring God's truth regarding things yet to come. Those twelve men whom Paul asked regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit became hungry for that baptism. So Paul laid hands upon them, and the Holy Spirit came (Ac 19:6). The result? They prophesied, as well as speaking in tongues. Later, with Paul on his way to Jerusalem, another prophet approaches him, takes Paul's own belt, and binds him with it. Then, He speaks the 'word of the Holy Spirit,' to inform Paul what will happen to him in Jerusalem (Ac 21:11).

Peter clearly understands the continuity of God's work among the prophets of the Christian church. Indeed, he would appear to include preachers in their ranks. The prophets, he writes, were quite aware that their prophesies had less to do with their own situation and more to do with you and I (1Pe 1:12). They have written of the coming, and the preachers of the Gospel have told you of the fulfilling, both as they were empowered by the Holy Spirit, and thus, you and I are privy to matters even angels desire to know! In fact, Peter writes a bit further on, no prophecy was ever made by man's own will, but every bit of it came from men moved by the Holy Spirit (2Pe 1:21). Now, here's a question: Is Peter really saying that even the false prophets speak as the Holy Spirit moves them? I suspect he is. God's people never used to have a problem with this concept. God Himself had revealed on numerous occasions that it was for His purposes that these false speakers had been sent to counsel this king or that. It was part of their punishment. The Jewish understanding of their God included the understanding that there was no second authority over the bad stuff, but only One sovereign God over all of life. Many look at this and write it off as primitive faith, or a limited revelation of God, and proudly declare themselves better informed for knowing that God isn't really like that at all! Yet, the Jew, and the Apostles, understood God as He has declared Himself to be! Nor, has He changed. Are we really so much more advanced if we will not take God at His own word regarding His own nature? How can we declare Him Lord of all in one thing, and then deny that He has a say in the hard things of life, as if these are somehow not under the control of Him who rules on high? More enlightened indeed, to call God a liar in favor of our watered down image of what He should be like!

Now, then, if we must accept that even the false prophets are speaking under the influence, as it were, two issues arise (at least)! First, does this make the Holy Spirit the source of their lies? No way! The God of Truth cannot Himself lie. That falls to the father of lies who is our age old enemy. God can, however, determine when that enemy must be silent, and when he can be allowed to speak. Whether that purpose be to test and strengthen belief or to punish sin God alone can say with certainty. The second issue that needs to be dealt with is this: how do we know? How are we to know whether the words we hear are truly from our Lord, or those of a deceiving spirit? Paul gives us one simple test. Where the Holy Spirit is speaking [and not merely allowing speech], there can be no cursing of Jesus. Furthermore, it is impossible that one speaking without His voice can declare Jesus Lord (1Co 12:3). That said, I recall hearing many an opinion that the spirits that would bring false word into the ears of Christianity are quite adept at sidestepping this test. This, of course, must imply that they have a higher permission to do their fancy footwork.

However, God gives us another means of ascertaining the Truth which cannot be danced around when used properly, and that is the revealed will of God which we call the Bible. The Bible stands as the unchanging revelation of God, His own declaration of Truth. Truth cannot suddenly become untruth. What has been declared as the truth in a particular matter must remain the truth, and any voice which seeks to declare that the truth is otherwise must be the voice of a lie. This applies in the case of those who inadvertently (or purposefully, for all that) strip God of His sovereignty in their attempts to make Him look better in their own opinions. This applies to every effort of man to reshape God to his own preferences. So, we might do well to paraphrase 1Corinthians 12:3 like this: No man speaking by God's Spirit can contradict or repeal any matter upon which God has already spoken. However many prophecies there may be on the matter, they will concur if they are truly the voice of God. The old Puritan admonition still must steer our course, the moreso when men claim to speak for God: follow no man farther then he follows God. Despise not the voice of prophecy, but neither should you listen to every self proclaimed prophet as though that proclamation alone served to validate his credentials.

Build yourselves up on most holy faith, writes Jude, praying in the Holy Spirit (Jude 20). To that, I think we must add Paul's admonition to study. Study, so that you will be a well prepared workman, rightly dividing God's words. In other words, don't just memorize the words, understand them. Apply them. Assay every message that purports to come from your King, and see if it bears His seal of authenticity, see if it fits with what He has already told you of His plan and His purpose. Pray in the Holy Spirit, and search in the Holy Word. These two together are your strength and your shield. Either one without the other is at risk of being abused.

Wisdom and Knowledge (3/21/04-3/24/04)

He who speaks the Word to man provides man with the wisdom and the knowledge of the One whose Word He speaks. God's wisdom is perfect, ever and always devising the best possible plan for the use of the best possible means to achieve the best possible ends. God's knowledge is perfect, for He knows every detail of every situation, equally aware of the events of history, and those events yet to result from the plans He has so wisely devised. Furthermore, that which He has planned He need not revise for any reason. He who knows the end from the beginning, and knows also the innermost thoughts of every man, has no need to change the plans He establishes. It is this perfect One whose words come to us as the Holy Spirit fills His chosen spokesmen. It is this perfect One whose Truth is recorded for us in the pages of Scripture. He alone is able to ask the questions we read in Isaiah 40:13. Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD? Who has been the Father's counselor or advisor? There is none, for in the perfection of His knowledge and wisdom, all reason for counsel is removed! We do well to remember this in our prayers. If our prayers presume to advise God on His proper course of action, we either think far too highly of ourselves, or far to little of Him. Our thanks should be instant in realizing that He does not take our foolish advice into consideration any more than a parent considers the foolish requests of a child. Having greater understanding, the parent provides for the child in ways that will most benefit the child. This will require withholding some things which the child wants, and giving the child other things that he doesn't want. Love demands this of a parent. God's love demands it of Him as our loving Father.

The Holy Spirit bears those gifts that He wisely gives us, imparts to us a portion of His wisdom and knowledge that we might better understand our situation, and might better navigate the current of our days. We are forever facing situations we cannot understand, decisions we feel thoroughly unqualified to make. Our Father in heaven never faces that situation, for He always understands, and He is fully qualified to judge. In my present situation, I cannot claim to understand what His purpose is in the events that surround me. I don't know exactly why He keeps me in the job I have. I don't know why He has me operating at a loss for a time. Yet, by the Holy Spirit, He has made clear to me that at least for this present time, I am not released to seek other employment. I am to remain where He has placed me. I know it was His Providence that brought me to that place, and I will trust that it is His Providence that requires that I stay, whether it makes sense to me or not.

Lord, I thank You for the peace of mind You have established in me with that simple note You whispered to me last Monday. Forgive me forgetting that You have not lost sight of my situation. Forgive me forgetting the Providential care You have always shown for me and my family. You are, I know, fully aware of every difficulty that we are facing as a family right now. You know my daughter's fears, and you know the anger she is battling with. You know not only the symptoms of these things, but also their cause and their cure. Holy One, as You have revealed to me sufficient of Your store of knowledge to bring me peace in my situation, I pray You would reveal to me also the ways in which to address my child's needs. I pray also that You would prevent any attempt I might make which runs counter to helping, anything in which I have allowed emotions to reign in my reactions.

What I experience of the Holy Spirit is but a portion of what Jesus experienced of Him. This was in accord with the unchangeable promise of God. We have already seen it made clear that Scripture is the work of the Holy Spirit, that the voice of the prophet is the work of the Holy Spirit. With that in mind, consider what He has put into Scripture through the mouth and the hand of Isaiah. The Spirit of the Lord - the spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and holy reverence - will rest on Him (Isa 11:2). Yes, He says all of these things of Himself, for He is all of these things. It is worth noting that there is a degree of parallelism here. These attributes of the Spirit could be viewed as a dual list of related items. His wisdom and His knowledge are linked in their perfection. It is His perfect knowledge that leads to His perfect wisdom, for without the facts His knowledge knows, He could not plan so well as He does. It is from this store of knowledge and wisdom that He provides direction to His children. His understanding and His strength are also related in action, especially as He imparts to us from His stores. As He gives us to understand events around us, though it be in part, He provides us with the strength to stand our ground, to uphold righteousness in the face of the floodtides of the culture surrounding us. Finally, His counsel, founded as it is in His wisdom and understanding, also reinforces our strength to stand and fight for righteousness. The perfection of His advice is a firm foundation for our feet, the rock upon which David knew himself to be placed. Knowing the Source of that advice, and repeatedly experiencing the accuracy and intricacy of His advice and planning, builds in us a proper fear of our Lord, a reverence for His perfection, a love for His fellowship, and an abiding respect for His holiness.

Thus is Isaiah able to continue the message of the Holy Spirit by declaring that, "He will delight in the fear of the LORD." This is not fear as the world knows fear. It is not the restraining fear of reprisal, it is the glad respect that comes of loving a leader. The world does know of leaders who inspire, leaders whose followers would follow them into any situation. The best of these, however, remains but a shadow of the King of kings, the Lord of Lords. It is our delight to serve Him, and it is our delight to hold Him in highest regard. Truly, we will (insofar as our will is able) follow Him anywhere.

Now, even if the translators had not capitalized the occasional 'He' or 'Him,' Isaiah's next words ought to make it clear to us that it is our Redeemer of Whom he speaks. He will judge with righteousness and fairness, not swayed by the limited evidence of human senses. We can be fooled by what our eyes see, we can be taken in by the lies spoken to us. He does not suffer these limitations. He operates with the wisdom and knowledge of God, perfect in understanding, requiring no higher counsel, for there could be no higher counsel. Our Redeemer stands also as Judge. He will strike the earth, Isaiah continues, with the rod of His mouth. What an odd image, that! The following parallel helps us to understand, though. The least breath from His lips will slay the wicked. What is this strange power He has? Is it not the Word of righteousness, of holiness? The holiness and truth that is His essence must exude from Him with every word He speaks. That holiness cannot abide the presence of sin. That truth cannot abide the presence of a lie. One or the other must give way, and holiness and truth will have the victory. The merest whisper of Truth will slay the lie. The voice of holiness will cast all sinfulness from His presence.

It is this same Redeemer who, come to earth for a time to usher in the kingdom of God cannot help but rejoice in His Father. Isaiah had declared that He would delight in the fear of the LORD, and in Luke 10:21 we witness that very rejoicing. Luke tells us He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. His words explain why. "I praise You, Lord of heaven and earth, My Father, that You have hidden these things from the intelligentsia and have revealed them instead to babes, for this was pleasing to You." His praise is for the holy and righteous judgment of the Father, the perfection of His wise planning, the understanding and justice displayed in His decisions, and the strength He brings to His Gospel in choosing those He has chosen to bear it to the nations.

This is the strength that causes martyrs to stand firm in the very jaws of death. This is the strength that gives power to the testimony of their death. Stephen, if the midst of being stoned to death, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and saw the heavens open before his eyes, revealing the Father, and Jesus at His right hand (Ac 7:55). As horrible as that experience was, it did not cause him to forsake his faith, it did not cause him to cease acting like a brother of Christ. Like his brother, his reaction to the pain of death was to forgive those who inflicted death upon him.

Rome discovered this same power in the death of the martyrs. Through the course of years, such forms of death had become forms of entertainment for the people. However, the people were expecting the heroic yet futile efforts of the victim to save himself against impossible odds. They were not in any way prepared for this new faith, these odd victims who would not even put on a good show, but went meekly to their death, embracing death as the final seal of their sound faith. The reaction was to increase the depravity of their tortures in hopes of producing a good show. However, no effort seemed enough to turn the trick, and eventually the crowds that came to be entertained were so disgusted by the scenes played out before them that many of them came to believe in this Jesus. Indeed, as gruesome as their deaths were, they were not in vain. The testimony of their faith saved many lives.

China is still learning this lesson today, as are many nations around the world. Persecution cannot cause true faith to disappear. It can only cause it to blossom and bear fruit. True faith, in the face of such persecution, will not turn to violent defense, will not turn to the explosive martyrdom that has become such standard practice in the Middle East. True faith will remain true to faith even to the end, knowing that even death cannot separate us from our Lord and Savior, and knowing that, if it is His will to take us home now, so much the better for us, and He will bring fruit from the event for others as well. So, we serve the Lord, whether by living or dying. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we will stand true to our God come what may, and declare His truth with boldness until He comes to take us home.

As Paul approaches Jerusalem, his testimony is this: everywhere I stop, in every church I visit, the message of the Holy Spirit is the same, telling me that bonds and afflictions await me (Ac 20:23). The message is not that he ought to change course. Were it so, he would have obeyed, as he did in turning from Asia towards Greece some years earlier. The Holy Spirit, in warning him, was not forbidding him from his intent, but strengthening him to face what would befall by God's intent. He gives strength.

Joseph needed that strengthening in his own way. He was an honorable man faced with a situation that seemed to destroy his honor. His betrothed was pregnant. How evident this was to the observer is unclear. Perhaps Mary had informed him of the event still invisible within her, or perhaps she had begun to show. Whatever the case, Joseph was of sufficient character that he had determined not to shame her. Consider the adulteress that Jesus rescued late in His ministry. Had He not done so, she would surely have been stoned to death for her sin. This same fate could have awaited Mary. The evidence would have sufficed as proof against her, but the Holy Spirit having been the sire, He ensured that Joseph was given to understand the situation. He sent an angel to speak to Joseph, to speak the Truth to Joseph, and that Truth made plain that Mary had not been unfaithful to him (Mt 1:18-20).

It occurred to me, as I was considering the connection between Mary's situation and the situation Jesus stopped those many years later, that there may be an even greater connection there. Jesus was clearly aware of the circumstances of His birth. Whether it was Mary who told Him, or perhaps Joseph, or perhaps neither of them, but the Holy Spirit within: that He understood who His Father was, even at an early age, is quite clear. Knowing that, He certainly must have been aware of the risk His mother had taken in bearing Him, of the punishment that could have been meted out to her for unfaithfulness. Can it be this knowledge of His own mother that gave Him such compassion towards the adulteress later? Those who were ready to punish her had what they thought was incontrovertible evidence against her. Surely, Mary's pregnancy would have seemed even more conclusive in their eyes! Yet, it is not in the power of man to see the heart, nor is it in his power to know with certainty all the facts involved in a matter. In the end, man is not fit to judge. Only He whose knowledge is perfect, from Whom nothing is hidden, is fit for that task. Did He, then, sense a certain parallel here, did that reinforce His compassion and mercy in the situation? Or was it a simpler matter: God does not delight to see a soul lost. Had the stoning gone forward, no hope remained for that soul to find salvation. By stopping her execution in that fashion, not only was a final opportunity for redemption afforded her, but her heart was prepared by that same act of mercy to accept what was offered.

As the Witness, we saw the Holy Spirit confirming to the apostles, and to the Jewish church in general, that the inclusion of the Samaritans and the Gentiles in God's plan was indeed God's plan. Yet, this left the heads of the church with some difficult matters to sort out. To that point, they had dwelt more or less within the Temple, within the synagogue, as it were. They held to the performance of Mosaic Law as they had always done, only setting aside the accretions of Pharisaic teaching. Perhaps, with this understanding, one might be able to stretch to encompass the Samaritans, but the Gentiles? This required something greater. It required setting aside the ceremonial aspects of Mosaic Law entirely. Was that reasonable? Was God really pleased to have it so? It required some sort of confirmation from Him, and He complied. As they sought His guidance in dealing with this new inclusiveness, He was swift to answer their request. He sent the Holy Spirit once again to let them know that no extra burdens and no unnecessary Jewish legalities were to be placed upon these Gentiles. Only in matters essential to salvation and righteousness was the Law to be seen as binding (Ac 15:28). Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty! Liberty to set aside every religiosity that does not concern salvation, liberty to accept and obey every law that does. They were not simply cast free from every constraint. They were given liberty to ignore those laws that had no bearing. Circumcision could not be required of them, because circumcision was but the sign. The reality was already upon their heart, even as Scripture had declared. What more dare man to ask?

There is one last verse I wanted to consider in regards to the revelatory work of the Holy Spirit, for that is what He does in imparting to us these glimpses of God's wisdom and knowledge. It is revelatory, in that it reveals what we didn't previously understand. Theologians can argue over whether this is revelation or inspiration, but the end result would seem to be the same - one knows what one did not previously know about God. The point the theologians seek to make is well taken, that the truly revelatory was concerned with establishing the Scriptural Truth, whereas the inspirational reveals to our understanding what was already there in the record of His Truth. To us, in our personal experience, however, both will seem revelatory. The same general concern must be ours in our own understanding as we know must be ours in matters of the spirit: test and know the Source. Test against the counsel of God's Word as He has caused it to be recorded. Follow your understanding only so far as it follows God.

So, in Hebrews 9:8, we are given this incredible statement regarding something the Holy Spirit is saying to the church: "The way to the holy place has not yet been disclosed, while the outer tabernacle is still standing" (NASB). Wow! There is so much to be taken from this. Certainly, there is the immediate application to those of the Jewish Christian church who were feeling tempted to return to Judaism. You can't go back to shadows having tasted the reality! There is also, perhaps, a bit of a prophetic quality to this message. While the Temple remained standing, the spread of Christianity was, while impressive, not nearly as impressive as it would become thereafter.

There is an application for every child of God here. For us whose flesh is the temple of the living God, this statement must be considered most carefully. Within us, in our own walk, the way into the Holy Place remains undisclosed to us, so long as the outer tabernacle of our flesh stands! What to make of that? Does this mean we should worship prostrate before Him? There are times when that certainly is true, but that is not the point here. The resounding message of the Gospel can be heard in John's response to the crowds: "I must decrease that He may increase." Paul would put it this way, "If you are living for the flesh, you must die. However, if you are putting fleshly deeds to death by the Spirit, you will live. Those who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God" (Ro 8:13-14). This is forever a problem for man. He builds a monument to the god he wishes to worship, and winds up worshiping the monument instead. It happened to Israel in Shiloh. Shiloh became more important to them than the God who chose Shiloh. It happened again in Jerusalem. Surely, God will not allow the Temple to fall! You can count on it! Whatever men will trust instead of trusting their Father will surely fall, for He will not share His glory with another. If we glory in this flesh, though it be the temple of the Holy Spirit, yet it will be destroyed, for it has become a distraction from the True God, and therefore a tool in the hands of the enemy.

That the flesh is home to the Holy Spirit is no cause to glorify the flesh. Indeed, the fastest way to defile the temple of the living God is to glorify the temple. What the Holy Spirit is saying is this: "So long as you remain focused on your needs, your health, your gain; so long as your attention is on what God can do for you, you will never enter into the Holy of Holies, though you carry it in yourself. Until you have died to yourself, you cannot live to Me. Until you have consecrated the temple of your heart, and relinquished all claims to its use, your heart cannot be Mine. However much you may have been excited during this service, however much you may have swayed and shouted during that worship, you still have not found your way into My Place. If it's still all about you, it cannot be about Me. Freedom in My presence is nothing, if all it means to you is that you can do as you please. My Freedom means that you can do what pleases Me! That is the sacred act of worship, that is your reasonable service to Me."

Holy One, You have spoken directly to me in this. You have spoken to me and through me, and I know that You are speaking Truth to me. Last Sunday, You spoke to me as we prayed in the back for an earnestness in worship, for an anointing of joy. Oh, how worship broke forth! Oh, how the flesh receded, and Your work became the central concern! Yet, the flesh remains. There is, at least in me, that corner of consciousness that wants to keep an eye on appearances, that still reacts not by Your direction, but by its own opinions. That still needs to die, Lord. That temple to self needs to fall, and I can think of no better One to bring it down than You. Crush all pride that I claim in my service to You! Crush it! Leave no trace in me of anything that would seek to claim the glory that is Yours alone. Scatter the walls of stone that I have built within me, that the sturdy walls of a fleshy heart may ring forth with the praises of You enthroned within me. Take me in to Your Holy Place, Father, by the path You have revealed.

Putting Into Position / Anointing for Office (3/24/04-3/29/04)

There is just so much to discover about the Holy Spirit! Oh, forget not all His benefits, my soul! So much has already been shown, when it comes to the bountiful gift that is ours in the Holy Spirit, yet there is so much more yet to be seen! The facet of His labors which I turn to next is one that is particularly exciting, I think. It certainly ought to be, if we have any desire at all in us for the purposes of God. What I am talking about is the Holy Spirit's role in anointing and positioning God's people for specific service. This is something He has been doing for long ages, well into the history of Israel, and throughout the history of the Church. No, and He has not stopped serving in this office yet!

The earliest record I find of His anointing work is in the story of David, the foreshadow and forebear of Jesus. It is recorded for us that Samuel anointed David in the presence of his brothers, and that the Holy Spirit came upon him from that day (1Sa 16:13). The sad corollary of that is that the same Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, for there could be but one anointed king of Israel. In the place of this glorious Spirit, an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him (1Sa 16:14). Now, we can get as offended as we please at that statement, but if Scripture is the record of God's own Truth, then it is God's own Truth that He was involved in sending that evil spirit to Saul. How is this reconciled with the goodness of God? Did Go personally command this vile spirit to go plague His creation? Probably not, although it would be within His right as Sovereign Lord to have done so. I'm thinking that it was more that the devil, knowing Saul was God's anointed, had been targeting him for some time. He had great interest in assigning one of his minions to the task of tormenting the Lord's anointed. Yet, he cannot make a move against any man except the Sovereign Lord give him permission to do so. One need only consider the book of Job to see that this is so. It took no more than God allowing the devil his way in this particular instance for that spirit to be sent. His goodness remains unchanged, and His justice remains untarnished. Make no mistake, God will not be mocked. He will not suffer His anointing to be sullied by our abuses.

What is particularly exciting in this passage, though, is the impact on David of this anointing power of the Holy Spirit. Notice a key phrase in this. Samuel anointed David once. But the power of the Spirit, the power of that anointing, was strong upon him 'from that day.' It didn't stop. It wasn't a brief event that excited the emotions for an hour or two and then faded away. It was a permanent change. Transformed by the renewing of your mind, transformed into the same image of God's glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2Co 4:3)! What Paul describes regarding the New Covenant is exactly what David experienced regarding the Old. God has not changed, only the clarity of our understanding of who He has always been, and what He has always been about! What David experienced in that moment of anointing ought to be the norm of Christian experience: a full and permanent change from powerless enslavement to sin to powerful service to God.

This was the same anointing that fueled the prophets. These were men chosen by God to declare His word fearlessly. They were called to do seemingly foolish and bizarre things to make the meaning of God's message plain to one and all. The anointing sets man aside for God's exclusive use. It is the mark of the sanctified, just as the temple and its furnishings required anointing to sanctify them for holy and exclusive use, just as the priests required the same anointing of sanctification. If we would serve our Holy King, we can only do so with that same sanctifying anointing upon our own lives. He will not share His glory with another. He certainly will not share it with sinful, fallen, fleshly ways.

Those whom the LORD ordained by this anointing are drawn into service to Him, drawn into experiences beyond the ability of man and science to fully explain. There was a time when men understood this more fully. We, in this age of scientific knowledge, have in large part become foolish in our thinking, overestimating our own meager abilities, and convinced that if we cannot explain it, it cannot have happened. Once, we knew better. Once, we understood the Spirit of the LORD more clearly than we do today. Consider the story of Ahab, Elijah, and Obadiah. Ahab and God were locked in a struggle - one, admittedly, which Ahab could not hope to win. Elijah was God's chosen warrior in this battle, although he never took up a single weapon to strike Ahab. In the course of time, Ahab sent Obadiah off in search of this warrior of God's, being apparently unaware that Obadiah was also serving in God's army. He had hidden many of God's prophets from Jezebel's scourge, but now he was on Ahab's assignment to seek out some form of sustenance for the livestock, any bit of grass or moisture that might sustain the animals which sustained the kingdom. As he pursues this command, he stumbles across Elijah, and in Elijah finds himself under orders from a higher authority.

Elijah calls him to bear word to Ahab, but Obadiah knows Ahab's nature, and he also knows the ways of God's anointed. Thus, he fears for his life should he comply with Elijah's command. Look, he says, we both know what will happen here. I'll head out to deliver your message to Ahab, and in the meantime, neither you nor I can tell where the Holy Spirit will take you. Ahab will kill me for lying to him, and what sort of reward is that for one who has revered the LORD all his days (1Ki 18:12)? The ways of the Holy Spirit had been witnessed often enough that men understood the reality of "all things are possible with God."

At Elijah's departure from this earth, there was a similar recognition of the power that had been in him by the Holy Spirit. Elisha had accompanied Elijah to his taking up, and stood with his mantle at the edge of the waters. Others from Jericho saw him standing, heard him crying out, "Where is the God of Elijah?" and misunderstood. They thought he sought Elijah, but Elisha already knew where Elijah was. What he sought was the anointing of the Holy Spirit. At any rate, these men of Jericho come to comfort and counsel Elisha. They know the ways of the Holy Spirit and of God's prophets, and they suggest that the Holy Spirit may have taken Elijah to some remote spot. Perhaps they should search for him (2Ki 2:15)? They understood the Spirit, even though they did not fully grasp the present situation. Indeed, they spoke more truly than they knew! The Spirit of the LORD had indeed taken him up, but He had deposited that faithful servant in heavenly places, the reward of a lifetime of service.

Ezekiel experienced something of the Spirit's positioning, albeit in a less physical manner. He was brought to a place in vision, where, by the Spirit of the Lord, he found himself amidst a valley of bones (Eze 37:1). Even in this, even though in a vision, the Lord was positioning His servant for a purpose. Ezekiel was brought out amidst the bones for a purpose: to prophesy. The prophecy he was told to speak over the bones was indeed a prophecy for the nation of Israel, for as a nation they felt much the same as these bones, dead and withered away. But what a message of hope God brings! When Ezekiel had finished this assignment, God gave him a follow up mission. Prophesy to Israel, and I will give them life in their dead state. "My people, I will bring you into the land of Israel" (Eze 37:12). What hope for a nation in exile! "And I will put My spirit within you, and you will come to life" (Eze 37:14). This is the very promise we have in Christ! Because He lives, and has gone to the Father, the Holy Spirit has come. He dwells in you and I, and because He is within, we live, truly live. What more can be said with that? The Father created, the Son Redeemed, and the Spirit has brought to life!

How is it I missed this, Lord? With that one word, You have revealed something I had completely overlooked, and now, I can see it in so many places. Yes, the Holy Spirit is life, You are life. You, Holy Spirit, were there in the beginning, moving across creation and breathing life into it! You were there in the conception of John the Baptist, breathing life into him before even he was born. You were there in the conception of my Lord and Savior, breathing life into Him. You are here, God, breathing life into me yet again this morning! And this life You breathe into me goes so far beyond the doctor's concept of life. It is so much more than the physical functions of eating, sleeping, breathing, and so on! No! This is life in a form worthy of the name! This is the joyful state of being alive to God, aware of You, Holy Spirit, rejoicing in You! Thank You for this life, Holy One! Thank You, Jesus, for standing as my Redeemer, for fulfilling all that the Father required, that the Holy Spirit, my dear Companion, could come, sustaining us in this present existence, until eternity is prepared for us, and we, for eternity!

There it is, in Luke 1:15. How did I miss it? John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb! Even in the fetal state, he would know life beyond what most men were given to know. He would understand that what he was to be born into was far more than eat, sleep, expel. He was set apart in the womb, already given to understand that he was wholly God's. No drink, no drunkenness, would defile him, would cause him to stumble in God's purpose, or to defame God's name by his carelessness. Life! Life with Purpose! That is the gift of the Spirit to those who work in God's purpose! And, oh! How he fulfilled the purpose assigned him!

The forerunner came and, as purpose required, he declared the coming of the Lord. He did all in his power to prepare the way for the coming King. He could not cause men's hearts to change, but he could call them to it. He could convince them of their need, and this he did with a passion! "I baptize you with water, the water of repentance. But, this is only a preparation, a precondition for Him who is coming. He is greater, and will baptize with the Holy Spirit, with sanctifying fire" (Lk 3:16, Mk 1:8, Mt 3:11)! Compared to Him, John said, I'm nothing, I'm less than nothing. His was the ministry of preparation. The one who would be sanctified must first be prepared for sanctification. An unrepentant heart cannot hope for purity. If we will not set aside our sins, how can we expect to be cleansed from the doleful effects of sin? If we will not set aside our sins, how can we think to serve a holy God?

The washing must come first. We in the church like our little saying that we can't clean a fish until we've caught him. We can't. We can't even clean that fish after he's caught. Face it. We can't even clean ourselves, and we've been caught for years now! With man, it is simply impossible. But, oh! With God! With God, that fish has been getting clean for awhile now. He may not look real clean to us, but to God, he's a precious work already long in the process of cleaning. He's been prepared for the net. I think we'd do well to forget our idea that somehow we can clean that fish that was caught, and simply come to the recognition that we couldn't catch the fish in the first place, unless God had already cleaned him for Himself! "Unless I wash you, you have no part in Me," Jesus said. "If you are in Me, you are already clean." Why? Because He has already done the washing. We look with eyes of flesh, and we see only the filthy remains of long term sin. Funny how we can look at ourselves without seeing that! We may even be able to look at our friends and acquaintances in the church without seeing that. But the newcomer? Nope. All we see there is the remnants, the reminders of a semblance of life that used to be all we knew, reminders of a form of life we don't want to remember. We fail to see the miracle. There's a fish in the net! God has cleaned another one, and thrown him into the catch! Oh, the feet will still need washing every so often, but if that fish weren't clean, God wouldn't have added him to the catch. Miracle of miracles! Life has come to yet another bunch of dead bones!

Our eyes are so faulty, so caught up in the fleshy nature of our surroundings! Even John had this trouble to a degree. Consider. The Holy One of Israel, the divine Purpose of his own life, had stood next to him, and he didn't recognize Him (Jn 1:33-34)! As a babe in the womb, he had recognized his Lord, but life had dulled his senses, in spite of his Nazarite state. His feet needed washing, and God was faithful to do so. What was his own testimony to the event? "I didn't recognize Him right off, but as God sent me to baptize, He also gave me the sign to seek: 'Seek the One upon whom the Spirit descends and remains. He is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.' I've seen Him, He is the Son of God, and He's right here!" Even so, so many could not see Him. Even so, so many were too caught up in the world around them to recognize the kingdom of heaven come into their midst. Even so, we remain in that dangerous position to this day. We are just as capable of tuning out what God is doing, and seeing only what man is doing.

Lord, save us from this flesh, this life of dying. Wash our feet once more, that we might see Your mighty deeds with eyes clean and clear. Open our ears to Your voice, Lord, our eyes to Your armies all about us, and our hearts to Your commanding, that You may be all and in all!

Even as John fulfilled prophecy in his own ministry, he also delivered a prophecy of his own. As ever, these prophetic words were given him to speak by the Holy Spirit. This he had in common with the prophets of old. His prophecy concerned the One for Whom he prepared the way. "He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire." At the close of the Gospel record, this prophecy remains unfulfilled. This is right and proper, as the Gospel is the record of Jesus' ministry. In many ways, the book of Acts, while giving us such a wonderful record of the history of the early church, is in reality the record of the Holy Spirit's ministry. There in the opening lines, Jesus Himself declares the transitional message: "Very soon, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Ac 1:5). Very soon, what John had prophesied will come to pass. Of course, in the record of events we have in Acts 2, we see very soon become here and now, and indeed, even as John had said, the baptism is not just with the Holy Spirit, but with fire. The God of Truth was not lying. He can be taken at His Word.

Sometimes I can be a bit slow to recognize that fact. This is the fundamental problem of doubt. It is doubt that causes us not to recognize God's Truth as True. It is doubt that causes us to waiver in spite of His promises. But He is faithful to bring assurance when our own belief is weak. As I read Peter's discussion with the other apostles after his experience at Cornelius' house, I sense that same dawning understanding of the Lord's meaning in his story. It had taken a lot on the Lord's part to convince Peter to go to Cornelius' house in the first place. It didn't feel right to him, a Jew going to this Gentile's house. It just wasn't clean. But the God who ordained creation could so ordain events that Peter could not but recognize His hand in what came about, so he went as ordered.

Perhaps there remained some doubt in his mind, or perhaps God was making certain that Peter was not the only one that understood what He was saying. Six witnesses accompanied Peter on this trip, and what they saw was that even as Peter taught this soldier and his family of the Gospel message, the Holy Spirit came upon them, just as they had experienced Him in the upper room (Ac 11:15-16). Peter gives the translation of this experience to make plain to the Jerusalem elders that this was God at work. "Jesus told us how John baptized with water, but we would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You and I experienced that baptism. We know what it's about, and we know how it appears. That's exactly what we saw amongst these Gentiles. If God has sovereignly decided to move amongst the nations, who am I to stand in His way? Who are we?" What a lesson to lay hold of! If God has decided to move, who are we to try and block His way? Who are we to attempt to counsel Him with our great wisdom and understanding? Here is a balance to the command to test the spirits. To be sure, we must obey the command to test. It's for our survival, after all. But, once tested, and the True Spirit of God found present, allow Him His way. Don't be found fighting against the Almighty God! Many people will persecute the true Church of God, Jesus warned, out of a misinformed desire to serve God. They will allow their own opinions to pass as the will of God in their minds, and will act as though this were the case. But God's not in that work.

Don't allow us, Lord, to slip into that same error! Don't allow us to labor against You in Your name! No, keep our ears and hearts open to what You are doing, testing, confirming, obedient to every safeguard You have given us, but moving forward with You the moment the glory of Your presence moves.

There is another chain of Holy Spirit anointing and positioning that threads through from the Prophets right through to the church today. In all truth, it is the same chain that links together every moment of history since the creation, but for the present discussion, I want to pick it up with Isaiah's message concerning Him whose Gospel we are anointed to declare. Hear this declaration of His ministry, made so many centuries before He arrived. "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bear good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to bind the broken heart, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and freedom to the prisoners" (Isa 61:1). Here we see Spirit and Son connecting. The Spirit of the Lord anointed the Son to preach the Father's good news to man! Now, we all know that Jesus opened His earthly ministry by quoting this passage (Lk 4:18-19). It is popular, I think, amongst western believers to think that Jesus just strolled into the synagogue that day, and flipped the Torah open to the passage He wanted to read. This cannot be true, though! No book was present to flip pages in. It was a scroll, a single scroll to cover all of Torah, and even then, the traditional readings for each week were established. This was largely due to the very fact of there being a scroll to deal with. By establishing a regular pattern for reading, the scrolls could be left in the correct place when they were stored between readings.

Indeed, Jesus entered the synagogue on the correct day to be handed the scroll of the Torah with it opened to the correct place. This was no miraculous coincidence, though. This was a calculated move for Jesus. He knew His purpose, and He knew the proper announcement of that purpose. He also knew the Torah schedule. He had been raised in the Jewish traditions from birth, and by now, He was firmly established in the rituals of synagogue and Temple. His arrival to read on this particular day was a careful calculation, so as to ensure the correct passage was there for Him. One suspects that, had it been left to another to read the passage, still He would have stood at the end, and declared the prophecy fulfilled in their hearing.

Looking back a few short days in Jesus' life, we see that anointing delivered in a fashion that not only declared Jesus' appointment to service, but also fulfilled the words of John. The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in visible form - looking like a dove, and a voice from heaven made the declaration in audible form - declaring His pleasure in His Son (Lk 3:22). John's prophecy was fulfilled in his own sight, a rare enough thing for a prophet. He stood as witness to the visible and audible confirmation of the Son of God in His temporal office of ministry. This was the anointing of which Jesus read and Isaiah prophesied, the anointing of God to go forth and declare His Good News, to bring healing to broken hearts, to liberate mankind from the bonds of sin, to open the eyes of the spiritually blinded peoples of the earth. And, oh! The joy of that closing line: To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor! God was not frowning on His creation any longer, but had moved with great favor upon the earth.

Hear the echo of Gabriel's greeting to Mary in that! You are highly favored by God. He is showering you with the gifts of His great pleasure. That's the Gospel message, friend! God has set aside His rightful and righteous wrath to reach out to you and I. He has had mercy upon us, seeing the bonds that we have accepted upon our lives, bonds of sinful behavior and ruinous habits, and He has done what we could not do - paid the cost of our release. He has purchased us from the jailor, paid our debt to the courts of heaven, that His justice might remain untarnished even as He sets the prisoners free. Justice is served. Righteousness stands. Yet, mercy prevails because this is the year of the Lord's favor! Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing, and Scripture continues to be fulfilled in our hearing today. The only question is whether we have the ears to hear.

Here, also, in the anointing of Messiah, one hears the sentence against unbelief. Peter, in going to the Gentiles, was going to a family fully aware of events. In Israel at that moment, the ministers of the Gospel could be certain beyond all doubt that their listeners knew of Jesus, knew of His death, and knew also of His life. Every resident in Palestine was witness to the reality of His ministry, and the character of His ministry. This is how Peter begins to declare the good news to these first Gentiles. You know who Jesus was. You know God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power. You know this because you know He did good wherever He went. There is no record of evil in Him because there is no evil in Him. He healed the bedeviled. How did He do this, if not because God was with Him (Ac 10:38)? Notice that Peter is clear that he is not telling them anything new with this. This is common knowledge. You know. What remains is belief.

This remains just as true today. As much as so-called scholars seek to refute the historical facts of the Gospel, as much as the so-called thinkers seek to discount all claims of the miraculous, the truth is that they know. They know He was real. They know that the accuracy of Scriptural history has escaped every challenge unscathed. Where falsehoods have been claimed, the discoveries of archaeology and science have vindicated the truth of the Gospel. They know they have encountered Truth. Those who reject the Gospel today, who reject God and claim He is a nonexistent myth, know that they are telling falsehoods. Paul's accusation against all mankind stands. Men suppress the Truth, which they know full well, in their unrighteousness (Ro 1:18-19). It is a conscious act. It must be, because God has made Himself evident to them, has made His reality plain to their senses, leaving them without excuse. They know the Truth, as much as they labor to deny it. What remains is belief. If one will insist on unbelief in the face of the overwhelming evidence of God, then unbelief they shall have, with all its dubious benefits. Mercy is offered, but where mercy is rejected, only Justice remains.

Like Elijah, Jesus left behind the mantle of His office. Elijah, though passed it on to only one, to Elisha. In this, he had done what needed doing to ensure that the ministry he had established would continue in Israel. Jesus did the same, but He did so with a dozen men, or perhaps more, and the mission He left them with not only preserved His own, but expanded it. "Go," He said. "Go make disciples of every nation. Baptize them in the one name of the Triune God - in the official capacities of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (Mt 12:32). What was happening here? Jesus was passing His office to those He had discipled for three years. In the relay race of faith, He was passing the baton to the next runners, and pointing them to the next leg of the race. In their instructions, He included the passing of the baton to those who would run after them. Baptize them! Pass on the anointing I pass to you. It's not an anointing for fleshly excitement, it's an anointing for holy Purpose. Keep it going!

Notice that this wasn't a request, a dying wish of our Savior. It was a command. Consider Luke's opening remarks in the letter we know as Acts. My previous letter, he writes, covered what Jesus did while He was here ministering, bringing you up to the point of His ascension. He left the earthly realms having given orders to His apostles by the Holy Spirit (Ac 1:1-2). The Spirit of the Lord anointed Isaiah to declare His coming. The Spirit of the Lord anointed Messiah to fulfill His coming. Messiah passed that same anointing to His apostles, along with the orders to spread that same anointing to all whom they taught. Notice this. In passing the anointing to His students, Jesus did not relinquish the anointing upon Himself, nor did the apostles, in obeying His directive to pass the anointing to each believer, relinquish the anointing He had placed upon them. "I have said you are a priest forever." The anointing for ministry is intended to be permanent, but it is not intended to be horded up. "You are My unique people, a nation of royal priests, and I have said you are priests forever."

Blessed assurance, that! Thank You, Lord, for the permanence of the assignment You make over me. May I be found ever faithful to the call. May Your investment in my life bear You dividends of glory, that You may delight in Your child.

There is this interesting testimony that many in the New Testament church shared, God's own testimony over them: that they were full of faith, and full of the Holy Spirit. It is said of Stephen in Acts 6:5. This was the testimony God spoke of him, and because this was God's testimony, he was chosen to serve. Barnabas gets this same testimony of God's in Acts 11:24. He was chosen to serve, bringing many to the Lord, and bringing the blessing God had stored up in Paul to the church as an acceptable gift. Paul, himself, understood that the sacrificial service he undertook in God's service was only made acceptable by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit (Ro 15:16). He did not choose to be a minister of the Gospel of grace, the ministry was given to him. He had a previous ministry he had taken for himself only to discover that his ministry stood in opposition to the God he sought to serve. God gave him a real ministry, not as a priest of the Temple, not as a priest of dead ritual, but as a priest of God's own Gospel, God's own great Good News, which is Jesus Christ. Paul moved from a ministry of death taken by grasping hands to a ministry of life given by loving hands, the hands of the very Jesus he had persecuted. This is love!

Something else struck me as I looked at Stephen and Barnabus, though. There a connection there, in God's testimony. They were full of faith, and they were full of the Holy Spirit. The ordering of this pair changes between the two, but the connection remains the same. The one cannot exist in the absence of the other! We can debate day long as to which must come first, and which one second, but the simple truth is they must both come, or neither has come. One cannot be full of faith without the Holy Spirit. One cannot be full of the Holy Spirit without faith. The one prepares a temple for the other, but that other cannot prepare a place without the presence of the One to plant understanding. Faith is a gift of God, nothing of our own doing, nothing we have earned. It is the first and necessary move of our soul towards salvation, yet until it is already done in us, there is no liberty in us to do it. The Spirit of the Lord has brought liberty, filling us with eye-opening understanding, filling us with the wisdom of the Lord to understand Him sufficiently to love Him, to choose Him. This is what has made us fit for service as the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and it is that temple service that fits us for service to others.

Mention of Barnabas and Paul cannot be complete without remembering that it was the Holy Spirit who declared those two to be set aside for a particular labor of the Lord (Ac 13:2-4). He came to inform those who were in prayer, who were fasting as they sought the direction of the Lord as to how the Lord would answer them. Their response was beautiful. The Lord spoke, and they imparted their own blessing and joined wills with that of the Lord to speed them on their way. Notice this: The Holy Spirit not only appointed them to the work, He sent them on their way to do the work! Paul must have been more or less getting used to that idea, for this wasn't the first time the Holy Spirit had assigned and deployed people in his life. Earlier, Ananias had been appointed to a special task by the Lord, (Ac 9:17). He was sent to see to the restoration of sight to Paul, and notice the means employed to restore that sight, being filled with the Holy Spirit! Paul had met the Lord already, but it had blinded him. More important than the physical blindness which befell him was the spiritual blindness that it signified, a blindness he had long suffered from. I know that some think that Paul's whole understanding of the Truth of God was being implanted in him during that period of blindness, but I don't think so. I think that understanding came in the moment when the scales fell from his eyes. What he was being given to understand in that period of darkness was the utter darkness of his own soul up to that point. He was, as he says, a Pharisee's Pharisee, but all that care and labor had not brought him one bit closer to righteousness in God's sight. This was the message in his blindness, a message that took awhile to sink in. Once He had that straight, then and only then was he in any condition to understand the Good News of God's grace. It is the same for every one of us. We can never really grasp that magnitude of God's goodness in saving us personally, until we understand the darkness in which we wandered blindly before. To borrow from the preaching of the Great Awakening, until you know yourself utterly and hopelessly lost and in dire peril, you have no incentive to seek a means of being saved.

Charlie Peacock once sang that "You don't ask a drowning man if he wants to be saved." The point was, of course, that you already knew the answer. The sad paradox of humanity, though, is that until a man is drowning he knows not how to answer that question aright. What the Church must be focused on, if it is to be useful to the work of God, is on helping those in the water to recognize that they are drowning. If we will do that, there will be no reason to ask whether they would like to be saved, there will only be answering their echo so many others, "what must I do to be saved?"

Before this portion on the Spirit's anointing and positioning of God's servants, I want to consider some of those occasions when His positioning of the saints is displayed. Consider the well-known passage regarding Philip. He had been positioned to be alongside the eunuch's chariot at just the right moment. He was appointed to declare the meaning of Scripture to this eunuch, and to baptize him. He was appointed and positioned by the Holy Spirit to accomplish one particular task in this case. As soon as he had accomplished that task, what happens? No sooner does he come out of the baptismal waters, then the Spirit of the Lord snatches him away for another assignment (Ac 8:39).

There is also the case of Paul, ready to go convert the nations, and on his way into Asia Minor. He was appointed by the Holy Spirit for that task, as we saw before. He was looking to obey in the task assigned to him, and pursuing it as best he knew how. But, what came of it? The Holy Spirit forbade him to preach in Asia, so the turned their attention to Galatia (Ac 16:6).

There's a lesson in this. No, I think there are two lessons. First, there is the matter of how one reacts when God leads by the negative. Here, I think the fundamental question for us is whose will we're really pursuing. As often as not, it seems, the plans we pursue in the name of God are not really God's plans, but our own. This is where some of the worst events of Christian history have stemmed from - people setting their own course and claiming it as God's course. The crusades may well have started from a holy purpose, may even have been a plan from God, but the way they were carried out was almost wholly man's planning, and thus, they not only failed of its purpose, they worked against that purpose, and still do so today. Paul was seeking to obey God. Having heard no specifics on how he was to do so, he chose his course and pursued it. However, there were further instructions, as it turns out. Paul could have become agitated over having wasted his time going in the wrong direction. He could have insisted on pursuing his own plan of converting the peoples of Asia Minor, but fortunately, he chose obedience. In this, he proved that he was truly serving God and not self. When God seeks to change our plans, the heart of obedience will accept His plan and go forward. What a blessing to Paul when he obeyed! What incredible fruits his labors produced, and continue producing. Had he insisted on his original plan, in all likelihood his efforts would have been overrun by the forces of darkness, and disappeared from the records of mankind in a few short centuries.

I might not be too far off course in suggesting that western civilization as we know it owes its existence to Paul's obedience. Had he not been obedient to this change of direction, as I said, it seems quite likely that his work would have been wiped out by the Muslims in short order. Much of what we know of ancient times might well have been lost for all times in that event. Instead, Christianity was planted in the west, and spread into the whole of the Roman Empire. That, in turn, planted it in lands as far away as England and Ireland, and even when Rome was overrun, the seeds of the Christian vine were secured through the long winter of war to emerge in a new spring. Eventually comes the Reformation, and with it a hunger for pure worship and holy living. From this hunger a new land is populated. Though it failed, it seems, of the goal, still its foundation was strong, strong enough that America still stands today in spite of its shortcomings, and stands as the most honorable among nations. Yes, America has plenty of warts and blemishes. So does every hero in the city of God. It's not about the men and their failings, it's about God and the miracles He can perform through even such fallible tools.

I said there were two lessons to be learned here. The second lesson I see is this: God's assignments for us are not necessarily, perhaps not ever, permanent assignments. While we are, each one of us, priests for life, we are not priests in one station until death do us part. There may be many assignments which we must pursue if we would pursue obedience. Look at Philip. He completed his assignment, and immediately was off to another one, one I don't think he was even aware of until the moment he was sent. Paul experienced this repeatedly. He would labor in one place, seeking to disciple and establish. He might work there for several years. Yet, the time would come when God said, 'move on.' Many would resist the idea. Many would have looked at these situations, both Philip's and Paul's, and said, "hey, I've labored hard here, let me enjoy the fruit of it!" But, God says no, there are other tasks that require your hands.

In the end, the admonition Paul delivered to his coworkers should echo in each one of us. Watch yourselves, and watch those the Holy Spirit has placed you in charge of (Ac 20:28). See to it that you remain a good shepherd. See to it that you never forget that it is God's church you shepherd, that it is a treasure He paid for in blood. This is what He has entrusted to your care. Never lose sight of that. It is His, and if He has decided to place this work in other hands, who am I to say otherwise? If He asks me to set this work aside, then it is only because He has some other labor for me to do for Him. The blessing is in obedience to my Lord and King. On any other path, there can only be heartache. On any other path, there can only be a shaming of the Name I love, the Name that is above all names.

Prevailing Power (3/30/04-3/31/04)

There is an aspect of the Holy Spirit which seems to be prominent only during the time of the judges, the aspect of prevailing power. Over and over again in the record of that period, it is told that He came upon this one or that, and he prevailed. Indeed, in many ways this was the seal of the judge, the sign of God's appointing the judge, so this aspect of the Holy Spirit ties in with that of anointing and positioning. It is the testimony given of Othniel (Jdg 3:10), Gideon (Jdg 6:34), and Jephthah (Jdg 11:29). Isn't it interesting that those who prevailed in the power of the Holy Spirit are those whom the author of Hebrews points to among the cloud of witnesses to faith (Heb 11:32-33)?

This same prevailing power of the Holy Spirit permeates the record of Samson from the beginnings of a stirring (Jdg 13:25), through his rending of a lion (Jdg 14:6), to punishing the Philistines (Jdg 14:19, 15:14). As somewhat of an aside to this line of thought, it's interesting that I have often heard teachings on Samson exploring how the rending of the lion was one of his acts of disobedience, yet it is attributed to the Holy Spirit upon him. Indeed, Samson is in rebellion at this point. His parents were quite aware of this. Yet, he remained the Lord's vessel, with or without his consent, quite frankly. His intentions were for evil, but God turned them to His own good purpose. Sounds kind of familiar doesn't it? Look at the testimony of Scripture: his parents tried to dissuade him from his foolishness. "Are the women of Israel so ugly that you must go to these heathens to satisfy your tastes?" But, the following verse is telling: his parents did not know that even Samson's rebellion was of the LORD, for God was seeking an excuse against the Philistines (Jdg 14:3-4). It was in this setting that Samson attacked the lion, again as the Spirit of the Lord prompted him. Now, comes the rebellious spirit following on the work of God. Samson is returning to complete his disobedience in this matter of taking a bride, and on the way he sees the remains of the lion he had killed What's this? A hive of bees has taken residence in it, and the carcass is full of honey, which he took and ate. This was the problem. It was not the killing of the lion which defiled, it was the later association with a thing already dead which defiled. It may seem odd that there would be this distinction, but there it is.

Something rather unexpected has been brought to mind in considering Samson's case. I noted that Samson was being used for God's purposes whether he did so willingly or unwillingly. This is a point that a lot of folks will not accept, however true it is. We are so caught up in our own conception of free will that we cannot stand to look upon a truly sovereign Lord. We call Him 'Sovereign Lord,' but we insist on our right to ignore His commands. So did Samson. Samson was not interested in obeying the call on his life. He was interested in having a woman, preferably one that was off limits to him. Was God pleased to see His instrument playing so poorly? Not at all. On the other hand, the poor condition of the instrument was not going to impede His ability to complete the work. The instrument could still be turned to its intended purpose, and it would be.

Samson is hardly the only example of this Consider Sennacherib. Consider Nebuchadnezzar. Consider Pontius Pilate, or Caiaphas, or Annas. None of these were seeking to do the Lord's work. Far from it! They were, for the most part, laboring in direct opposition to His purposes, at least in their intent. But God truly is the Sovereign Lord. Even Satan, in his desire to plague Job, in his efforts to destroy man, in his attacks upon the Son of God, must, in the end, be found doing only as the Lord directs. As hard as he strives to destroy God's work, he finds at every turn that his worst efforts have only made the work more to the glory of God. Isn't this what Rome discovered about the Christian faith? To labor against it, to seek its violent destruction, only caused it to grow the more rapidly! Isn't this what China and other modern nations are discovering as well? God cannot be stopped in His purposes!

We have free will, to be sure. Every one of those I listed had their free will. They made their choices, and they therefore became accountable for their choices. Man remains a moral agent with moral responsibilities. However, man's free will can never, never trump the power of Almighty God. He will do as He will do. You may choose your path. You may choose to walk with Him, or you may choose to walk away from Him. Yet, His purpose in you will be served. Does this make us automatons? Not at all. We are free to choose, we can do as we please. We can choose the road to damnation, if we find that suits us. We can enjoy the results of what we accomplish by our choices. But, when all is done, when we stand for the final accounting, while we will answer for our choices, it will have been His choices that mattered, His will that was done on earth. What will remain to be asked is whether we were gladly working with Him, or whether we were merely used by Him.

Returning to the Holy Spirit, it should be made clear that while the prevailing power of His presence is most evident in the record of the judges, it is by no means limited to that period. That same prevailing power continues through the entire history of creation, and will do so until history ceases to be. In the time of the judges, the enemies of God's people were, perhaps, more visible and obvious. Therefore, the nature of His prevailing power was more visible and obvious. But, that power has never ceased to operate on behalf of those who labor in God's kingdom. He is still helping His children prevail over their enemies today. He is still giving them the power to overcome addictions, weaknesses, habits, and character flaws. He is still tearing down the strongholds with the hands of believers powered by the Holy Spirit.

Joy (3/31/04)

One last and wonderful benefit we have of the Holy Spirit: joy! The testimony in Acts is that the disciples were constantly full of joy and constantly full of the Holy Spirit (Ac 13:52). That 'and' could as easily be 'because.' Because the Holy Spirit was always in them to overflowing, they were always joyful, and that joy also overflowed from them. Was this the spirit of laughter that has made such an impression on the church in recent years? I can't say for certain, but I rather doubt it. The joy of the Lord is our strength! That is Nehemiah's testimony (Neh 8:10). This was not some giddiness that he was promoting, it was something to stand in opposition to grief. It was his declaration for a day of celebration, a day of holy festival. The Levitical response to this, in guiding the people was, 'Be still, and be not grieved, for this is a holy day' (Neh 8:11). We've lost the idea of a joyful stillness. We've been trained to find only boredom in stillness, but God has something better to offer in that place of gentle silence. That is the place where we can hear Him, where we can feel Him, where we can sense Him filling us with His own sweet presence. And, it is that very awareness of His presence that fills us with joy, and that strengthens us to stand and stand some more.

Jesus told us that the peace He gave was not like the world's peace (Jn 14:27). The peace He has to offer is not such that it can be taken back. It is not given in such a fashion. That's the world's way, give and then take back later. Jesus' way is to give in permanence. "You have My peace, now, He declares, so don't allow yourself to be troubled or afraid. Hold onto that which I have given." The joy of the LORD is a similar matter. It is not like the joy which the world experiences, which is there for a moment and chased away by anger in the next moment. The joy which the Lord gives is a permanent gift. The peace which Jesus gives is so much more than an emotional matter. If it were merely the emotion, the feeling of peacefulness, there would be no cause to tell us not to fear. There can be no fear when the feeling is peace. The joy that comes with the Holy Spirit being within is also more than mere emotion. Giddiness does not produce strength. Indeed, a person reduced to laughter, by tickling for instance, is in a weakened position. They may not even be able to stand! This is strength? No! The joy of the Lord, which so filled the early church, and which ought to fill us today, is a source of strength, it is the joy of confidence. Where is our confidence? It's not in ourselves, certainly! We know better. Our confidence is in the One who has called us, who has appointed us, who has positioned us according to His own purpose. Our confidence is in the One who brought us to that place of silence, filled us with Himself, and who has whispered to us the great shout: "With Me by your side, nothing will be impossible. Nothing. With Me by your side, all things will work for your good, because you work for Me."

This was the joy that Paul knew even in the midst of his greatest trials. This is the joy that could lead a man to write from his prison cell, "Rejoice! And again I say 'rejoice!'" Our gospel, he wrote, is so much more than words, it is powerful Truth witnessed to by the Holy Spirit. You have seen firsthand how it has effected my life, as well as those others who worked with me. Know this, then, even though you are in such great trial, imitate us as you saw us, and imitate the Lord as you have seen Him in us, for you have received the Word, and with Him, the joy of the Holy Spirit (1Th 1:5-6). Like the Gospel itself, the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Holy Spirit, is much more than mere words, much more than mere feelings. It is a joy such as can sustain us in our severest trial.

Are we, then, supposed to laugh and giggle when we're hurt and suffering? Dare I say yes? I say yes for two reasons. First, if you can laugh at your situation, you are halfway to victory over it. If you can face your adversity and remain cheerful, adversity will have to give way to you. How, though? How can you do this? There is one way that reflects a personal insanity, and one other that reflects the source of your strength. The former path chooses to pretend the situation is not as it is, behaves like the child who plugs her ears in hopes of not hearing the truth. This way lies insanity, a denial of the reality around us. The latter path accepts what the situation is, but knows who the Savior is, knows what His promises are, and that in the end He must prevail. This latter way recognizes the promises that are ours by God's own mouth, and knows that as real as the situation is, it is a light and temporary affliction. This latter way sees the situation, but focuses on what is beyond the situation, remembers that which lies just over the horizon, joins Paul in seeing the incredible weight of glory that awaits, and counts the present trial as nothing. That was the power of the martyrs. That is the power of joy, as the Holy Spirit gives it!

Considering the martyrs leads to the second reason why laughing at the hurt may be the right reaction. What made their testimony so powerful? Had they merely gone to their tortures like any other man, they would have been considered to be like any other man. They would have been looked upon no differently than those captives taken in war, those galley slaves whose only remaining purpose in life was to fight in the arena, and hope to live another day - if you can call that hope. Had they gone silently to their deaths, there would be testimony in that. Indeed, this was the way for many of them - simple submission. No struggle. No entertainment for the masses, just stand still as the lions come, hold to God's peace as the flames lick. That's a powerful message to a fellow believer. It lends strength to those who remain. For the unsaved masses, though, it may bring only anger at being deprived of their amusement. But what must they think when you not only refuse to struggle, but laugh in the face of impending death? While I have not faced such a trial, I can say from experience that laughter in the face of a threat will tend to confuse the one who threatens. They're not ready for that. They're expecting fear. They're hungry for fear. From a Christian, they may expect the possibility of submission, but this will mean nothing to them. It will only show weakness in their eyes. But laughter? Being amused by their efforts? Being amused even as the gun goes off? This is confusing. This must cause them to rethink the situation. Laughter can steal the victory even out of the jaws of death.

Over death, our Lord has already conquered. It could not hold Him, and it shall not hold those who belong to Him. Having conquered death, He is the Lord over death as well as life. It must obey His commands. Did He laugh upon the cross? I don't think so. No, the record is clear that His anguish was deep and incredibly painful to Him. He was suffering separation from the Father, He was suffering the full weight of our sins, Him who knew no sin was feeling the effects of every sin man ever had and ever would commit. Nothing could so rend the heart as that sudden rejection by the Father of Love. Yet, I have no doubt that the moment His atoning work was complete, the moment that communion with His Father was restored, what incredible joy must have burst forth within Him! Oh, how He must have laughed at the death which had thought to claim Him! Oh! How He rejoices still in the victory He has brought not only to Himself, but to every one who will put their trust in Him! This is the joy which the Spirit imparts to the believer! It's a share of the joy He has in Himself. It's the joy of knowing the end of the story. It's the joy that accompanies the peace He gave. It's the joy of confidence in Him who strengthens us.

The Holy Spirit will come, Jesus told us, and bring to mind all I have taught, and all I have done. If that is not cause for joy, then there is no cause for joy. When we recall all that Jesus has done, we can only recall that He has done it all. Everything that mattered, everything that was necessary for our salvation, everything that God required, He has done! Having done it all, He has bequeathed to us the benefit of His deeds. "My peace I give to you." Indeed! The peace of knowing that God is no longer a cause for terror in me, but a cause for rejoicing. The peace of knowing that my righteousness does not rest any longer on the impossible labor of perfect obedience, for Perfect Obedience has come, and with His peace, He has bequeathed to me also His righteousness. He has done it all! It doesn't depend on me, anymore! I can relax, knowing that His hand guides me, His Holy Spirit informs me and corrects me when I need it, His love forgives me when I blow it, and His righteousness clothes me when I stand before Him! Rejoice, indeed! And again I say, I shall rejoice, knowing my Savior's love, knowing my God is with me in every moment! I will rejoice knowing that though He slay me, yet He is faithful! If He requires my death, yet He gives me life! Glory!