BIBLE
DIGEST - Number 20 December
1992
THE
PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT
By Allon
Maxwell
|
No one can read
the Gospels or the Acts without realising that the preaching of the Gospel in
the first century, opened the door to a revelation of the power of God in a
way which is largely lacking in the 20th century church. The miracles
which accompanied the preaching of the Gospel, declared God's approval of the
message. They confirmed the truth of the claim that the Christ in whose name
the message was preached, was indeed risen from the dead and exalted to the
position of supremacy at God's right hand. One of the
significant problems of our time is that most of the church has developed a
theology which allows it to remain comfortable with its lack of power. This theology,
firstly explains away the present need for such power and, secondly, denies
the possibility that gifts of the Holy Spirit, through which the power is
revealed, can still be present in the church at all. This denial
rejects any present relevance for those marvellous elements of the Gospel
which enable Jesus to reveal His unchanging compassion for the desperate. It
rejects His willingness to meet all who come to Him, from the resources of
the unlimited power now placed in His hands by God. It takes away
the hope, offered in the Gospels, of meeting with a God who does care after
all, about rescuing those who are oppressed by the devil. (Acts 10:38) The thrilling
experiential Christianity of the first century, with its God given guarantee
of a future inheritance, (Ephesians 1:13-14),
is replaced by a religion in which the guarantee is neither offered nor
permitted! This is empty
religion, dangerously close to having the outward form of Christianity, but
denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:5) THE PROMISE FOR
US TODAY I am painfully
aware, through hard personal experience, that there are indeed many false
spirits in our religious world, that are not from God. (1 John 4:1) However, I am
also convinced, beyond question, that the promise of the Gift of the Holy
Spirit, (John 14:15-17), was for all
true followers of Jesus, in all places and all time. The promise has
been preserved by God, in the Gospels handed down to us from those first
century witnesses who wrote, under inspiration, about the things they saw
Jesus do, and heard Him say. The reality has
been demonstrated in the life and witness of the first century church. The wording of
the promise makes it clear that it still remains as valid today as it was in
the first century. It is as much a part of the Gospel for the 20th century as
it was in the first. If we
understand Jesus correctly, we need both the Spirit's fruit and the
Spirit's power to faithfully portray Him to those who hear the Gospel
from us. If we do
recognise that real power is lacking from our experience, we must not
oversimplify the solution. The lack of the Spirit's power is only a SYMPTOM
of another major lack. Before we
presume to ask for any gift of the Holy Spirit, there are some hard questions
which we much ask ourselves. We will need to
be prepared to wait as long as it takes, until we are sure beyond doubt that
we have found God's answers to those questions. We will need to
be totally honest before God that we are prepared to accept those answers and
act on them, whatever the personal cost may be. We must face the reality,
that the cost can be very high indeed. THE SPIRIT OF
TRUTH The lack of the
Spirit's power in our church, or in us, might mean that what we preach (if we
preach at all!) is something that Jesus is totally unwilling to confirm. (Mark 16:20) The Spirit of
God does not guarantee us instant infallibility. Nor does it relieve us of
our responsibility for continuing prayerful and open-hearted search for
understanding of Bible Truth. We will need to
go before God to ask Him to reveal to us THE TRUTH which is the heart of the
Gospel. We will need to spend time in the Word of God to allow God to quicken
the Truth to our hearts. God's emphasis
and God's priorities for Truth will almost certainly be different to anything
we have inherited from men who deny the real need for the Spirit's power in
the church. It just might
be possible that we have been blinded by "traditions of men".
Tradition, even if true, can be emphasised at the expense of other more
fundamental and essential truth, without which there can be no real
foundation laid for true Christian faith. Do we really
dare to ask God to show us what it is that Jesus WILL confirm? TO THEM THAT
OBEY One essential
condition of the promise was related to obedience to the teaching of Jesus. (John 14:15-16 and Acts 5:32) The lack of the
Spirit's power in our church, or in us, will almost certainly mean that there
is something important missing from our obedience, which disqualifies us from
the promise. We will need to
go before God to ask Him to reveal to us, and convict us to the point of
Godly sorrow, of those vital personal TRUTHS about Sin and Righteousness and
Judgement. (John 16:8-11) These are
essential to obedience! We need to
learn them for ourselves, before we can expect Jesus to confirm anything we
dare to preach in His name. Has our baptism
in water been founded in true repentance and a heart's cry for forgiveness
and a clear conscience? Do we continue
to ask God to speak clearly to us about our sins so that we can grow in the
grace and holiness which are the goal of this New Life we say we have been
given? Are we
compromised with the World? Or are we separated irrevocably from this world
by our commitment to radical, costly obedience to His teaching about the way
of life that pleases God? Do we share the
love of Jesus for this lost world of ours to the extent that we are willing
to take up and carry a real cross with Him? TO GLORIFY
JESUS Why do we want
this Power? We must resolve this question, honestly, before any other. Are we prepared
to glorify Jesus ALWAYS and NEVER ourselves? Do we want
people to look up to US, or to fall on their knees before Jesus? Can we be
trusted to use what we are given, always only to point others to Jesus and
never to satisfy our own self-interest? Do we want to
be served? Or are we willing to serve? Do we want to
give, or to receive? Are we willing
to give up ALL that we have? Or do we want financial rewards? Let us be
totally honest about all this. We would be better to have no power at all
than to be wrong about our motives in any of these things. CHOSEN OUT OF
THE WORLD Can we face
persecution and rejection? If we do get this right, persecution is
guaranteed, perhaps even from the friends of a lifetime; and certainly, from
the church at large which labels our distinctive Abrahamic Faith as heresy. WHAT GIFT? If we are ever
to experience real gifts of the Holy Spirit, we must make love our priority
..... that Divine love described by Paul, which marks the indwelling presence
of God. Only with that
priority settled; with all personal ego, pride and ambition set aside, are we
encouraged to seek gifts. And if we do
seek gifts, we must remember that it is prophecy that Paul encourages, NOT
tongues! (1 Corinthians 14:1) Would we be
content with that same gift of prophecy (and no more) which was seen in John
the Baptist? John worked no
miracle. For him the power was in the words through which God convicted so
many of their need for repentance. Would we be
content with one of those "lesser" invisible gifts, in which the
left hand will never get to hear what the right hand has done? Gifts such as
helping All of these
"lesser" gifts are equally works of power, by the same Holy Spirit
which moves mountains, or opens the eyes of the blind. And all of them are
far more often needed than those other more spectacular revelations of the
power of God. Perhaps we will
need to redefine our understanding of what "power" really is! If we have
fixed our eyes and egos on the spectacular; if we find those other less
visible things less exciting and less satisfying, we are not yet ready for
any real gifts of the Holy Spirit ..... and we will be open to deception from
the many false spirits that are abroad in the church around us. HOW WILL WE
RECOGNISE OUR GIFT? We will need to
be totally open to hear from God what it is that God really wants to do. From
that point it no longer depends on our human ability to hear, but on God's
infinite ability to communicate with those whose hearts are pure, and who are
willing to hear and do what He says. JESUS IS LORD What it amounts
to, is this. Are we looking for an "experience", or for Jesus as
Lord of all our being? If Jesus
Himself is missing as Lord of Life, there can be no real experience of the
Holy Spirit. However, where
there is true surrender to Jesus, and where there is real love for Jesus
..... enough love to lead us into life changing obedience to ALL His
commandments, there will be no lack of the Spirit's power for anything that
God wants to do. I do believe
that I have seen REAL gifts of the Spirit at work in the lives of those who
have this life changing love for Jesus; a love found only in a deeply
humbling personal encounter with Him, at the cross. Their lives bear the
fruit of radical obedience, in a way which is rarely encountered in this
generation. Any gift that I
may have seen and believe to be valid, is totally founded on that TRUTH. |