Continually Led By The Spirit

Last night I tried to make it clear to you what I believe the Bible emphasizes. There are only two possible ways of achieving righteousness, just two and no more. One is by keeping a law, the other is by God’s grace. And every one of us who seeks righteousness in any way has to be seeking it in one or other of those ways. There are no other ways.

And I gave an example of the two ways from two ways of finding your way to a place that’s your destination. You’ve got to traverse country that you’ve never traversed, there are two ways you can find the way. One is the map, the other is the personal guide. Now the map corresponds to the law, and the law of Moses which God gave to Israel was an absolutely perfect map. If anybody had followed the map exactly they would have achieved perfect righteousness. There’s nothing wrong with the map and Paul is very insistence, there’s nothing wrong with the law. He said the law is holy and just and perfect. The problem is in human nature. He says the law could not achieve righteousness because of the weakness of our carnal nature. You see the Bible reveals that every one of us is born with an inner problem which is rebellion against God, and when we set our will to keep the law this rebel in us rises up and frustrates our most sincere efforts to do so.

It’s a very amazing fact, which perhaps some of you have not really pondered, but immediately after God gave the covenant of the law to Israel on Mount Sinai to a people whom He had redeemed not by law but by faith out of bondage in Egypt, the first thing the people did was break the first two commandments—not to have any other god and not to worship idols. Now people often suggest that people break the law because it’s too difficult to keep it. But

that’s absurd in that context. It was much more difficult for them to make a golden calf and worship it then it was to just go on obeying God. Why did they do that? Because the law that was given to them provoked the rebel inside them, and they didn’t come out with just a little minor rebellion. They immediately broke the first two commandants. That’s a vivid demonstration of the problem. The problem is not in the law. The problem is in you and me. So if we were left to our own efforts we’d just have to say, ‘God, we can’t make it.’ There’s nothing wrong with the map, but every time I try to follow the map I stumble into a bog.

Thank God for the alternative. What’s the alternative? A personal guide. Who is the personal guide? The Holy Spirit. We offer the Holy Spirit and law and say here is the map and He says, ‘Thank you, but I know the way. I don’t need the map, and all you need to do is hold My hand and let Me lead you.’ Those are the two alternatives and there are no others.

So tonight, in what I believe is a logical sequence, I want to speak to you on how to be led by the Holy Spirit. Now in order to become a child of God, the Scripture makes it very clear, you have to have an experience with the Holy Spirit, you have to be born again of the Spirit of God. How many of you in some version or other at some time or place have heard that message, you must be born again? Just raise your hand. Just look at that. There’s hardly a person here who hasn’t heard that.

Now I want to ask a second question. How many of you have ever had clear practical systematic on how to be led by the Holy Spirit? Don’t be ashamed. Put your hand up. I’d like to see them. Well, it’s about one out of fifty, wouldn’t you say. Well you see that really lays bare one of the root problems of the church. Lots of people who have been born again have never been taught how to be led by the Spirit, so they get into the kingdom and they stumble around and never make any real progress. Tonight, therefore, I’m going to deal with this theme of How To Be Led By The Holy Spirit. I’m going to give you a number of relevant facts and I’m going to leave you, in a sense, to draw your own conclusions from those facts.

First of all there is no substitute in the whole universe for the Holy Spirit. He is absolutely unique and He can do things that no other person and no other power can do. And He’s the only one who can do in us what God wants done. There’s a Scripture in the Old Testament, Zechariah chapter 4 and verse 6,

“‘This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel:
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit.’
Says the LORD of hosts.”

Now those last words are important. It’s the Lord of hosts speaking, the God who commands all the hosts of heaven and earth, but He’s saying, It’s not going to be done by my hosts, it’s not going to be done by my might, it’s not going to be done by my power,’ simply because might and power cannot do what has to be done which is change people radically inside. Force won’t do it, pressure won’t do it, law won’t do it, government can’t do it. There’s only one agent that can do it—the Holy Spirit. And that’s why the Lord says,

“Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit.”

I want you to grasp that. If you want what God has for you. If you want to enter into the kind of life that God has prepared for you in Christ, you are totally dependent on the Holy Spirit. Apart from Him you cannot do it. There’s no substitute. Education won’t do it, talent won’t do it, money won’t do it, nothing and no one but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, and we turn now to the New Testament to Romans chapter 8 and verse 14, Paul makes there a definitive statement. He says,

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

Now to become a child of God, a little baby, you are born of the Spirit of God. That makes you a child. The word used in Greek is teknon. But Paul is speaking here, not about little babies, but about mature sons and daughters. It’s a different Greek word that’s used. And he says the only people who qualify to be sons and daughters of God are those who led by the Holy Spirit. There is no other way that you can grow to maturity as a child of God, except by being led by the Holy Spirit.

Now it’s a tragic fact that millions of people who have been born again of the Spirit of God, have never attained to spiritual maturity because they have never learned how to be led by the Spirit of God. There is no other way. In the Greek language it’s a continuing present tense as many as are being continually led by the Spirit of God. It’s not something that happens in church on Sunday morning or when you kneel by your bed to pray. It’s something that happens day by day, hour by hour and moment by moment. Those who are being continually led by the Spirit of God, they and only they become mature sons and daughters of God.

I had a tremendously powerful personal experience of the Holy Spirit with I came to know Jesus. I was under the power of God on the floor in an Army barrack room in the British Army in World War II for well over an hour. A totally strange experience to me. So my encounter with Jesus was also an encounter with the Holy Spirit and His power. And from then on the Holy Spirit was always a reality to me, and I studied about the Holy Spirit, and I believed in the Holy Spirit, and when I became a preacher I preached about the Holy Spirit. I preached many, many times you must be born again of the Spirit, but looking back I have to say with regret that the Holy Spirit for me at that time was rather like an emergency vehicle. When I was in desperate trouble I phoned for the ambulance. The ambulance always turned up and helped me, but my relationship with the Holy Spirit was very spasmodic. And I’d have to say, because in many ways, I was deeply immersed in religion, and actually religion and the Holy Spirit very often don’t go together. Automatically if we are full of religious exercises, we tend to rely on them and not on the Holy Spirit. I used a lot of spiritual language, but there wasn’t so much real spiritual content in my life, and God permitted for me to go through various experiences that I’m not going to describe, all of which were designed one after the other to make me aware of my total dependence on the Holy Spirit. And many of you have been going through frustrations and problems and heartaches and you’re may have been saying, ‘God, why?’ And I’ll tell you one very probably reason God has permitted these problems to come in your life—to show you that you need the Holy Spirit every day, every hour and every moment. There is no other way to succeed in the Christian life than to be led by the Holy Spirit.

Now the Holy Spirit is totally willing. We never have to coerce Him, we never have to cajole Him. The problem, if there is a problem, is always in us—never in the Holy Spirit. The Scripture says ‘the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,’ so you cannot do the things you would like to do. There’s a built in antipathy in our old carnal nature toward the Spirit. And so we have to learn not to be dictated to by our carnal nature, we have to learn to reckon that carnal nature dead through the death of Jesus on the cross, and we have to live to God through the Spirit. Now I don’t believe anybody achieves that instantly. Some people, and they’re usually the conspicuously successful Christians, learn it quickly. They’re not necessarily preachers, they may be people who are members of the body of Christ. Often it’s the intercessors who learn this lesson, the people who pray in hidden places and are who are not much seen in public. But there is no other way to success. If you want to succeed in the Christian life than the lesson that I’m teaching you tonight is essential—there’s no option.

Now I’m going to try to introduce you in a simple way to certain aspects of the Holy Spirit. The first and vital fact is that the Holy Spirit is a person. He’s not just half a sentence at the end of the Apostle’s Creed. ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church etc.’ I think it’s something of a disaster that our official creed gives just half a sentence to the Holy Spirit. The thing about the Holy Spirit is He personally is very self-effacing. He never attracts attention to Himself, He always focuses attention on the Lord Jesus Christ. But the fact that He’s self

effacing doesn’t mean that we can afford to ignore Him. Turn to John, if you wish to, John 16 verses 7 and 13, John 16 verses 7 and 13. Jesus is just warning His disciples that He’s about to leave them in personal presence and return to the Father in heaven, but He tells them that He’s made provision for their well-being after He leaves and this provision is another Person who will come from heaven after Jesus has returned there. The other Person of course is the Holy Spirit, and in John 16 verse 7 He says,

“‘Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper…”

Or the Comforter, or the Counselor—there are various different words—the Roman Catholic version uses the word Paraclete, which is a transliteration of a Greek verb paracleta which mean probably one called in along side. Perhaps the closest e1quivalent would be an Advocate, and it has a certain legal connotation. Somebody who’s called in along side to help you, to plead your case in the law court when you’re not competent to do it. So all those word say something about the Holy Spirit—the Comforter, the Helper, the Counselor, the Advocate, the Paraclete. Anyhow, Jesus says,

“‘…if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you: but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

Two points to notice—first of all Jesus says, ‘I am leaving you as a Person.’ Jesus, tonight as a Person, is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He is to on earth. But He said, ‘If I go back to heaven in My place I will send you another Person.’ That word another is particularly important, because it emphasizes that the Holy Spirit is just as much a Person as Jesus Himself and as the Father. The New Testament, in fact the whole Bible reveals the triune nature of God—

one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each of those three aspects of the Godhead is a Person. The Father is a Person, the Son is a Person, the Spirit is a Person. Now we have no difficulty, I think, understanding that the Father is a Person and that the Son is a Person, but I think many people find it hard to comprehend that the Spirit is just as much a Person although of a somewhat different kind.

The second point in the verse is Jesus said, ‘It is to your advantage that I should go away, because if I don’t go the Helper won’t come, but if I go I’ll send Him in My place.’ What Jesus is saying is something that surprises many Christians. He’s saying to His disciples, ‘You’ll be better off with Me in heaven and the Holy Spirit on earth, than you are with Me on earth and the Holy Spirit in heaven.’

Now lots of you have said to yourself at one time or another, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it have been wonderful to be there when the days that Jesus was on earth when we could actually fellowship with Him in His human nature?’ Well it would have been wonderful, but Jesus is saying, ‘Nevertheless you’re much better off now with Me in heaven and the Spirit on earth, then you would have been if I were still on earth and the Spirit was still in heaven.’ And if you study the history of the development of the church it’s obvious. The day the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost those disciples were transformed in a way they had never been transformed all the time that Jesus was with them. Even up to the last moments at the Last Supper they were quarrelling among themselves which of them should be the greatest. Half the profound truths about His death and resurrection they simply could not understand. But the moment the Holy Spirit came they had a totally different grasp of the identity of Jesus and of the reality and meaning of His death and resurrection, and of the Scriptures. Before the day of Pentecost Peter could never have stood up and applied the Prophet Joel to this situation. He had no insight. That insight didn’t come gradually—it came instantly. The moment the Holy Spirit came the whole attitude and grasp of spiritual things was revolutionized instantly. So that’s why Jesus said, ‘You’ll be better off when I’m back in heaven and the Holy Spirit has come to earth, than you are now with Me on earth and the Holy Spirit in heaven.’ But you see the other truth which I pointed out, there’s an exchange of persons. One Person had to go, Jesus, before the other Person, the Holy Spirit, could come. But each of them is a Person.

“And then in the same 16th chapter of John, the 13th verse Jesus says,
‘However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth;”

Now the Greek language in which the New Testament has come to us, is a language with genders—that is it has masculine, feminine and neuter. We have very little of that in English although we have the three pronouns; he, she and it. They’re not like French or Spanish or other languages which make window masculine and a door feminine. I’ve never understood why a door is feminine and windows masculine, but that’s the way it is in French and so on. But that’s what we call grammatical genders. Now in the Greek language the word for Spirit pluma is neuter. It’s not male, it’s not masculine, it’s not feminine—it’s neuter—it’s not male, it’s not

masculine, it’s not feminine, it’s neuter. So the appropriate pronoun would be it. But in those words Jesus breaks the laws of grammar to use the wrong grammatical pronoun and He doesn’t say it, He says, ‘When He, the Spirit of truth has come.’ Why does He do that? To leave no possible doubt that the Holy Spirit is not an it, He’s not just an influence, He’s not just a doctrine, He’s not a theological abstraction. What is He? He’s a person. That’s right. That’s vital. If you don’t understand that, you’ll always have problems in relating to the Holy Spirit, just as I would have problems relating to my wife if I didn’t realize my wife was a person. Our marriage would be on the rocks. And a lot of people have a very uneasy relationship with the Holy Spirit because they haven’t grasped the fact that the Holy Spirit is a person.

The next vital fact is a continuation of that. Not only is He a person, but He is Lord, just as much as God the Father is Lord and God the Son is Lord, God the Spirit is Lord. He’s co-equal with the other two members of the Godhead. In one of the creeds it says, who together with the Father and Son is worshiped. Now worship is offered only to God. In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Paul makes this simple statement. 2 Corinthians 3:17,

Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Now the word or the phrase the Lord in the New Testament corresponds to the sacred name of God in the Old Testament which is sometimes called Jehovah. It’s the name of the one true God, so when Paul says ‘…the Lord is the Spirit,’ he’s says, ‘…the Spirit is God, He is Lord.’ And he says, ‘Where the Spirit is, there is liberty.’ You see there you have this contrast between bondage to a law and a legal system, or liberty. How do we have liberty? Only one way, where the Holy Spirit is there is liberty. Somebody has paraphrased that verse,

“Where the Holy Spirit is Lord, there is liberty.”

You see, Pentecostals and other people like them of whom I’m one, have often had the strangest ideas of liberty. Like if we don’t get dancing on the platform by 6:45 P.M. on Sunday evening, we’re not having liberty. Or if we don’t all clap our hands we don’t have liberty. Or some preachers think if they don’t stamp on the platform and shout they don’t have liberty. Now some preachers have liberty when they stamp on the platform and shout. For me to do that wouldn’t be liberty, that would be bondage. You understand. So liberty is not following a certain program in church on Sunday evenings. It’s not going through certain motions like lifting up your hands. That can be liberty. It can equally well be bondage. It depends whether the Holy Spirit is prompting it or you’re doing it out of a religious tradition, because religious traditions produce bondage, the Holy Spirit produces liberty.

So that means to say that you have to have the same attitude of reverence toward the Holy Spirit that you have toward the Father and the Son. And you see you have no more access to God than you have by the Holy Spirit, because there’s a principle in the Godhead. The One who sent as the representative has to be honored to have access to the Godhead, so when the Father sent the Son He said, ‘From now on no one comes to Me through the Son. You cannot bypass my representative and come to Me, because in every situation and circumstance, I uphold the one whom I have sent.’ When Jesus had finished His task and returned to the Father, the Father and the Son, as I understand it—this of course is a theological issue but I don’t want to go into that— the Father and the Son sent the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And now the same principle applies. You have no access to the Father and the Son except by the Spirit. You cannot bypass the Spirit and come to the Father or to the Son. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2,

Through Him [that’s Jesus] we both [that’s Jews and Gentiles] have access by

“one Spirit to the Father.”

You cannot leave out the Holy Spirit and have access. Lot’s of evangelical Christians focus on the fact that we have access to God through the Son, Jesus, that’s perfectly true, but it’s not the whole truth. It’s through the Son by the Spirit to the Father. Likewise the Father indwells us when we’re in the Son through His Spirit. In each direction, whether we are going to God or whether God is coming to us, the Spirit is an essential part of the equation. We have access in the Son through the Spirit to the Father. The Father indwells us when we are in the Son through the Spirit. If we leave the Holy Spirit out of that equation we have no access to God and God has no access to us. We are totally dependent on the Holy Spirit.

Somebody said, ‘The great sin of the church for many centuries has been snubbing the Holy Spirit.’ We have not treated Him with the reverence, with the honor and with the respect which are His due. I trust that the words that I’m bringing tonight, will in your life, produce any necessary changes.

Now in order to relate to a person there’s one word that’s essential in all unsuccessful relationships I believe, and that’s sensitivity. I think you’ll agree, husbands and wives, in your relationship where either of you is insensitive the relationship suffers. I think really lack of sensitivity is the root cause of the breakdown of countless marriages. You cannot have a successful relationship with another person without mutual sensitivity to that person. It’s often in a husband and wife relationship when one of the partners is under pressure. People under pressure sometimes behave in a rather difficult way. Now my wife is a wonderful wife, but if my wife is under pressure, physical pressure, emotional pressure, she may at times speak with a little sharpness in her voice, she may be a little quick to react. It’s much more likely to happen to me don’t you see. But suppose I get upset with what I consider to be an unreasonable attitude, then I react and what’s the result? Well I don’t need to tell you married couples, the result is trouble. What’s the problem? my lack of sensitivity. I should discern my wife is under pressure and I should be extra tender and extra considerate at that moment allowing for the pressure. But if I’m wrapped up in myself and my own problems I won’t be sensitive. I’ll think, ‘Well that’s just like her to get a little temperamental just before I have to preach. She ought to have known.’ Incidentally it didn’t happen this evening, I want you to know that. It’s the same. This is just a little parable. It’s the same in relating to the Holy Spirit. We have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And if we get all wrapped up in our own fleshly considerations and desires and problems, we won’t related rightly to the Holy Spirit.

There’s a beautiful picture of what the Holy Spirit wants in a person. He only found it in one man. Who was the one man in whom the Holy Spirit found what He wanted—Jesus, that’s right. And the mark that Jesus was the Messiah was what—that the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form but that wasn’t the real significant fact. The really significant fact was the Holy Spirit remained on Him. The Holy Spirit has descended on many of us, but we’ve said and done things that scared that dove away. Jesus never scared the dove away. Let’s look at the picture of John the Baptist introducing Jesus, in John chapter 1 verse 29 and then verses 32 and following.

“The next day John [that’s John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold ! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
He pictured Jesus as a Lamb and then he said in verse 32,
And John bore witness, saying, ‘I saw the Spirit descending form heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
‘I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’
‘And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.’”

So there are two persons of the Godhead—the Son and the Spirit—are both represented in the picture of members of the animal creation. Jesus is portrayed as the lamb, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. Now that’s a very beautiful representation of the truth. What is the dove looking for?—He’s looking for the nature of the lamb. And where He finds the nature of the lamb, He’ll not merely come down but He’ll stay on us. A dove, I believe the kind of dove represents here the beautiful pure white bird. Interestingly enough it’s the only bird that can focus with both eyes on one object. No other bird can do that. And it’s on the whole a timid bird, easily scared away. All of which shows us that we need sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

Many years ago, about 1946 in Jerusalem, I was teaching a children’s church in the home we occupied there at that time—our meetings were held on the first floor in a big kind of entrance hall and the pulpit was in front of a door that opened onto a veranda. I was standing behind the pulpit with my back to the door and to the veranda, and on the veranda we happened to have a round table with, what we were using as a table cloth, was an Arab woman’s shawl or head shawl, which is a circular thing which she folds in half and puts across her forehead and drapes over herself, her shoulders, but it’s circular. So we used this black circular shawl as a table, as a tablecloth for this circular table. And I was teaching the children on the Holy Spirit and I was telling them the Holy Spirit is like a dove and that if we want the dove to stay with us we’ve got to be very careful we don’t say or do anything that would scare him away. And as I was teaching I noticed that the children’s attention just riveted on me. They became absolutely quiet, their eyes were round and big and focused in my direction, and I never have had such attention in a group of children. You know what had happened? Without my knowing it a beautiful white dove had alighted in the center of that black tablecloth and was standing there, and of course, the white against the black was so vivid and the children were desperately afraid they would do something that would scare the dove away. That’s one of my sermons that the Lord Himself chose to illustrate. And that stayed with me because I saw the rapt attention of those children. And I thought if only we could understand that the Holy Spirit is like that, how careful we would be in our attitudes and our relationships to Him.

What is the nature of the Lamb? I think in the Bible the lamb represents certain things and these are the things that attract the Holy Spirit—purity, meekness and a life laid down in sacrifice. Do you want to have the Holy Spirit continually with you? Those are the things you need to cultivate—purity, meekness and the life that you’re not living for yourself—a life that’s laid down for Christ and for His body. And then the dove will settle on you and you will not scare Him away.

Jesus attributed His whole ministry to the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you turn to Luke chapter 4 for a moment. He never took credit Himself for what He did. It says in Luke 4 verse 17 and following, when He was in the synagogue in His home city Nazareth,

“And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
‘The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, [How good He didn’t have to was upon Me—the Spirit of the LORD is upon Me.]
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To preach liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To preach the acceptable year of the LORD.’”

Do you and I wish to continue with that message and that ministry? We are under the same condition as the Lord, it’s only possible by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. John Wesley quoted

those words in one of his journals and said, ‘I suppose that these words are true of every man who has been truly called to proclaim the gospel.’ There is no other way that we can have any success in ministry accept by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The success of our ministry is in exact proportion to the measure of the anointing of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus could not do it without the Holy Spirit, be very sure that you and I cannot.

If we turn to Ephesians chapter 4 for a moment we look at some of the things that attract the dove and some of the things that repel the dove. We’ll just read a few words at the end of Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29.

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

The first condition really is the way we use our mouths, and I am becoming more and more aware that lots of things we say that are not vulgar, they’re are not blasphemous are just not very pleasing to the Holy Spirit. I think there’s a kind of flippancy. I have to admit there are jokes which are perfectly harmless, what we call ethnic jokes—you know making jokes about the Poles or the Irish—I don’t believe they’re pleasing to God, because God loves all races and all nations. I think we can use a lot of idle words that don’t please the dove at all. Jesus said,

“Every idle word that men speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
[Then Paul continues] Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [do not scare the dove away], by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
[And then he gives a list of things that scare the dove.] Let all bitterness, wrath, anger shouting, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. [And then these are the things the dove looks for.] Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you.
Kind, tenderhearted and ready to forgive.”

I’d like to say a little bit now about the relationship between the Spirit of God and the word of God. I think it’s extremely important to understand that. First of all we have to understand that the Bible has one author, only one, many instruments, but only one author—who was that?—the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. That means it’s inbreathed of the Spirit of God. That’s why all Scripture is authoritative. That’s why all Scripture is reliable, not because it was written by Apostles or Prophets, because all of them were weak and fallible men, but because the Holy Spirit guided and overruled and gave the pure truth of God through those instruments. So He’s the author. It’s very important to understand that.

And also He’s the interpreter. Isn’t it wonderful that the same on that authored the Scripture will interpret it for us. You could never want a better interpreter for any book than the books author. And God’s wonderful provision is that the same one that authored it will be our interpreter. Jesus said, and we’re gong back to John again, John chapter 14 and verse 26,

“But the Helper [Comforter, Counselor], the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

See the Lord Jesus made total provision both for the past and for the future. He said, ‘Everything I’ve already told you, the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance. You’ll remember it accurately. Everything else you need to know and have not yet learned, He will teach you. He is the interpreter. And then in John 16:13, words that we’ve already read,

“‘However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth…”

Isn’t that beautiful—He will guide you into all truth. We do not need to go into error is we are led by the Holy Spirit. And then in 2 Peter chapter 1, both truths are brought out together,

2 Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21,

“knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation,
for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”

All true prophecy is given by the Holy Spirit. It’s guaranteed in it’s accuracy. And therefore, Peter says and this is very, very significant, no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. There’s only one authorized interpreter—who’s that—the Holy Spirit. We can form our own conclusions, but if we’re not led by the Holy Spirit they are not valid. That gives us such a tremendous dependence on the Holy Spirit when we read our Bibles. The only valid interpretation of Scripture is that which the Holy Spirit gives. And if we were all led by the Holy Spirit we would all agree in the interpretation of Scripture.

Then I’d like to speak—well let me give you this little example first. I think what I’m trying to emphasize tonight I think you understand that the Holy Spirit is indispensable. There is no substitute, and when I think about the Bible I think about a book that contains sixty-six books, a certain number of chapters, certain number of verses—it’s finite. It’s got a beginning and an end and we’re forbidden to add anything to it.

How then can it meet every need? How is it unlimited in its application? The answer is through the Interpreter. And this is the little picture that God gave me. You have a piano. It’s a finite piece of furniture, it’s got a certain number of notes, so many white notes, so many black notes. It has the bottom note, it has the top note. That’s finite. But you take a skilled pianist and the melody he can produce is infinite. There is no limit to the music that can come out of that finite piano because of the interpreter, the player. Who’s the player on the piano—the Holy Spirit, that’s right. That’s why the word of God is limitless in its application. It’s finite in its number of books and chapters and verses, but the interpreter, the player, the pianist makes it infinite. Many of you tonight would get much more out of the word of God if you’d open up to the Holy Spirit before you turn to the word of God. If you’d invite the Holy Spirit, He’s very willing to come, but He usually waits to be invited. He’s not pushy, He’s not self-assertive.

Many of you find reading the Bible something of a chore. It’s a kind of duty that you may or may not fulfill. I want to tell you that that’s a very tragic condition to be in, and you’re in that condition because of a wrong relationship to the Holy Spirit. If you had a right relationship with the Holy Spirit the word of God would be for you infinitely richer. I’ve studied and read the Bible for forty-four years, and I have to say to you it’s richer to me now then it ever has been in the past. It’s so far from concluding that I’ve just about learned everything, I feel like a child paddling in the margin of a measureless ocean. I feel the real truth is still out there. There is no limit.

Then I’d like to speak about the Holy Spirit and prayer for a moment. And I want to say again, the Holy Spirit is indispensable. No one can pray a prayer that’s acceptable to God or effective apart from the Holy Spirit. And again if we pray such prayers, the reason is we haven’t acknowledged our need of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8 verses 26 and 27 says this very plainly.

“Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He [the Spirit] makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

Paul says there we all have certain weaknesses—not physical weaknesses but weaknesses of our fleshly nature, our Adamic nature. We have a two-fold weakness. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray for, and even when we know what to pray for, we don’t know how to pray for it.

Now I imagine there’s not an honest person here tonight that would deny having those weaknesses. Many, many times you know that prayer is needed but you don’t know what to pray for. Or you know that such and such a person or such and such a situation is in desperate need of prayer, but you don’t know how to pray. We don’t need to remain in that condition. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. The real secret of successful praying is plugging into the Holy Spirit and letting Him prayer. You can have a prayer meeting going on inside you twenty-four hours every day.

I’m reminded of a story of a minister years back in Sweden, a Pentecostal pastor who was traveling through the country and he visited a friend of his, spent the night in his home. And in the course of evening, at supper, the twelve year old son of his host became interested in spiritual things and so the pastor prayed for the young boy and he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues.

Well then the pastor went off to his guestroom, the father and the son went off to another part of the house and they didn’t meet again until the next morning at breakfast. Next morning at breakfast the pastor said to his host, ‘How did you sleep?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t get any sleep last night. My son was talking in tongues all night.’ So the pastor said to the son, ‘And how did you sleep?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I slept perfectly all night.’ You see you can have a prayer meeting going on inside you even when your mind is inactive.

“The bride of Christ says in the Song of Solomon,
I sleep, but my heart waketh.”

Your mind is asleep, your soul is asleep, but your spirit has got a prayer meeting going on all the time. Now I’ve lived with people like that. I know it’s real. My first wife was like that. She was a walking prayer meeting. She didn’t have to get religious to pray. She could be changing a baby’s napkin and be praying, you know. It didn’t make any difference to her. When she was brining up the children in Jerusalem, they would play horses on her back while she was praying. That didn’t make any difference to her. She could reach out and stir the soup and be praying, you know. We can live a life of prayer. We don’t have to be in some religious attitude, we don’t have to use a lot of strange formula. It’s much more natural than that. It’s supernaturally natural.

I’d like to just mention four kinds of prayer. Now there are multitudes—this is just a suggestion—just to show you different ways in which the Holy Spirit helps us. He doesn’t have just one repertoire. He has an unlimited repertoire. It’s the kind of prayer that’s based directly on Scripture. The Holy Spirit directs you to a promise of the word and you say, ‘Lord, do what You’ve said.’ David prayed like that. When Nathan the Prophet brought a message to him and God was going to build him a house, he went and sat in the presence of the Lord. I’m so glad he didn’t kneel. I mean I believe in kneeling, but sometimes we get so intense and we’re under such strain that we can’t let the Holy Spirit minister to us. He sat, relaxed, I suppose he meditated on the tremendous promise that God had given him which was not one he’d even thought of asking for. And then he said after a while,

“Lord, let the word that you’ve spoken concerning your servants house be established, and do as You have said.”

Now that’s the most powerful prayer you can ever pray. ‘God, you said it, You do it.’ Now you can’t pick Scriptures out of the Bible and say, ‘God do that.’ The Holy Spirit has to lead you to the Scripture which represents what God wants to do.

The Virgin Mary was the same. The angel came with this tremendous message. ‘You’re going to be the member of the Son of God.’ What do you consider to be the greatest miracle that

ever took place in the life of a mortal? I would say the birth of the Son of God from the womb of the Virgin Mary. I don’t think there’s any other human experience that’s on the same level as that. You know how it came about? You know what Mary said? She said,

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.”

And that simple prayer, Be it unto me according to thy word, released the greatest miracle in human history. You don’t have to stand your feet and shout, you don’t have to use a lot of long theological language—the shorter the simpler you can pray, the more likely you are to get an answer.

And then there’s what I call the prayer that’s directly inspired, you have no idea what you’re going to say before you say it. Psalm 81 verse 10, God says,

“…Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

That can apply to prayer. I remember the first prayer, the first public prayer I ever prayed. I’ll never forget it. I was a soldier in the British Army and I was invited to this Pentecostal Church. I announced to the soldier that invited me I didn’t know what a Pentecostal was, I had no ideal. I had never heard of such people. I told him I was just going as a sightseer to see what went on. Well I saw a lot of things that I’d never seen in any church before, certainly never seen them in the Church of England.

At one point, as a matter of fact, the preacher who had been a taxi driver was conducting an impassioned dialogue between King Saul and David the Shepherd Boy. And he was quite Scriptural in emphasizing that King Saul was head and shoulders taller the rest of the people. So when he was speaking as David he just stood on the platform, when he was speaking as King Saul he jumped up on a little bench looked down on where he had been when he was David. Well, I was following this which was very unlike the kind of sermons I’d been used to, but in the middle of an impassioned speech of King Saul the bench collapsed, and he fell to the ground with a thud. Well if you had been planning a message to impress a professor of philosophy, you’d probably left that part out. But I have to say in spite of everything that happened, not because of everything, but in spite of everything I knew that man knew something that I didn’t know.

Well there was an elderly couple in the church who kept a boarding house and they saw these two hungry looking soldiers and invited us home for supper afterwards, which was really the most, in some ways, the most critical turn in my whole life, because I would have just walked out of that church, I think, and never gone back. And as we walked back to their home they were talking about the Bible and they were talking about it if it was the mornings newspaper, as if everything had just happened the day before which I couldn’t understand.

Well we got to their home and we sat down at the supper table. It was a large oval table and I think there were about seven or eight persons seated around it, and they prayed before they ate. Well that took me by surprise. I’d never been to a place where anybody prayed over food except the Latin graces that used to be said at Eton which were in a totally different category. Then we had a delicious meal and I was feeling really satisfied that I had come. And then at the end of the meal they started to pray again without any warning or instruction. And I observed quickly that they were praying by turns around the table, and I realized my turn was coming. I was paralyzed with fear. I had never prayed a spontaneously prayer out loud in my life, and I had no idea what I was going to say, absolutely none. But I opened my mouth wide as the Bible said, and I didn’t know that Scripture was in the Bible at the time, and I heard myself say these words, ‘Lord I believe. Help mine unbelief.’ And my mouth shut like a trap and I could say no more. But I’ve never prayed a better prayer. See, the Holy Spirit gave me that prayer in my weakness, in my desperation, He came to my help.

I remember another example with my first wife, we were in Copenhagen in Denmark, the month of October, and we were coming to England for November. And the day before we left Copenhagen, the last day of October, we were praying together in the morning and I heard my wife say, ‘Lord, give us fine weather all the time we’re in England.’ And I thought to myself, ‘November in England—how could you pray such a prayer?’ Well she didn’t even think what she was praying. I don’t think she knew what she prayed. She just opened her mouth wide. You know what?—we had the finest November I’ve ever experienced in England in my life. Every day was fine till the end of the month. And when we went to the airport to leave I said to the people who saw us off, ‘Be careful now because the weather will change once we leave.’ And it did. You see that’s what I call an inspired prayer. You don’t make up your mind before hand. You just let the Holy Spirit give you the prayer that He wants prayed.

Then there’s what I call supernatural prayer. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, verses 14 and 15,

“How is it brethren, I will pray with the Spirit and I will pray with the understanding.”

Praying with the Spirit means praying in a language which the Holy Spirit gives which I don’t understand. Praying with the understanding means praying in my language which I understand. So praying with the Spirit is totally supernatural. It’s not something anybody can achieve by his own efforts. You may have studied six languages but the Holy Spirit will give you one you’ve never heard and never learned.

We heard a remarkable testimony which I think I will just relate. I had a meeting with Prayer For Israel in Westminster Chapel. At the end the pastor who was convening the meeting stood up to kind of close the meeting and announce the final hymn, but when he stood up, before he said anything in English, he said just a few short sentences in an unknown tongue. There was no interpretation, nothing more followed, and they just went on with the meeting and closed it. Well, I’ve just received a letter since I’ve been here or I think in Scotland, that there was a couple that brought another couple to the meeting. This other couple, the wife was a believer but the husband was an unbeliever. And they discovered later that this unbelieving husband had served for sometime on the northwest boarder of Pakistan, on the boarder of Afghanistan and had learned the tribal dialect there, and he recognized what this minister said because he spoke that tribal dialect and what he said was, ‘I am the Lord and I am coming soon. Mark well, I am coming soon.’ I had been teaching on the coming of the Lord.

Well that’s supernatural, you understand. Nobody can do that by their own understanding. We cannot ever limit God to the natural level. He’s a supernatural God and we cannot make Him simply operate on the basis of what we thing reasonable or intelligent.

And then there’s another kind of prayer which I just want to mention which is what I call travail or labor pains. Romans chapter 8 verses 22 and 23, Paul says,

“For we know [I wonder how many of us really do know. There are a lot of time when Paul says we know in the New Testament and I think to myself not many people really do know. But he says,] For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. [Did you know that?}
Not only they, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.”

Notice it’s a different kind of prayer. That’s a groaning prayer, maybe an inarticulate prayer. And then a little further on in verse 27 Paul says again about the Holy Spirit’s ministry in prayer,

“Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. [And at the end of the previous verse he says,]
…the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

That’s a totally different kind of prayer. Many of you have never experienced that. You see there’s an orchestra of prayer. There are as many different kinds of prayer as there are instruments in an orchestra. And if we were all functioning the way we should God would hear a whole orchestra praying to Him. And one of us would play the piccolo, and one would play flute, and one would play the violin, and one would play cello, and one would play the drums. There’d be nothing dull or regimented of stereotyped, but there’d be a glorious symphony of prayer rising up to the Lord as the Holy Spirit was allowed to make each one of us to be the instrument that God intended us to be.

I read an account of the great revival that came to Wales in 1904 knows as the Welsh Revival. The main instrument, the main human instrument of God was Evan Roberts. And I read somewhere a testimony by Evan Roberts’ brother. They came from an a comparatively poor family and they shared the same bed as brothers together for many years, and Evan Roberts brother said that for a good many months before the revival broke as his brother lay in bed each night asleep, his body would be shaken with great groans and sobs. And yet Evan Roberts, himself, was not aware of that. And after the revival broke loose you see. Now I think those intercessory groans had much to do with the part that Evan Roberts later was to play in that revival. You understand.

What I’m talking about is different kinds of prayer is simply to whet your appetite. If you think prayer is a dull religious duty, you had never let the Holy Spirit teach you.

Now I just have a few more points to make. All of these, you understand, designed to help you relate rightly to the Holy Spirit. The next one may surprise you, but I think it’s very important. Be prepared to be weak or foolish or both. And I think that’s essential. I think if you’re not prepared for that there’ll be a very definite limit as to how far the Holy Spirit will be able to use you. I’d like to read a number of passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians that dwell on this theme. 1 Corinthians really dwells on the theme of being foolish in order to be used by God. 2 Corinthians dwells on the theme of being weak in order to be used by God. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 22 through 29, 1 Corinthians 1:22 through 29.

“For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; [Those two statements are just as true today as they were nineteen centuries ago.]
but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

So if you want God’s wisdom and God’s strength, you have to learn first of all God’s foolishness and God’s weakness, and they are fully demonstrated in their perfection in the cross which was the most foolish and weak thing that God could ever have done, but all the power of God is released through it. And then Paul continues,

“For you see your calling, brethren that no many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to ring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

You see verse 27 tells us God has made His choice. God has chosen. He’s not going to choose, He has chosen, and we’re not going to persuade God to change His choice, so we have to line up with His choice. What has God chosen?—the weak things to confound the mighty, the foolish things to confound the wise, the base things to confound the things that are honorable. It’s a strange list, isn’t it? The weak, the foolish, the base, the things that are not - which category are you in? Are you very dignified, very respectable, very intelligent. This will shock you, but God can’t use you. You’re outside the field of His choice you see.

So what’s the solution? God is not going to change. We have to change. Listen to what Paul says, he’s very plain. First of all about being foolish, 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 18 through 20.

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [You understand the message doesn’t change, it’s our reaction that has to change. Then he says,]
For it is written: [And God is speaking.]
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? [But I think you could say where is the theologian.] Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

God has not great respect for the wisdom of this world. It doesn’t impress Him. And since I was a professional philosopher that was my field of study, I have to say I’ve come to see eye to eye with God. I am not impressed by it either.

I was very successful. I was elected to a fellowship in King’s College, Cambridge, one of the earliest, one of the youngest men that’s ever been elected to a fellowship. I was the senior research student in philosophy at Cambridge for two years in succession. As far as academic success was concerned I made it. But when I was confronted by the cross and accepted the message of the cross I have to say, God has stated the truth about the wisdom of this world as clearly as it can ever be stated. If there’s one thing in the New Testament that I have to say well I know that’s true, that’s it. And I think that’s one thing that’s really helped me in my Christian walk, is that I have never bowed to the wisdom of this world. I’m not impressed by it. Long lectures with deep theological language bore me. I’m not interested. Paul said, ‘I’m not interested in the words. I’m interested in their power.’ And that’s the way I feel. Paul says, ‘The kingdom of God is not in word but in power.’

“And we read on a little further—chapter 2 verse 1 through 8.
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”

That’s an important statement. Paul was a highly educated man and he knew a lot, but he said I determine not to know. Brothers and sisters, the problem with some of you is you know too much. You need to determine not to know. It’s very interesting because Paul is writing to the Christians at Corinth. Before he went to Corinth he went to Athens, which was the philosophical center of the ancient world. When he spoke to the men of Athens he spoke to them in their own language. He used philosophical language, he quoted one to their own poets, and the results were very meager, just a few people believed.

He went on from there to Corinth which was a major port, a very wicked licentious evil city and he’d made the decision, ‘I’m not going to offer them human wisdom. I’m not going to know anything among them except Jesus Christ and what’s more, Jesus Christ crucified.’ And the results in Corinth were dramatic. Thousands turned to the Lord. Historians estimated there were twenty-five thousand believers in Corinth in a comparative short space of time. What was the secret? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The weakness of God which is stronger then men, the foolishness of God which is wiser than men.

I could continue but I won’t. I’ll just read two other passages from 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 18 through 20.

“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.”

Have you ever become a fool? Then you haven’t taken the first step to God’s wisdom. Let him become a fool that he may become wise.

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.”

How true that is. You know philosophy in the western world has a history of about twenty five hundred years, starting about the fifth century before Christ, and they have not yet decided on the questions that they’re trying to resolve, much less resolve any of them. Wasn’t God right? The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

“…For it is written ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness’;”

and again, ‘The LORD knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.’

That’s very plain language. It has a very limited acceptance in the contemporary church. I tell you I always get nervous when I hear preachers quoting psychiatrists and experts. I mean some psychiatrists do a wonderful service, but the word of God does not need to be supportive by psychiatry or psychology. It stands on its own. And when you try to prop it up with human wisdom we’re probably undermining the faith of people. If you build your faith on human wisdom, you have a very insubstantial foundation because it will change in the next generation and where will you faith be then? One more Scripture, 1 Corinthians 8:2,

“And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.”

All right. Have you come to that point of realizing that you know nothing yet the way you ought to know it? The Bible is full of examples of people who did foolish things. Take Noah building a large boat on dry land in a culture that had never seen rain. How stupid can you be? But he was wiser than all the rest. Moses and the children of Israel came to a lake that was bitter and the water couldn’t be drunk. What did Moses do? Throw a tree into the water. How stupid can you be? Elisha was confronted with a spring of water that was corrupted water, it spoiled the ground that it flowed through. What did he do? Take a vessel of salt and throw it in and say, ‘Thus saith the Lord, the Lord has healed the water.’ Salt never healed water until Elisha did it. How foolish can you be?

What about Jesus and the man born blind? How did He treat Him? Spat on the ground which is vulgar anyhow, made clay of the spittle, anointed the eyes of the man and said, ‘Go was in the Pool of Siloam.’ Ridiculous. Who has ever heard of clay healing a blind man’s eyes, but the blind man came back seeing.

And I think that the real climax in the way of all God’s foolishness is the church at Pentecost. Here’s God launching this tremendous super creation of His which is going to take over human history and rule the universe, and the first time that it appears in public there are a hundred and twenty mostly uneducated men, all speaking languages they don’t understand, and people said they’re drunk. No committee planning a campaign for Jerusalem would ever have decided on that strategy. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and it’s the foolishness of God, the Holy Spirit honors.

Take weakness just for a moment—2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 7 and following. You know if you’ve never been astonished by the Bible you’ve never really read it, because it contains the most astonishing statements. 2 Corinthians 12 verses 7 through 10, this is part of Paul’s personal testimony.

“And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the LORD three time that tit might depart from me.”

We all know that Apostles get their prayers answered don’t we? Paul prayed three times and got ‘no’ for an answer.

“And He [the Lord] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’”

That’s a deep abiding principle. God only manifests His strength in human weakness, never in human strength, so that everybody will know it’s not human strength but divine strength.

“…’My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities,…”

I don’t hear many contemporary preachers boasting in their infirmities, do you? I hear them boasting about the number of converts and the size of their ministry and many, many other things. Paul was different.

“Therefore I would rather boast in my infirmities [weaknesses], that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [The power of God rests in upon us in our weakness, not in our strength.]
Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Have you grasped that principle? I was reading that passage nearly three years ago and I said to Ruth, ‘There are some things Paul said I’m not sure that I’m prepared to say,’ and I quoted that one. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities. I said, ‘I’m really not sure I’m willing to say that.’

Well we were just at the beginning of a month of very intensive ministry where we were going to be praying for the sick in many places. The next day, for no medically discernable reason I developed a rash that covered my whole body except the parts of it which showed—my neck, my face and my hands. I went to see a doctor and when he saw me he threw up his hands in the air and ran for his partner. Then they thought at first I had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but they concluded that that wasn’t so. Well anyhow this was very uncomfortable. At times it was very painful. When I got hot the discomfort was intense, and for one month Ruth and I ministered almost daily and saw multitudes of sick people healed, and here was I with this rash all over my body. And I understood a little better what Paul meant when he said, ‘I will rather glory in my infirmity, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’

Now two or three more points and we close still in connection with this theme, How To Be Led By The Holy Spirit. Now I dealt with this at length last night so I’m only going to mention it again. Don’t go back to rules. Don’t rely on rules, on the religious system, because and Holy Spirit and system, He will not share with any system. When Isaac comes Ishmael has to go. They will not live in the same house. Romans 6:14,

“Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 8:14,
As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.
And Galatians 5:18,
If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”

What then is, I believe, the ultimate function of the Holy Spirit? I mentioned it last night but it’s so important I want to speak of it again. I believe it is through the Holy Spirit we are united with Christ. In the flesh we were married to the law. Jesus died for our fleshly nature, that our nature in Him might be reckoned dead that after that we might be united to the resurrected Christ in a union that Paul compares with marriage, something that could perhaps scare religious people. But I’ll tell you one thing. The Bible uses the most intense and passionately about our relationship to Jesus.

William Booth’s daughter _______________, who founded the Salvation Army in France once said this, ‘Christ loves us passionately and He wants to be loved passionately.’ I think many of us need a much more passionate devotion to Jesus and we can only have it through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will give us that marriage union with the resurrected Christ. And I believe that union is consummated by worship. I believe when we, by the Holy Spirit, worship the resurrected Christ we come into a union with Him. ‘He that is joined to a prostitute,’ Paul said, ‘is one flesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.’ A body can be united with a body of prostitute, but the spirit of the believer is united with the Spirit of God through the Holy Spirit. God seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth.