We are considering the
deeper and fuller meaning of what came in on the day of
Pentecost, the nature and order of an entirely new day in
this world's history, that nature and order being
essentially spiritual. A new order and character
introduced by the advent of the Holy Spirit to constitute
everything immediately spiritual, not indirectly and
ultimately, but immediately spiritual.
One of the primal
features of this new day is this (take careful note
of it because it is the key and the basis of everything):
the voice of the Spirit is to be taken account of rather
than what is going on in the religious world around. It
is that which cleaves things asunder, puts things into
two different realms in this book of ''The Acts.'' With
this new age we see on the one hand in the religious
world that which claims authority with power, position,
and influence, which has established itself and taken
possession, but which is shown to be something which is
not according to the Spirit of God. On the other hand,
over against that, we see what is brought out into such
clear, manifest relief, that to hear and to take account
of the voice of the Spirit of God may be, and very often
is, another thing altogether.
You recall Stephen's
defense. You know that he comprehends the whole of this
history. He starts with Abraham: ''The God of glory
appeared unto our father Abraham'' (Acts 7:2). That is
the beginning of this religious history, and he traces
right through stage by stage until he arrives at the
murder of the Lord Jesus; and he sums it up in one great
declaration, sweeping away the whole ground of that
established thing on the earth and saying, as
comprehending it all: ''Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ear, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit''
(Acts 7:51). Something spiritual, a taking note of the
voice of the Spirit of God, is something very different
indeed from an established religious order on this earth,
and very often runs directly counter to it.
That is a strong
statement, but it is said in order that we may
immediately get to the very heart of what it is the Lord
is seeking in this present age: a people of a spiritual
life who are governed by the Spirit of God, who take
account of what the Spirit says and are obedient
and conform thereunto. It is a spiritual people God is
after in this age, not religious people.
Paul has built a very
great spiritual structure upon this very principle. A
large part of his letter to the Romans and the whole of
his letter to the Galatians is occupied with the sole
object of pointing out that traditional religion is one
thing and life in the Spirit is another; that religion as
here on this earth in all its forms may be one thing,
while what is of the Spirit of God may be altogether
another thing. That is what Paul set out to make clear,
and he built this tremendous edifice upon this fact. If
you read Galatians carefully in the light of that, you
will see that that is what he is after, to divide between
this religious thing and this other, which is of the
Spirit.
The challenge of the new
age, the new day and its meaning, was first presented to
the seed of Abraham, and the nature of the challenge was
that they should become a spiritual seed of Abraham as
something more than a natural seed. The significance of
the day of Pentecost is just that. Now by the coming of
the Spirit a transition is to be made, a change is to
take place. The natural seed of Abraham should become a
spiritual seed of Abraham.
There is no doubt that
the hand of God was upon Balaam, although he was not a
very willing and joyous prophet under the hand of God.
The Spirit of God made Balaam say about Israel as he
looked from the top of the mountain: ''It is a people
that dwelleth alone and shall not be reckoned among the
nations'' (Num. 23:9). There is surely a spiritual
principle there, that this spiritual seed of Abraham
which has been brought in with the Day of Pentecost is a
people distinguished from all other people. I believe
that if we are living in the radiance of Divine life,
there will be something of it betrayed by our faces. At
any rate, the world will know something if we are really
living in touch with the Lord, and there will be a
language which only the spiritual can enjoy and
understand. There will be those spiritual counterparts of
the seed of Abraham, a people different from all the
rest.
Now the tragedy of what
is called 'the Church' has so often been, and perhaps is
more today than ever, that that distinctiveness is being
lost. It seems today as if a set is being made in some
way to remove all the offence and all the difference, and
to get us near to people without anything that clashes,
in the hope of winning them. Yes, that is what is going
on in the religious world around; it is a conforming to
this age. But what came in at Pentecost is fundamentally
this, that this people of the Spirit are so utterly
different in the very center of their being, different
altogether from all other peoples, and their power and
influence lie in that fact. You cannot fit them in with
other things, and it is not because they are awkward and
difficult and deliberately irritate people, but there is
that which by reason of their spiritual constitution
marks them off; and if they did but know it, this is the
secret of their influence in the world.
The progress and
increase of spiritual life mean this, that the gap widens
all the time between the children of God and those in the
world who are not such. That is not to be taken literally
in this sense, that we begin a mistaken system of hiving
off, shutting ourselves up, getting out of touch. That is
a wrong application of the principle. The Lord Jesus is
preeminently our example in that He could move in any
circle, and He did so deliberately, publicans and
sinners, all classes, He moved amongst them, but His
power over them was in His basic difference from them.
Let us be careful how we are caught in this great
movement of conforming to this age. To conform is to lose
spiritual power. Well, spiritual seed is what God is
after, a spiritual seed of Abraham.
This is the day of the
Spirit, and those who are the spiritual seed of Abraham,
who are now under the power of the Spirit, governed by
the Spirit, will be made alive by the Spirit continually
to that which is of the Spirit and that which is not. The
more we go on with the Lord, the fuller and clearer will
become our perception as to what is spiritual and what is
natural, even in our Christian life. It is a whole life
of education. Things that we thought at one time were
quite all right, quite permissible, quite in line with
the Lord 's will, as we go on we come to find that even
those things have come into a realm of question; the
Spirit is not agreeing with them now. We have come to
discover that He never did agree with them, but we were
not enough alive to Him to know His mind about them. He
deals with us as with children as long as we are
children, but when it is time that we should leave
childhood the Spirit begins to deal with us very
drastically if we are going on with the Lord.
It is this kind of
people that the Lord is after in this age. Oh, what a
difference it would make if all the Lord' s people were
really governed by this law of the Spirit of life in
Christ, if their hearts were truly circumcised, that all
the fruit of life should be wholly unto God, because this
law of the Spirit is not outward but inward.
I wonder if you are
feeling the Lord touch your hearts in this matter? I am
so anxious not just to heap words upon words and truths
upon truths. I do feel the Lord wants to do something,
not just to say things, and it does matter above
everything else whether we are able to take account of
the voice of the Spirit rather than to be actuated and
governed by even the Christian and evangelical world
around us. Yes, even in the evangelical world
Christianity has become a very set thing; it has become
fixed as an order, a system of things; you have to
conform to it, and if you do not, well, you are not sound
or you are in some way heretical.
No, we shall not go
wrong in being governed by the Spirit; but even there
many good Christians may not be able to understand. Are
you prepared for that? It is not conformity to a system
of teaching or truths that is needed, but to be able to
take account of the movement of the Spirit of God that
will not make us independent, a law to ourselves, the
Lord will attend to that. But oh, it is more important
than anything else in these days that the Lord should
have a people who know the Spirit, who hear His voice and
follow Him; and all who do that will move in the same
direction, will flow together. The reason for so much
division and conflict is the fact that the Spirit is not
Lord. Other things are Lord, Christian interests are
Lord, interpretations are Lord, mental appraisements are
Lord, all sorts of things have taken Lordship. Where the
Spirit is Lord, we shall speak and think the same thing;
there will be no mere individualism.
Let us listen to what
the Spirit says. Let us ask the Lord to make very sure in
us that we are not being moved in our lives, in the
course that we are taking, by what is religiously
natural, but that we are really children of the Spirit
and know the Spirit and are in conformity to God's
thought for this present dispensation, true children of
Abraham according to the Spirit.
Extract from "The New Day of the Spirit" First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, Nov-Dec 1947, Vol 25-6