THE RECOGNITION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
R. Taylor
I take the liberty dear brethren of speaking, as the Lord may help, as to the Holy Spirit. These verses would undoubtedly be a reference to Him, and it impressed me as I read them just now, the wide range of His service, “to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee to the place that I have prepared”. What a mission, you may say, the Spirit has undertaken. What a service He has entered into. And He entered into it voluntarily. I think we should be exercised, dear brethren, as to expansion in our response to the Spirit in the service of God. We generally just have a hymn and a thanksgiving to the Spirit, and I am not saying that is wrong, but do not let us be too circumscribed about it. Do not let that be a pattern exactly; occasionally we have two responses. We justify what we do, saying that He only asks
for a sip in type, but Rebecca gave Him far more than that. If you look at what Rebecca gave Him, you would be amazed if you calculated the amount of water she drew for him and for his camels. It was so great that it says, “the man was astonished” (Genesis 24: 21) at what she brought. You would like the Spirit to be rejoicing in some of the responses that we have.
I was impressed on Lord’s day that the Spirit has been here, sufferingly dear brethren. We speak about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and I would not for one moment belittle that because the very core of Christianity is what Christ has done. He has shed His blood. But the Spirit has suffered, greatly, tremendously. If you look at the history of the children of Israel you see how the Spirit was slighted. So that I think the divine mind took account of that. That is why it says, “Behold”. There is a comma there. “Behold, ... Be careful in his presence”.
“Be careful in his presence”. The Spirit suffers in the way He has been slighted. Instead of room being made for Him in the Christian profession, man has usurped that place, but the Spirit is here that there may be a true response. Mr. J. N. Darby wrote ‘The Notion of a Clergyman Dispensationally the Sin Against the Holy Ghost’ (Collected Writings Vol.1, p.36). The Lord Jesus protects it too. He says, that sin against the Spirit will not be forgiven (Matthew 12: 31). You see the divine word protects the lowly place that the Spirit has taken.
And I say all that is part of how much the Spirit has suffered. I would have to think of my own life, as the scripture speaks about not grieving Him. If He is grieved He is suffering, by being set aside through one thing and another. We all feel that in our histories. So it says, “Be careful in his presence”.
The glory of this dispensation depends on the Holy Spirit being made room for and His leadership. It says, “I send an Angel before thee”. Think of the divine confidence in the Holy Spirit that the dispensation is in His hands, serving the saints. It says that He will bring you to the place that I have
prepared, “if thou shalt diligently hearken unto his voice, and do all that I shall say, then I will be an enemy to thine enemies, and an adversary to thine adversaries. For mine Angel will go before thee and bring thee in”. The Amorites would not stand the Hittites would not stand, the Perizzites, the Canaanites. They would all have to go as the Spirit was made room for. It took them a long time and we would have to feel that in our own hearts. But as He is made room for these enemies must go. Great forces they were but the divine word here is that they could not stand in His presence.
It is very striking, dear brethren, the Lord Jesus never preached until the Spirit came upon Him (Luke 4: 18). Also after the temptations He returned to Galilee. I find that very affecting.
The suggestion would be that He went to an area that the Spirit would be made room for.
There is a beautiful reference in Luke 21: 37 that says, that by night He remained abroad on the mount of Olives, as if He was in that domain where the Spirit was free. We speak of Him in His manhood, because He was a true man, but it says that He spent the night abroad on the mount of Olives. What a night of communion it must have been!
Well the passage is just to encourage our hearts, dear brethren, that though despised and set at nought publicly, if the Spirit is made room for, it says He will go before you and bring you into this inhabited land. What confidence God must have had in this Angel, sending Him before them. Moses, Caleb, Joshua drew on it and a few others. There they were preserved; preserved through a nation that had to die. Indeed Caleb says, He has kept me alive, like the Spirit life on account of righteousness, but it involves making room for Him. He is very sensitive, but as He is made room for what a guide He is. It is very beautiful the amount of titles that the Lord Jesus gives us about the Spirit in those few chapters in John, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. He will guide you into all the truth. In our circumstances as He is made room for, He is there in our sorrows—a Comforter. He
is there to lead us into the inheritance as a Guide, and the Spirit of truth when the spirit of error is all around; what graces and what power are in this divine Person.
And that is what this chapter brings about, the power. You can see, and we can feel it in our own hearts too, what sorrows it has brought in when we have gone in our own strength and in our own ways. But what power there is as the Spirit is made room for. It says, “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice but of power”, 2 Timothy 1: 7. He has given us a spirit of power. Well Galilee would make room for that power. It says a spirit “of power, and of love, and of wise discretion”. It is a very interesting thing to look at that. The Spirit is connected with power. It speaks about that in Ephesians as well. He has strengthened us with power by His Spirit in the inner man. It is not the outward man, the educated man, but He will strengthen us with power in the inner man. The power, dear brethren, to see us through in the circumstances of this life.
Well I just leave these words that we may know more of it. Paul has that very beautiful word at the end of Corinthians, “the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all”, 2 Corinthians 13: 14. What a beautiful touch. Communion is a two-way matter, and our brother has referred to the end of Revelation and I think you see the fruit of that communion. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”, Revelation 22: 17. You would have to be very close to a person to say the same word at the same time, and that is what the assembly is there in Revelation. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”, a divine Person and a creature vessel say the same word at the same time. How near the Spirit brings us into the divine presence in a formative way, because that is not a professed word, but one spoken in reality. Well what an answer there is to be in how He has charged Himself to see these people of old through to the inhabited land, and how He is to be with us all the days.
He is to be with us until the rapture, and it says indeed in Romans, that God will quicken our mortal bodies. Those who are alive on this earth at the rapture, their mortal bodies will be quickened on account of His Spirit which dwells in us. What a place the Spirit is going to have at the rapture. The living will be marked out on account of the Spirit having been made room for, in whatever measure, in their souls. Until that time may our hearts make more room for Him, and may we be concerned that He has a greater place in our lives for guidance and for help. And may we just be exercised that there is more depth and vitality and freshness in our response to Him. For Christ’s name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy
20 April 2010