EVIDENCE OF THE SPIRIT'S PRESENCE
EVIDENCE OF THE SPIRIT’S PRESENCE
Acts 4: 8 - 12; Acts 5: 3 - 6; Acts 6: 1 - 5
Rem The last time we were together we were taken up with the testimony of the Holy Spirit and the idea of the house.
Ques They spoke in the power of the Spirit in chapter 2: 4. Peter’s address was by spiritual power. In chapter 2: 33 it speaks of the Holy Spirit being poured out, which “ye behold and hear”. What did they see? Would it be the effects of the Spirit on the one hundred and twenty?
CAC Yes, I thought so. It says, “each one heard them speaking in his own dialect” and yet they recognised that they were Galileans; they were in the presence of power that was divine.
Ques Peter refers to the Old Testament Scriptures; is it the evidence of the Spirit in Peter?
CAC Yes, I think so. His course is marked by wisdom.
Evidences of the Spirit are marked by wisdom; it is the Spirit of wisdom. It is a great thing that the presence of the Spirit should come into evidence. We may assert a great many true things about the Spirit and His presence and power, but what marked Pentecost was that things were not there in doctrine but in power.
Rem “Which ye now see” (chapter 2:33, Authorised Version).
CAC Yes, there was evidence. Nothing is more noticeable than the fact that the presence of the Spirit was a thing that was manifested. There was no question in those days as to who had the Spirit and who had not, but it is a very important question in these days.
Ques Is the power of the Holy Spirit available to be known today?
CAC [p. 307] Yes; God says that His Spirit remains among you. This is a day of weakness and smallness but there is the abiding presence of the Spirit. It is remarkable that the evidence of the Spirit was largely in the way people spoke.
Ques Should that be marked today?
CAC One great advantage is that the power of the Spirit cannot be imitated.
Ques Would it be a help to any soul to take account of where the activities of the Spirit are? Is it possible to trace them in a day like this?
CAC I should think so. That is what we should all look for — the evidence of the presence of the Spirit. This is a notable prayer in chapter 4; it is the only assembly prayer on record. The place was shaken following on the prayer. Apparently it was not a long prayer or a long meeting either. There was a state there that knew how to count on God in absolute power as Creator. We forget to pray to the Creator very often.
Ques Would you do it in the assembly?
CAC Certainly; this was in the assembly and is the only assembly prayer we have in Scripture.
Rem We are accustomed to connect the blessing at table with the Creator, but I fear we have overlooked it in the assembly.
CAC The assembly is the spot where God gets His place as Creator. They address Him in this prayer by a remarkable word, as Despot, One who has despotic power (verse 24). His power is witnessed in creation; they had a sense of the immensity of the power in God. This prayer meeting seemed only to last two and a half minutes, and yet they had such a sense of the greatness of God that all that was hostile was as nothing! If we remembered that in our prayer meetings it would give a great lift to the occasion.
Ques They were filled with the Spirit as a result; if there was more of this kind of prayer with us would there be more receptiveness [p. 308] to the Spirit?
CAC Quite so. The question is, are we prepared to be filled with the Spirit? We are often not prepared and there is not sufficient sense of the greatness of God, the mighty power that is vested in God. Nothing can resist His will. Being filled with the Spirit implies that there was nothing to obstruct it.
Rem The state of being filled with the Spirit is not continuous, is it? It was after prayer that they were filled.
CAC It is presented in the Acts as a special state, but in Ephesians you get the exhortation to be filled with the Spirit, which suggests the possibility of it being continuous.
Rem In the Acts it is presented from the divine side.
CAC I thought so. With us it raises a question whether we are prepared to be vessels filled with the Holy Spirit so that there is nothing of desire, motive or feeling except what has its origin in the Spirit. What a difference it would make to us! Think of the feelings that have place with us that are not of the Spirit! If we were filled with the Spirit nothing else would be in evidence. It has in view the testimony going forth so that it might be made manifest that God was there in the vessel. The shaking of the place was the outward evidence that God was there.
Ques Would you connect that with God being in you of a truth?
CAC It is the same kind of thing, God is there, and in 1 Corinthians 14 it is astonishing the number of references there are to speaking. I counted them once and the number astonished me. Here it says that they all were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God. A great sign of the presence of the Spirit is the ability to speak. If one cannot speak there is no evidence of the presence of the Spirit of God. In the assembly you get speaking, and it is worth while to wait for that character of speaking. The fact that the Spirit came down as cloven tongues of fire shows how the Spirit is connected with the power to speak. We are able to speak of God and of His Christ in the right way. That is the most powerful evidence of the presence of the Spirit; it is more powerful than the working of [p. 309] a miracle.
Rem Paul desired utterance to be given him.
CAC Yes. Every Christian has something inside, but the divine thought is that what is inside is to come out. The way we speak is chief evidence now of the presence of the Spirit. I do not know that any other evidence is to be relied on. If a person showed me a miracle I would regard it with suspicion, for I should wonder if the power that wrought it came from above or below. But if a brother or a sister can speak of Christ and of the Father’s love in power, that is indisputable evidence of the presence of the Spirit. One would like to have a power of speaking that is altogether different from the way men are taught to speak at college. A divine way of speaking is divine things said in a supernatural way. We should all covet to be supernatural, the trouble is that we are so much on the natural. If you bring in the Spirit you have got what is above the natural altogether. When the Lord spoke, every utterance was in the power of the Holy Spirit. You will find in the Lord’s references to the Spirit that He speaks of the Spirit as the power of utterance. I cannot say that I know much about it but it is a thing I covet.
Rem In John’s first epistle it speaks of every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh.
CAC Yes. One would like to say a few words that brought into evidence the presence of the Spirit whether in public or private. It would be better to speak five words that showed the presence of the Spirit than a thousand words not in the Spirit. The presence of God in the assembly is a solemn reality when we think of Acts 5. Ananias came in and laid the money down and did not say a word; it was a silent lie to the Holy Spirit. We may do the same thing. I remember a man asking me once, Was there any proof in Scripture that the Holy Spirit was God? I replied, Yes, and quoted Acts 5: 4, “Thou hast not lied to men, but to God”. The Spirit there was objectively present. The Spirit was there as a divine Person in Acts 5, though He is not looked at exactly as indwelling the saints but as having His dwelling amongst [p. 310] the saints. When we come to the meeting we come to the presence of God; that is a necessary thing to remember. When a man goes into a church he takes his hat off because he thinks it is the house of God. In the assembly God is there; the way we come in and the way we sit down and the way we behave should be reverential as realising that God is there.
Rem There is a verse in the Psalms which says that God is to be feared in the assembly.
CAC Neither Ananias nor Sapphira thought of that. We often do not think that God is in the assembly, and there may be something about us that has an element of falsehood and we bring it in to the assembly. It is a very exercising and solemn thing, so that holy fear was produced as the result of this solemn judgment. A sense of seriousness is produced of having to do with God here, not in heaven but God down here in the assembly.
Ques Why is it called the Spirit of the Lord later on in chapter 5?
CAC It is the Spirit of Jehovah; he is thinking of the Spirit as a divine Person as known in the Old Testament. We get the Spirit of Jehovah there, and I think it is the thought carried on. It is not so much the indwelling Spirit, it is important to distinguish between the indwelling Spirit and God being amongst His people assemblywise.
Ques Is the indwelling Spirit peculiar to the present time and the other peculiar to Israel’s time?
CAC Yes. The Spirit retains both characters. He not only retains a subordinate place as indwelling the saints — there are limitations connected with that — but He retains His sovereign place in Deity. In the glory of His place in Deity He dwells among the saints; God dwells there Spiritwise.
Rem It is important to distinguish the character in which God dwells.
CAC Yes, and it is important to distinguish the greatness and holiness that belong to God; He is to be held in [p. 311] reverence. If we lose a sense of reverence we shall lose the gain of the presence of the Spirit.
Rem Expressions that are wanting in reverence are often wanting in guarding His deity.
CAC He can only be addressed as Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit. I am afraid we are slack in regard of these things. We think we can kneel down and say ‘Lord Jesus’, without the Spirit, but we cannot. If I cannot say Lord Jesus by the Spirit, I do not address Him at all. It is easy to say, ‘Lord Jesus’, but to say it by the power of the Spirit is to link you with a living Person. It is better to wait half an hour on your knees than to miss it altogether. We need to be impressed with the greatness of these things. We may have known them all our lives but it is the Spirit who brings us into the reality of them.
In chapter 6 we see that even the poor cannot be cared for except in the power of the Spirit. It needed seven men full of the Spirit to carry on deacon service among the poor. What is needed is simplicity of heart that knows how to renounce what is of the flesh and nature and is therefore free to use the power of the Spirit.
We want to get to the reality of the Spirit, to exercise one another as to the spiritual reality of it.
Ques Would you say a word as to chapter 5: 32, the Spirit being given to those who obey?
CAC Two things are distinguished for us, the witness of the apostles and the witness of the Spirit; they are looked at as two distinguishable things. It says in chapter 15, “It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”. What a wonderful statement that is!
Ques In what way does being filled with the Spirit lead in the administration of natural things?
CAC Nothing needs more wisdom than the care for temporal needs. Natural hardness or natural sympathy can easily come in. There had been defect here in Acts 6 and these widows had been neglected. The thing was to remedy [p. 312] the defect. If there is anything defective among us we want to get it right. All defects are remedied by bringing in the presence of the Spirit. It delivers us from natural hardness of heart or from natural kindness and generosity. Natural generosity is as objectionable to God as natural stinginess. We want to get rid of both elements so that there would be in giving neither too little nor too much. All these things show the practical effects of the presence of the Spirit, and the practical application is as necessary for us today as it was then. Any power in the gospel or ministry in the assembly must be in the power of the Spirit. We are in the midst of christendom which has set up all kinds of devices to be independent of the Spirit. That character of things is all around us, but we should desire to be in the midst of that as those seeking to be able to evidence the power of the Spirit; so that if anyone was wishing to know where to go we could say, “Come and see”. All the vessels in which the Spirit dwells should be in liberty and able to speak in the power of the Holy Spirit. One would go a long way to see a little company where that was verified!