The Holy Spirit As Militant
THE HOLY SPIRIT AS MILITANT
I would like to say something as to the Person of the Holy Spirit. It may be in these settings somewhat different to, what we may be accustomed to, in that He is presented in a militant setting. It is not that He is always presented that way; He is presented as the Comforter, another Comforter. He is presented in the gospels as coming upon Jesus as a dove, a suggestion bringing out the glory of that Person, bringing out peculiarly the sensitivity of that Person of the Godhead. There was absolutely nothing in the Person of Jesus that occasioned what was militant. In the form that He came at Pentecost, as cloven tongues as of fire, there is a militant side to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There has never been another outpouring, that was unique, in that He was sent of the Father and of the Son, and the assembly is the body formed by the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost; there is no renewing of that, we come in by the Spirit to what already exists in the one body. But the knowledge of the Person of the Holy Spirit is a very important matter, and some of us will recall, a good many years back now, the suggestion of listening to another voice. Where we read in 1 Timothy the Spirit speaks expressly.
It just occurs to me that we should always be sensitive to hear what the Spirit is saying. The fact is that the word addressed to the overcomer in each of the last four assemblies, is followed by an appeal to him that has an ear to hear what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies. Even in the days of public departure and breakdown, that voice has never ceased. What maybe would challenge all of us is having the ear to hear another voice. It is very clear that the Spirit is seeking, may I say, that dominant position, in view of the close and completion of this dispensation. Already the cry has begun, from the Spirit and the bride, Come, for Jesus to come. It is as we discern that other voice, that we are drawn away from all that is human, and man-made, and philosophy and all that sort of thing, to see that God intends to make the end of the dispensation spiritual. Believers are about to enter into spiritual conditions, and they will be eternal; it needs only the change of our bodies to bring us into eternal conditions as we understand it, and we need now to accustom ourselves to spiritual things, spiritual manifestations. Paul had to say to the Corinthians, “But concerning spiritual manifestations, brethren, I do not wish you to be ignorant”, 1 Cor 12: 1. I would like to suggest that each of our gatherings in the light and truth of the assembly should occasion some manifestation of the Spirit; that is there is some impress by the Spirit, quickening the affections of those that love the Lord Jesus. So we look at one another and, think of each one as being indwelt by the same Spirit. What a bond that gives us with Christ and with one another—he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit (see 1 Cor 6: 17); we could say that of each of us. In a sense the germ of union is in that, “he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit”. So our gathering together is not just so many individuals, it is that, but it is more than that, there is a bond morally that puts us together that makes for experience collectively. I want to suggest that the Spirit is urgent that such conditions should be brought about.
I read this section in Joshua because it puts us on heavenly ground, and all that that involves. The people were over the Jordan; they had faced the great and painful exercise of circumcision, for apparently it had been neglected in the wilderness. That would raise another question. Why would these things be neglected? They should not be neglected. But it is attended to and faced, and the reproach of Egypt is rolled away. You can see more and more how the Spirit of God is working through vessels absolutely apart from the world, with not a taint of the world. The assembly does not belong to the world, there is no feature of the world that fits into the spiritual system which belongs to heaven, it has a heavenly origin and destiny. Let us think more and more in terms of the whole assembly in her heavenly dignity. I believe it will tend to make our gatherings take on that character of holy dignity, and more than that to become the experience of a manifestation of Jesus. That is what the Spirit is here to do, to take of the things of God and show them to us.
So we have here the man with a sword drawn in his hand. I would not be specific in my interpretation of this, but I think it is a militant idea, which would be confirmed in the reference to the sword of the Spirit. It is the way the truth is maintained militantly. The level needs to be maintained, that is the test. The features of Egypt are rolled away, the food of the land becomes the food of the people, and death is overcome, it is a wonderful section. But the world has to be overcome, and wherein lies the power? I believe it is in this militant way that the Spirit comes into the situation. Joshua earlier rises to a type of the Lord when he was magnified in the sight of all the people; that would be a type of the Lord Jesus as Head. Now here Joshua is a type of the responsible element, and every one of us, every brother and sister, as loving the Lord, is responsible to maintain His glory and His honour.
He says here, “Art thou for us, or for our enemies?” What a situation Joshua was faced with. Here are the people, outwardly conformed to what is right, and about to turn to the conquest of the land, and here is a man with a drawn sword. Joshua fell upon his face to the earth. I think we still need a deepening sense of what is involved in the presence of the Spirit of God; to be careful in His presence for He is the Holy Spirit; not to be fearful in the sense of distance, but in the sense of the exceeding holiness of His Person. He will maintain the holiness due to God’s house, and as we know, without holiness no one will see the Lord. The manifestation of heavenly things is to give us some glimpse of the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why the Spirit is here, to engage us with the glories of that heavenly Man. So he says, “Loose thy sandal from off thy foot—for the place whereon thou standest is holy”. As soon as we touch what is of the assembly we are on holy ground, it is not to be given up. In the midst of these things there is another voice, we need to think of that. We thought another leader; no, it is another voice, the Spirit’s voice. Oh, how He is longing for conditions suited to His presence, ungrieved and unquenched, so that He can bring in the fulness of what has been delivered to Him as to the completion of the assembly.
Now in Acts 20 Paul is addressing the elders at Ephesus, warning them and telling them that “the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers”. They were not that by any human appointment. Paul appointed elders but we could not do that today. The Spirit discerns moral qualifications. Now this is Ephesus, it is the height of Paul’s work, and he warns about decline coming in. He says later that all who are in Asia had turned away from him, see 2 Tim 1: 15. Paul shows the need of the Spirit, he says, “the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God”. The climax of his work was at Ephesus, but the Lord Himself had to say later, “I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love”, Rev 2: 4. None of us would wish to be in a state like that, that the Lord had to say, I have something against you. The Spirit would maintain us in the power and energy of life until the Lord comes. In some sense, as in Genesis 24 which we often quote, He is saying, ‘That is My Master’. There Rebecca had said, “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?”, Gen 24: 65. What holy conversation must have proceeded. That wonderful type of the assembly was near the end of the journey, as we are, and she was not weary or jaded. She sprang off the camel. Is that not a tribute in type to the service of the Spirit? And what is He doing now? He is saying, ‘That is My Master’. We have heard the cry in the time of recovery, ‘Behold, the Bridegroom!’ Where did that cry come from? It is something that quickened the affections of the brethren at the very beginning of the recovery and would maintain us throughout. But we are past the midnight hour now, it is near morning, Christ as the Morning Star is arising in our hearts. I just feel the urgency of the closing time of the assembly’s history, and it may be we have not yet come to the full import of another voice. The testimony moved westward to Europe, to America, to Australasia. God in His wisdom moved the testimony that way, but, as so sorrowfully we have to acknowledge, wolves have ravaged the assembly. It is wonderful that we can be gathered, a few of us as available in the light and truth of the assembly, and to receive something from the Spirit. Then of course we pray for those who are not available that they should become available.
I just close with this reference to the Spirit speaking expressly. It is remarkable that it comes in this epistle where the principles of the house of God are insisted on. Paul sees the danger of what is coming in, and the Spirit meets it by speaking expressly, “that in latter times some shall apostatise from the faith”. Now that is not saying persons are apostate. It is the character of any decline and giving up of the precious truth, to which in divine grace we have been recovered. Let us beware of any weakening, even in any detail of what affects the assembly, that has that character. It is rampant in the world; the dreadful cloud of apostasy is sweeping Christendom. Oh, what it must mean to the Spirit that there are some, maybe just a few, who in self-judgment make room for the Holy Spirit and another voice, who are not governed by the mind of man, but by the Spirit of God.
These simple thoughts came to me as our brother was speaking. There are dangers which we have to watch, things that creep in surreptitiously, and the Spirit is acting militantly, to meet the tendencies to which we are exposed, so that a pure line may be maintained until the Lord comes. Amen.
LOS ANGELES
29th August 1990
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