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The Presence and Work of the Holy Spirit

by T. Austin-Sparks

Transcribed from messages given at a conference in May 1960. The spoken form has been retained verbatim.

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Holy Spirit's Power

Chapter 2 - The Holy Spirit's Day of Liberty

Chapter 3 - The Holy Spirit's Function

Chapter 4 - The Holy Spirit's Passion for the Name

Chapter 5 - The Holy Spirit's Quest

Chapter 1 - The Holy Spirit's Power

The familiar passage of Scripture, in the fourth chapter of the prophecies of Zechariah... the prophecies of Zechariah chapter 4:

"And the angel that talked with me came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have seen, and, behold, a candlestick all of gold, with its bowl upon the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are upon the top thereof; and two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. And I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the head stone with shoutings of Grace, grace, unto it. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small things? For they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel; even these seven which are the eyes of the Lord, they run to and fro through the whole earth."

We could hardly fail to link with that tenth verse the so familiar words of Acts 1:8: "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you..." "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts." Power... by the Holy Spirit.

The thing which we all feel the need of, perhaps more than anything else, the thing which the church of God needs more than anything else: power. The declaration is made by the Lord Himself, "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you... by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts". If, as is so much the case, we are conscious of powerlessness, of our weakness, and of the weakness of the people of God generally, of the church in this world, it is useless to bemoan the weakness and deplore the lack of power; the need is to enquire why it is, to discover the causes, the reasons, the meaning, for evidently it is not the Lord's will. It's contrary to His own declared intention for His people.

When Israel met that great setback at Ai after Jericho, Joshua prostrated himself before the Lord, and cried unto the Lord. The Lord in effect said to Joshua: "In defeat and failure it is useless to cry unto Me! The thing to do is to find out why, to investigate the reason. I can't do anything," the Lord virtually said, "However much you cry, I can do nothing until you have laid your hand upon the cause, brought it to light. When you've done that, and the thing is exposed and dealt with, then the obstacle is removed and we can go on. And the power of further mighty conquest can be renewed and restored." And so it does become necessary in a day of defeat, and limitation, and weakness - loss and lack of power, to find out why.

Now, we are not going to spend a lot of time on uncovering the faults, failures, wrongs that may be in us or in the church, but there are some things which in a general way would be well to take note of. As those of us who feel the situation most acutely, and in our responsibility for the Lord's interests and the Lord's people think about the situation and about the matters of the people of God, some things do press upon our consciousness and recognition that may be profitable to mention here this evening. And I feel that I shall find a considerable amount of agreement when I say that perhaps the greatest, or amongst the greatest, of our needs, the needs of the people of God in our own time, now, and even here, is a new apprehension and appreciation of the great basic realities of our life and position as Christians.

Our second hymn this evening contained some of the most wonderful things of which it is possible for man to conceive. When you went through that hymn, singing it (I have no doubt with all good meaning and heart) I wondered how much we were alive to the tremendous things that were passing through our lips: "No spot of guilt on me remains..." A mere fragment in a long hymn, but what a mighty thing for any mortal, human part of this creation to say: "No spot of guilt on me remains... while Jesus' blood through earth and sky..." do you see what I mean? I feel, dear friends, that we take so much for granted; almost as a matter of course. It has become so familiar, so oft repeated, and yet it is true. It is true that true and genuine believers, born from above believers, children of God, are God's mightiest miracle in this universe. Every one is the embodiment of the greatest thing that ever God has done!

We've only to run our fingers over the features and factors of our faith, our Christian doctrine, and mention them one by one. And in every single instance and aspect we are dealing with, we are in the presence of an immensity that will take all eternity, all eternity, the ages of the ages, to comprehend. Every one. Again, we are not going to do that. We could think back into the eternal counsels of God and find ourselves in that foreknowledge, foreordination, predestination, "...chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world". Can you comprehend that? I say it will take all of eternity to compass that one thing! The incarnation of the Son of God... that has defeated and defied all human attempts and efforts to explain, and define, and comprehend. God, infinite and eternal God, found in human form, comprehended in a Man. Do you understand that? That's the mystery of God. So we go on.

We have said: "While Jesus' blood cried through earth and sky", have we ever yet, shall we ever fathom, exhaust and measure the infinite value and virtue of that precious Blood? Born again, from above, of the Holy Spirit. Why, Nicodemus was the teacher in Israel, and had a vast amount of knowledge in the things of God, but that beat him. That absolutely put him out of court; he stood before that with a mighty question, "How? How? How?" I could go on like that. Dear friends, you and I, as children of God, are supposed to be the embodiment of these things. This is our faith, not a creed, not something objective to ourselves; something that has made us, constituted us, is a part of us. So I repeat: the great need in the matter of recovery of power may very well be a recovery of the wonder and greatness of the things which have become so commonplace to us that we can hear them, sing them, and never feel the thrill, never feel startled by a single clause that has eternity in it. True, isn't it? It's true. And among the many, many things of which that is true I think one of the major things is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit... sent forth by God from heaven to indwell the children of God, to indwell the church of God. The Holy Spirit! Do you not feel that we take the Holy Spirit too much for granted? When we come to discuss this as a subject, what do we say? Well, in controversy over it, its many interpretations, many designations, we resolve the thing so often by saying, "Well, of course every born anew child of God has the Holy Spirit!" And that's, so often, the beginning and the end of it; that is what it amounts to. If we are really born anew from above by our new birth we receive the Holy Spirit, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within. Yes, yes! Agreed, but the Holy Spirit - God the Holy Spirit, an equal member of the Divine Trinity, very Jehovah in equality, God of all the ages, the God of heaven and earth, God over all; God! Infinite in power, infinite in wisdom, infinite in grace, and much more, much more which we may see in these days. That One resident within you, as you sit there where you are, and in me, as I stand here where I am. Is that Christian truth? Is that the teaching of the Scripture? Is that the revelation of the Word of God? Is it?

Don't you agree, we need to recover something with a new apprehension and a new appreciation of the greatness of the fundamental things of our very faith? "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you". "By My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts and not the Lord of earthly hosts, because, as you notice, the margin there says, "Not by an army." Not by an army, not by earthly and worldly hosts, and they have done great things in history and can do great things in this world. But, says the Lord, "Not, not that". And I see in this an invidious comparison between that "Not... but". An army? Well, look at some of the armies in the Bible; look at the great army of Sennacharib spread over the land. Look at the hosts of the Midianites, the Amalekites and all the children of the east, "like locusts", it says, covering the earth. Was it by an army over against an army, three hundred up against a host like that, that Gideon gained the day? "Not by an army, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of (other) hosts", those hosts that Elisha's servant saw when his master prayed his eyes open: "the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof", the Lord of greater hosts than all the hosts of men.

Power by the Holy Spirit

It's a romantic story of the forces, the immense forces, that have lifted themselves against the Lord of Hosts - empires and their Caesars, their rulers, straddling the path of the onward movement of the Spirit of God and where are they? Where are they? God determined His Son as the Heir of all things, the Heir of this world... He made it for Him. And again and again men have lifted themselves up to take world dominion to themselves. And what an exhibition of power they have made, what shouts and screams they have given forth in their assertion of their power and ability to take the earth, to take the nation. Where are they? Where are the Caesar's who did it? Where is the Hitler, and the Mussolini, and the others, who made a bid for the inheritance of God's Son: world dominion? The same fate awaits those today who are on the same business, and all who will follow them. "By My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts", the Lord of Hosts. Where are they? Where is the Holy Spirit? He is still intact, He is still on the field, He is still pursuing the Divine purpose. Power by the Holy Spirit... and we are so weak, so impotent, so powerless; almost helpless, aren't we? What's wrong?

I ask again, it may be this: it is not that we so much need God to send the Holy Spirit, which He has done, and He is here; it may be that we just need to recognise more clearly and grasp more livingly the tremendous thing that God has done in sending the Spirit. How great the Spirit of God is! There will ever and always remain the mystery and the wonder that defeats our intellectual powers to explain. We'll never be able to comprehend with our human mind this thing, and yet to have some perception of the fact of it, is essential to power. When that was really recognised at any time, people were down on their faces in the presence of God the Holy Spirit. Broken. Yes, that's not just language, look at them, look at them! Down prostrate... in adoring worship and wonder....

Oh friends, this is what has been coming home to me, this, amongst so many matters, is a matter for us to bring back into its right realm. When the Holy Spirit came, in His advent, on what is called "the day of Pentecost", they were filled with amazement! Everybody said, "What is this? What is it?" The old question about the manna, defeating all powers of definition, explanation, and recognition came here with this visitation from heaven. "What is this?" They were amazed! They were perplexed. All their mental powers broke down before this in an effort to give an explanation. Now, I am not saying that we've got to have another experience of Pentecost like that. All I am saying, dear friends, and yet it's a big enough thing to say, is that we do need to recover something of the wonder of the Holy Spirit having come, and being with us, and being in us. It's going to make such a large number of changes in us; it's going to have so many effects through us, not all pleasant, true, but better. Better for men to be antagonistic to something that is really of God, than to be able to ignore the presence of God because there's nothing to take note of.

Well, I was saying that amongst the many things needed to be recovered in the wonder of the faith of the Christian, is the wonder of the Holy Spirit. It would be no exaggeration to say that this is a matter that could occupy us without monotony, and without repetition, for a year of days. I thought about it, I could see quite easily fifty-two evenings through the year, once a week, filled to the full with this matter alone: the meaning of the Holy Spirit. And I suppose that's limiting the Holy Ghost even to put it like that.

Well now, come for a few minutes to this, where we have taken our Scriptures in Zechariah and in Acts chapter 1. Just in broad outline without the closer examination that must come, there are these things: there was a task before the Lord's people in both instances, on both occasions.

A Task

They were conscious of being in a purpose of God. For them, relationship with God was not a matter of believing certain truths, performing certain rites, going through a certain ritual, attending services and going away having done their duty. For the people of God (and this is true, or should be true, of all people of God in all ages if they are really alive to the meaning of their relationship with God) for them, in the days of Zechariah and in the days of the Acts, the thing which controlled their consciousness, that mastered, and gripped their awareness as the Lord's people, was that they were bound and horizoned by a Divine purpose. In the Old Testament it may have been represented in symbolic form or form of type, but lying behind that was the spiritual reality. They inwardly were aware that this thing represented a Divine thought, a Divine desire. It contained a Divine meaning. It stood related to God in purpose, and so they were a people in the grip of this sense of being a people apprehended by God for a purpose, for a work, for an achievement of God; they were in it.

That was true of this remnant that had come back from the exile. Weak, feeble, but nevertheless unable to turn from this business, this Divine business, and just settle down in the land and cultivate their fields, and their vineyards and the rest. The central thing was this that was so near to the heart of God, representing this eternal thought of God. They were in the grip of that. We know how true that was at the beginning of the book of the Acts as they waited during those ten days after the Lord's ascension. There is little doubt that they were in the grip of a sense of having been laid hold of for a purpose. Whatever may have happened when He was crucified, in the devastation of vision and outlook and hope, during the forty days that had been recovered and restored, and during those ten days up to the fiftieth, they were men gripped together; people possessed by some thing that was to be, some thing in the purpose of God that was ahead. A mighty controlling anticipation, expectation and if they were under command to wait, to tarry until... you may take it for granted that it was a restive waiting, it was a stretched out waiting. As it says, "they continued steadfastly", the word meaning, "stretched out, extended"! It is a picture word of the head thrust forward, looking, waiting, reaching out - something has laid hold of them; there is something to be.

That is how the Lord's people ought ever to be because God is a forward looking God. He has not reached His end yet. God is an expectant God: God with anticipation, God who is reaching on toward an end, who is moved Himself, governed by what is so often called "the eternal purpose". Purpose! He is the purposeful God. His people who come under His apprehending hand ought to be like that in spite of all set-backs, and discouragements, and frustrations, and oppositions, and difficulties, and conscious self-helplessness and impotence. There ought to be in us this sense, God-given sense, that there is yet something in the purpose of God intended, and we're in it, we're a part of it. That is the meaning of vision; it's like that.

Again, I am making statements; as I have been saying, I am stating Divine truth. Sitting there, how do you feel about that? Do you assent with your mind? Yes. Do you agree to the proposition, the suggestion, the idea? Do you like it? But, is that enough friends? Is it really in us? Called according to His purpose. The purposeful God; that's the beginning of the Spirit of God. That is where the Spirit of God begins! If you have had anything of a real experience of being translated out of the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love, or, put that same experience in any of the many ways in which it is put, if you really have had an experience of salvation, of new birth (put it as you will) that crisis in the life which means transition from an old to a new; is it not true, whether you have been able to put it into words and define it or not, is it not true that the first consciousness of your new experience has been, "There's something to live for that I never had before. Now I sense that there is some meaning in life that I never sensed before!" Is that not true? It's the beginning of the work of the Spirit in a life, to constitute us according to the God of purpose.

Here then, were these people in the days of the return from captivity. Here were these people at the beginning of the church era (the book of the Acts) very conscious of meaning, purpose, call, apprehension by God. And yet... in both cases, in both instances, a consciousness that it could never be achieved unless God Himself came and did it. Look at them after the captivity: this little, weak, despised, beset remnant. You've got, of course, to read with Zechariah the book of Ezra; they go together. Purpose? Yes, no doubt about it, they've come back with that.

But... look what's up against us; look what's up against us! Look what we're up against in ourselves... what are we? What can we accomplish? What can we do? Look at the forces we have to contend with within and without. And the same Holy Spirit who caused the stories to be written, has taken pains to let it be seen that there was plenty to be overcome if this was to be done. Why this in our passage? "Who art thou, oh great mountain?" Oh great mountain. What was the mountain? We can't be sure in the case of the remnant, we can make some guesses perhaps, quote some passages that might relate. But taking the whole situation as we read, in Ezra, and later in Nehemiah, there's a mountain good and high.

A Great Mountain

The Lord calls it a great mountain. Sometimes what we call great mountains are very little things with the Lord, but the Lord here says, "Oh great mountain... I know how great the difficulty, I know how strong the opposition, I know the fury and the subtlety of the enemy... oh great mountain!"

The church was confronted with a great mountain; the Lord had taken account of that mountain when He said: "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea". What was He talking about? The thing that dogged the steps of the apostle Paul over the whole area of his missionary journeys: Judaism! Tracking him down. Working by every subtle and often diabolical means to prejudice his ministry and message and destroy his influence; that Judaism that was up against the Lord Jesus Himself. And at last, at last (speaking from the human and earthly side) brought Him to the cross. That's a mountain; that's a mountain, but "Who art thou, oh great mountain?" A great mountain, and a little, weak, helpless remnant! "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts". And mark you, by the end of the life of the apostle Paul, that mountain had been laid low. The letter to the Galatians is the letter, is it not, of the Holy Spirit - the Holy Spirit. And it was that weapon that struck a mortal blow at Judaism.

Yes, well, the temple was finished, and the wall was completed, in spite of the great mountain. But what am I saying? How helpless the people are in themselves, therefore how necessary that God comes in if the purpose which has gripped them is to be realised. The necessity of the Holy Spirit... Jesus knew it. You see, He was meeting this opposition every day of His life! It was resisting Him wherever He went. Oh, what a force it was that was up against Him, both human and Satanic. He met it. Then there came that evening when He sat down with His disciples at the table, (13th of John) and began to speak. They arose and left the table and went out and He began to talk further, and talked through all those chapters, as we have His talk, John 14, 15, 16 and 17. He prayed. What is He doing? He has taken the measure of the forces that are going to be up against them in this world. He has met those forces Himself, and He knows that His church is going to meet them wherever it goes with its testimony to Him. Yes, it's a tremendous thing that confronts them - this world, this world, this world! Listen to Him in that prayer, chapter 17: "the world... the world... the world..."! What a force it is, as in the grip of the evil powers. He knew!

But what is He doing in this long conversation and discourse? What is the thing to which He heads everything else up? "When He the Spirit is come!" All 16, chapter 16 and a lot more of 16, is on the coming Holy Spirit: "It is expedient for you that I go away, if I go not away the Paraclete will not come. But if I go, I will send Him unto you, and when He is come..." In a word, the great mountain will find its match and its master. "And you, little flock... you... so weak, so small, so helpless in yourself... will, because you will receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you, will be equal to the situation, and more than equal." The Holy Spirit. See, He has pointed to the way in which a feeble people in the earth, with every mighty force in this world against them, can accomplish the purpose of their calling: the Holy Spirit. Oh, how great, how wonderful, the Holy Spirit!

There, then, is the task. There, then, is the need. There, then, is the adequacy of the Holy Spirit to meet it. But, there's another point on which I am going to close, where, as I said at the beginning, there needs to be recovery on our part. We make very much of course, and rightly so, of the sovereignty of God. It's a very comforting truth, it's a very strengthening doctrine, it's a wonderful reality - the sovereignty of God. Do you not think, dear friends, that it's just possible to leave too much to the sovereignty of God? Don't misunderstand me, what I mean is this, "Oh well, God is God, the Creator of the heavens and earth; He is on the throne of the universe. He has in His hand all power. He has purposed, and He can and will accomplish His purpose. All we have to do is to trust that sovereign power and wisdom of God!" And, in effect, sit down in our armchair and wait for the sovereignty of God to do it. Now, of course, you wouldn't, and I wouldn't put it like that, yet, here is a point of peril. Here's a point of peril. We have got to recognise that, although all that is true of God, and much more in the same realm, alongside of that, alongside of that there is ranged, what? Well, with these hundred and twenty after He had gone to the throne, a continuing steadfastly in prayer about what? This that He had promised - the coming Spirit, and the power by the coming Spirit. Doubtless day and night through those ten days, that fixed period, they were stretched out on this matter. He has said it! And is there not much more like that that indicates...

[Unfortunately the message ends here.]

Chapter 2 - The Holy Spirit's Day of Liberty

The book of the Acts, chapter 2: "And when the day of Pentecost was now come..." the margin says, "was being fulfilled": "And when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled". In this very great matter of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit we can only take one more small fragment this morning, and it arises out of this fulfilment that took place on that particular day.

It ought to impress us that it was on that particular day that God decided to send the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in the Old Testament that speaks of the advent of the Holy Spirit at any given time; no word there that at a certain time the dispensation would change by the coming from heaven of the Holy Spirit to abide for the age. No word that it would be so, but there's very much in the Old Testament that is gathered into that day and that advent. God chose that day because of the deep and rich relationship of things to that particular time.

And when you think of it, dear friends, it is an impressive thing how God chooses His times for things. You know when the Lord Jesus was about to be crucified, the Jewish rulers said, "Not on the Passover". Not on the Passover, but heaven and God said, "Yes, on the Passover". The Jewish Passover was being fulfilled, but being fulfilled in a way, in a fulness, that they neither thought of nor intended. But God said, "This is the time for the great Passover transcending all others; the fulfilment of all others up to this time." He chose this time. He chose the time for this great dispensational change and movement: the coming of the Holy Spirit. It was by His decision that it took place at that particular time.

When all these people gathered in Jerusalem at their feast of Pentecost, they never imagined what would happen. It had never occurred to them as they had left their far-off cities and countries mentioned in this chapter - how many of them - they never, as they set out on their journey to Jerusalem, had in mind this thing that was going to happen. For them it was the keeping of an old Jewish festival, with much rich meaning for them in history. But the Lord said: "Now's the time for something much more, much greater." He chose the time. Of course we shall see why in a moment, but it was like that. And we are given to understand that the Lord is choosing the time, or is going to choose the time for the coming again of the Lord Jesus. And that is not a general statement, but it is said precisely that when the spirit of Antichrist has reached that point of expression where, more than ever before in history, there will be a bid for world dominion, "Then He whose right it is" will come, to take it.

Antichrist will make the great bid for worldwide dominion, gathered up into one system, whether in one head - it may be, and is there not today a bigger movement in that direction than ever before. There have been many who have made that bid, but it's been more or less on a limited scale, but there are only two camps in this world today really, and the battle is to break down the one, to make way for Antichrist - that is, the summing up of the dominion of this world under one head. And the Lord will say, when it reaches that point, "Now is the time for the right One to have it." "He has appointed the day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the One whom He has appointed". God chooses His time, His day, and it is always very strategic, opportune, and full of significance. And so it says here, "Now, when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled", He chose that day for the coming of the Holy Spirit in Person, to govern this dispensation until the coming of the Lord Jesus.

You know that Pentecost means "fiftieth"; literally it is, "Now when the fiftieth day was in fulfilment," was in the course of fulfilment... and that at once opens to us God's meaning in choosing this particular day. For all who know the Bible, even in a very simple way, know that that fiftieth day in the old economy was:

The Day of Jubilee.

And the day of Jubilee was the day when all who had been in slavery were released. All men and women who had been sold into bondage, got their liberty on that day. All lands and properties which had been brought into bondage for debts and so on, had to be released on that day. If you had lived on a fiftieth year day, you would have (if it was necessary) been awakened very early in the morning by a certain sound; for early on that morning, as the sun broke through out of the night, the priests sounded the Jubilee trumpets - the trumpets of Jubilee. And they were the gospel trumpets, if "gospel" means "good news", it was the sound of release for all captives, all prisoners, all in bondage; people and land set free. And the trumpets proclaimed release: "Good tidings to the captives, the setting at liberty of them that were bound!" It was a day, therefore, of great joy for the prisoners, for those who had known no liberty.

God chose that day, or the meaning that was bound up with that day, for the day of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Significant, isn't it? Indeed, that day in Jerusalem was, for many captives, a day of rejoicing, a day of liberation; the going forth over the whole world of the representatives (through representatives). Look at it, "Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, sojourners from Rome..." the whole world is here. The gospel trumpet proclaimed in Jerusalem to the whole world as represented, on that day, the good news of release for the world from its bondage. How strategic God was, how apt. Fulfilment of the old conception, but how much greater the fulfilment than had ever been imagined. I say again, when they came from far-off Rome, and Cyrene, and Libya and all these places, they never expected to hear that message which God had prepared. Now of course, quite simple is the message for us: Pentecost, the Holy Spirit having come, and being here as He is, represents that, just that: glorious liberty for men, glorious gospel of emancipation from bondage!

When the little remnant came back from the captivity in Babylon, Chaldea, having known seventy years of bondage, the word of the Lord through His messenger was: "According to the covenant which I made with you in the land of Egypt, My Spirit remaineth among you... according to the covenant in Egypt, My Spirit remaineth among you". And here they are, because of the faithfulness of God to His covenant, and because of the abiding Spirit of God, they're out of captivity. It's one little sidelight upon the great truth.

Dear friends, I am not sure that we appreciate our liberty in Christ sufficiently. We need to read again that letter to the Galatians in the light of Pentecost, in the light of Jubilee, "our liberty in Christ" - one of our most priceless possessions - translated not out of an earthly Egypt, but out of the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Being fulfilled then, is the gospel of emancipation for all slaves, for all prisoners.

The Lord Jesus is undoubtedly in the fulness of His ministry on the day of Pentecost. What I like about this is He'd already said it, but here it is in fulfilment: He is here by the Holy Spirit, in the fulness of His ministry. He said... of which He said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to preach the good tidings to the poor, to bind up the broken hearted, to set at liberty them that are bound, to open the prison to the prisoner, to proclaim..." oh, what an unfortunate translation we have of the words: "the acceptable year of the Lord". No! The year of Jubilee of our God - the Year of Jubilee of our God, the Year of Grace... the Year of Grace, the breaking of the Law which binds the prisoners and has imposed bondage upon so many - the Year of Grace being fulfilled.

And another thing was here very present in the minds of all these who had gathered in Jerusalem. What was it that they were there to celebrate? Well, for them, the Feast of Pentecost was linked with the giving of the Law at Sinai. They were remembering Moses going into the Mount, God meeting him, and giving him the covenant by the Law to govern their lives henceforth. And for them the Feast of Pentecost was always closely linked with that great epoch in their history:

The Covenant and the Law.

The sad and tragic history of broken law, but the Lord knew what He meant... He meant something more than tables of stone written and engraved with pen and inks. He had a deeper meaning. And the day came when the prophet Jeremiah was caused to say, as you will read in the thirty-first chapter of his prophecies, the thirty-first verse. It's always easy to remember the great change: Jeremiah 31:31, it's an epoch. "The day is come, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, not according to the covenant which I made with them when I took them by the hand and led them, but this is the covenant that I will make in those days, saith the Lord, I will write my laws upon their hearts, and upon their minds will I write them". Now, we'll not say a lot about that, because it is so clear, simply clear, that that is exactly what the Holy Spirit came to do; that is the fulfilment of Pentecost. You and I know it. Do we? Do we?

Let me challenge every heart. Let me challenge old and young with this. Do you really know in experience, in life, Jeremiah 31:31? If you really have received the Holy Spirit (which as a child of God you ought to have done) do you know that? Are you able to say, "I know what the Lord meant when He said that through Jeremiah. I know in my own experience that part of Pentecost anyway." Because one of those very first things in the Christian life, when we are born of the Holy Spirit, is we know in ourselves without anybody having to tell us, what we ought to do, and what we ought not to do, in a new way. It's remarkable! It's very remarkable. Things that we did without any question: the way we behaved, the way we used to speak, perhaps dress, oh, in a thousand ways about which we never had a second thought before, we are beginning to get some sensations, some feelings about that now, some question arises about that; what we do, where we go or where we do not go. We say we have a conscience about it, but it's another conscience that we never had before. We did have a conscience before, but it's a new one  an altogether new set of laws which never governed us until this time. Isn't it true? I know it begins in a simple way.

All of us remember the first time that we had a question about something that had never been a question before, we remember it quite well. We remember that first time when within us the Spirit of God put His finger upon something, and raised an issue. We felt uncomfortable, perhaps miserable... something we could not altogether explain and define; something which we did not feel was right. We learned afterward that it was a very vital matter. We came to realise that the progress of our spiritual life was bound up with our giving heed to that. We stayed where we were until that found an answer in our heart. All that is very true, isn't it? "Upon their hearts will I write them, and in their minds". The inwardness of the new covenant that began on the Day of Pentecost, that is in Pentecost; it's the Day of the New Covenant. That's what it means to have the Holy Spirit.

And may I say this, it is a grand thing, a grand thing, to see lives (especially, if I may say so, young men and young women) who are in that way walking with the Lord, and not having to have the law laid down to them by parents, or preachers, or other people; just not having to be told: coming alive to these issues and being able to say: "The Lord has spoken to me about that!" If ever anybody mentions it, then they'll say: "Alright, alright, the Lord has already touched me on that matter." Isn't that grand? That is a sure sign, a sure sign of the Holy Spirit within. Oh for more of it! Oh for more of it, this mighty work of the Holy Spirit on the basis of the New Covenant! If necessary the Holy Spirit saying "Thou shalt not" it is alright if He says "Thou shalt not," or if He says, "Thou shalt". That is, the Spirit is the Arbitrator, the One who comes between the right and the wrong, and gives His verdict in the heart - in the heart. Pentecost is the Day of New Covenant, and it's not right back there so many centuries ago, it's now! It's now, it's for the age, as the Lord says.

And, to close with for the present, Pentecost, as you know, as we have recently said, was the Feast of the Firstfruits - the time when in the old economy the husbandman went out and saw the first ripe grain, gathered it into a sheaf, took it home, made it into two loaves. Two loaves, and took them, and laid them at the feet of the high priest. The first-fruits of the harvest in token of God's faithfulness, of God's grace, of God's disposition to be favourable, of God's intention to give all that that represented and signified - the token of a full inheritance taken by faith in the two loaves. Two loaves. You know, in Biblical symbolism, two is always the number of sufficient testimony. When you've got two you've got enough: "In the mouth of two witnesses", that's enough. If you can get two, you've got sufficient for God: "Where two or three are gathered together in My Name there am I", sufficient basis for the Lord. "If two of you shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done of My Father" it's sufficient.

Two loaves - a sufficient testimony. Why? Well, the Lord Jesus in death and resurrection: two sides of His glorious redemptive activity, has now gone up into the Presence of God, presented Himself and been accepted. As He said to Mary, as she sought to embrace Him on that resurrection morning, "Touch Me not; embrace Me not; lay not hold of Me, I have not yet ascended unto My Father. Go to My disciples and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father; unto My God and your God". Something happened. He presented the double testimony of death and resurrection to the Father God, and was accepted, but in token of all those who in Him, were represented and included as His full harvest. No wonder the Lord chose "those out of every nation under heaven", it says, to be represented in Jerusalem on that day, and One representing the fruit of all the nations attested by the Holy Spirit. All wonderful, very blessed.

Here, in a little gathering like this, a very little one, nevertheless enough nations represented, enough nations to be a token, but Christ the first-fruits - out of every nation, every tribe, every tongue - accepted in token of a great harvest. That's a word of encouragement in a day of frustration in the nations, a day when it seems like limitation and curtailment, but because He is there as the first-fruits of all that believe, the vision will be fulfilled. "A great multitude which no man can number out of every tribe and kindred and tongue... ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands" that is beggaring language! The inexpressible fruit of Pentecost, Pentecost: the work of the Holy Spirit.

May we all be the fruit of the Spirit, really be the fruit of the Spirit: something presented to God. So, the Lord says, "Present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your spiritual service... Be not conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing, the making anew, of your mind." That is the Holy Spirit's work and business. May He have a clear way in every one of us.

Chapter 3 - The Holy Spirit's Function

As we embark upon this full day of ministry - ministry of speaking and of hearing the word of God - may I preface it by pointing out what all ministry of the Word of God ought to contain. There are, in the main, three things that such ministry should have as its object. The first: the greatness and the nature of our calling of God in Christ. May I underline those two words, the greatness of our calling in Christ... the nature of our calling. The second: the meaning of the experience, and the conflict, and the discipline that goes with that calling. For, in our calling in Christ we find ourselves very soon in a great conflict and we find that we have been brought under very severe and continuous discipline. And it is very necessary therefore, for us to know the meaning of that conflict, what it's all about and the meaning of that discipline; what it is unto. And thirdly: the provisions and the resources available to the Lord's people for a triumphant issue of the calling and the suffering. That, I feel, comprehends ministry. And those three things, although we are not going to dwell upon them, will lie behind all that we have to say today.

We are now then, coming back to the second chapter of the book of the Acts. You have that before you. I am not going to embark upon an exposition of the chapter in its verses or its clauses, nor in its particular and specific subjects. It is the chapter as a chapter, not in the Bible, nor in the New Testament, but as a chapter in history. There is a very great importance, dear friends, attached to our understanding of this one chapter. I think as we go on it will become more and more clear to you what an important chapter this is. I trust that you will see its importance more fully and clearly than ever you have done before, but I repeat: it is fundamental to all Christian life, fundamental to the three things which I have mentioned as constituting ministry to the Lord's people, that we understand the second chapter of the book of the Acts. Perhaps you think you do; you've read it, and heard it read, and heard it preached on numerous times. But when I say what I am saying now about it, I am fully aware that more than fifty years of ministry lie behind what I am saying, and I wouldn't dare come to you with this whole thing exhausted and begin to give you something of an exhausted subject. What I mean is that I am more and more aware myself, as time goes on, of the inexhaustible fulness of this one chapter. Well, let us approach it.

There are, as we Christians well know, three major truths which lie beneath our Christianity - those three being the Incarnation of the Son of God (the second Person of the Trinity coming into this world in man form); the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (meaning His death and His resurrection, two sides of one thing: the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ); and the third, what is now conveyed to our minds by the word "Pentecost", that is, the advent of the Holy Spirit. These are the three major truths of Christianity.

There is a sense in which each of these might be said to be the greatest. We might say the coming into this world in a body was the greatest thing that has ever happened in the world: the coming in of God in Christ in human form. It is quite easy to make that the supreme thing. But then we might, as we contemplate it, say the same about the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus; it's the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of mankind! And then again, how easy it would be to say that of the day of Pentecost: the greatest thing in human history. But we cannot say that of each or any of these separately; we can only say it in a related way, for they all three comprise one marvellous combination of Divine activity, they are not separate from one another. The first leads to the second, and the second to the third, and they are interdependent and interrelated. Not one of them exclusively comprehends the whole movement of God so far as this world is concerned. Without the incarnation there would be no Redeemer. Without the Cross there would be no redemption. Without the advent of the Spirit there would be no church with its world mission. All these combine then, to make Christianity full.

When we come to the matter that is before us, gathered into that term "Pentecost" we do know that Jesus placed very great importance upon the advent of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, He placed a greater importance upon it than upon His remaining in this world in the flesh, "It is expedient for you that I go away... expedient for you that I go away, I go away!" The thing that struck consternation into those who heard it, the thing to which they reacted with a sense of helpless and hopeless despair... if it should take place, everything for them, everything in all their training, all their religious education, all their hopes and expectations, all their committals, were bound up with the Messiah here in this world. And He said over against all that, "It is expedient that I go, I go away", "better for you; indeed it is the best thing for you, for if I go not away, the Comforter, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will not come". So He vested a very great importance in the advent, the coming of the Holy Spirit, as much more than His own physical presence in this world. That advent would mean for Him His own release into universality of ministry, of power, and of presence. He knew that: "I am straitened", He said, "until this passion, baptism is accomplished... I am straitened". But here at this time, the Lord leads us to contemplate at least, if we do not comprehend, the vast significance of that which took place on that particular day in Jerusalem on their day of Pentecost; the vast significance of that in the Divine design.

Perhaps our best way of making contact with that is to look at the titles and designations given to the Holy Spirit... not all, perhaps one or two today. One of them would be enough for the day or perhaps for many days. Just as we are instructed as to the Person and work of the Lord Jesus by the names and titles which are given to Him (and ever remember, dear friends, names and titles of the Lord Jesus are indicative of His Person and His work) and as we are brought to understand who He is and what He represents by the very titles that He bears, so it is with the Holy Spirit. We come to know, to understand the Holy Spirit in His Person and in His purpose by looking into the titles which are given Him in the Word of God.

We leave for the present this general and common title: the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. About that we may have something to say later if we're able. But leaving that so-familiar title of the Holy Spirit, that which introduces us to the comprehensiveness of His person and His function, is the one which is mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews chapter 9, verse 14: "Who through the eternal Spirit."

The Eternal Spirit

And that means two things, the former of which we are not going to say much. It means that He is one with God Eternal. That speaks of His Godhead, His Deity as a member of the Divine Trinity: dateless, timeless, eternal. As truly so as ever we mean when we speak of Eternal God. That's the obvious first meaning, we leave that, but this title also relates to His office and His function: His office and His function as the Eternal Spirit. And there is our door through which we walk into this vast, this great revelation of God to man.

In this second connection of the Eternal Spirit, we find in the Bible four major features of His function. I will mention them, I have very little hope of being able to speak about them all, or about ninety percent of what I have in my heart to say. We have just got to go as far as we are able. I'll mention them, and you can have much fuller meditation than I am able to give of exposition.

Firstly, the Bible reveals concerning the Eternal Spirit, as the Eternal Spirit:

His Committal to Effecting the Eternal Purpose of God.

The Holy Spirit is, in His Divine function, committed, committed to the effecting of God's eternal purpose. There is the statement; your Bible lies open with that statement. Creation - He is pervading, He is there as the active agent in the beginning. And from that moment onward, the Spirit of God moving, moving, all the time moving in an executive, active way as the custodian of the Divine purpose; in charge of something to which He has committed Himself. We will leave that and come back in a few moments.

That purpose of God is fixed and unchangeable. Let that be clearly recognised. There is a purpose that God has concerning this world and its place in His universe; and that purpose is a fixed purpose, and it is an unchangeable purpose. And the Holy Spirit is the One committed to see to it that it is not changed, but that it persists, cannot be defeated. He has taken responsibility for that. It is a fixed purpose, unchanging and unchangeable, but that purpose is pursued by the Holy Spirit by divers means and in various ways through history.

So the Bible is a record of the diversity and variety of Divine methods and means in relation to the one ultimate purpose and goal. The Spirit will at one time move in this way, take up this means; at another time, another way, by another means. How many, how diverse and varied are the ways of God as recorded in the Scriptures... the means employed, the goings of the Spirit. Yes, that's true, and that aspect of things sees what is changeable and what is transient. Whereas the purpose is unchanging and eternal, the methods of reaching it vary and change from time to time. Something is taken up just for the time being in that relation, and then that's done and it's set aside. That is what is in the Bible about the Holy Spirit. You see the galaxy of instruments, of men used, and the tremendous range of different forms of the Holy Spirit's activity. Yes, many ways, but one end: unchanging end.

The next thing about the eternal Spirit is that He is:

Committed to the Maintaining of the Absolute Sovereignty of God.

The absolute sovereignty of God. God as very God and only God... supreme and eternal alone God, one God. The Holy Spirit is committed to the maintaining of that reality, the absolute and undivided sovereignty of God and the Bible is all about that. Divide anything between God and another or others, and you encounter the Holy Ghost. He'll not have it. This is inexorable. This is unchallengeable; interfere with this and you see what the Bible says throughout, that dark side of the Bible. All the tragedies, all the chaos, confusion, frustration, loss of time, loss in every way, because the Holy Spirit is committed to one thing here. God is God and He alone has all the rights in this universe. Question that, dispute that, withhold those rights from Him in any detail and respect, and the Holy Spirit's up against you, and you're up against the Holy Spirit. He is committed to the preserving of the sovereignty of God in absoluteness.

And the fourth thing about the Holy Spirit's committal is

His Jealousy for, and His Consistency with, the Eternal Principles of God and His Purpose.

You may be very tired of that word "principle" or "principles", you may revolt against it as some have, and say: "You are always talking about principles!" Well, alright, if you like to take that attitude, you can. For some of us that is the word that has opened our eyes to a vast realm of Divine meaning and explanation. Let it be recognised, and if you haven't recognised it go back to your Bible, investigate with this thought in your mind and before your eyes, and see that God has His own way of doing things, and that you cannot get to God's end by any way, but God's way! You cannot achieve God's purpose by any means, but God's means. You have got to come into God's thoughts, God's judgments, God's standards, God's estimates, God's values, how God looks at things, sees things, weighs things up - you've got to come into that in order to be one with Him in His eternal purpose. It is God's work in God's way. And what a lot of tragic history hangs upon failure to recognise that, as though by any means, any way, any how, we can do God's work. Well it doesn't work out that way. It doesn't work out that way and those who get nearest to the Lord, and walk closest to Him know very well that they've got to ask the Lord about everything, even the things that seem to be the most rational and sensible things. They have to ask the Lord, "Is this right? Is my natural common sense safe in this matter?"

How often we have discovered that that which seemed to us to be convincingly the right thing, did not find the Holy Spirit's assent. What I am saying then, dear friends, is that the Holy Spirit is very jealous for the Divine principles. And it is one of the most fascinating (if one can use that word about the Bible) one of the most fascinating things to see the consistency of the Holy Spirit with principle. Get hold of a single principle, and see how the Holy Spirit is consistent with that. I dare not stay to put in parentheses, instances of it in the Bible, but there it is. The Holy Spirit is just not having that because it's not consistent with the Divine principle; but He is having the other because there is no inconsistency, there's no contradiction there - it is sincere. It is wholly in line with the Divine thought, the Divine feeling about things. And if you want the Holy Spirit to be with you, standing with you, you've got to get right into line with this, and sometimes it requires a lot of sifting out, sifting out, sifting out to be done. Where is it we have defaulted? Where is our mistake? Where have we blundered? What is it that the Lord is not agreeing with and letting us get away with? What is it? Then after much heart-searching, and breaking, and emptying, we light upon it; that's it, that's it; and when we have got that, the whole thing is released.

The Holy Spirit is very jealous about Divine principles, and wholly consistent therewith. That is but introductory to this: the Holy Spirit's committal to the eternal purpose of God, and it is in those ways, but when we have said that, and the much more that could be said, we are still here before this, committed to the Eternal Purpose. What is it? What is it? What is the eternal purpose to which the Holy Spirit is thus committed, to which He will hold, from which He will not deviate, over which He will be so jealous as to its detail. What is it?

May I turn you to some Scriptures which are like windows through which we can look. They are but fragments, and the first is in that gospel which is fairly generally believed to be the first gospel record that was written. And I mention that, because if that is true, there's a greater significance about this little fragment. The gospel by Mark, the gospel by Mark chapter 1, verse 14: "Now after that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee". "Now, after John... Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand'".

Hold that for a few minutes while we turn to the letter to the Galatians, letter to the Galatians chapter 4, verse 4: "But when the fulness of the time came God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons". When the fulness of the time came... or, "was come".

Back now to Matthew's gospel, chapter 16, verse 28: "Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom".

And finally, for the moment, Acts chapter 1, verse 3: "To whom He also showed Himself alive after His passion, by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God".

Now, we have two things here in those four passages; two passages on one and two passages on the other. But they're only, of course, introductory passages to a vast amount more.

Firstly, "the time is fulfilled... in the fulness of the time". "Fulness" there is the word for completeness. Completeness. A whole range of time is now completed and all its meaning, content, has headed up to this moment: this is the fulness of all that, and this is the climax of all that. The first thing that Jesus announced in His preaching was that "the time is fulfilled... the time is completed... all that is now consummated". Stretching right back over all time, since time began, there has been something moving under the Holy Spirit in those divers manners, that variety of means. All that we have in the long story recorded in the Old Testament from the beginning... all that, under this Holy Spirit, has been moving up to this hour. And this hour is the completeness of that, the fulness of that - all that time. "In the fulness of the time God sent forth His Son" - the climax of past dispensations.

I am interested, just as by the way, in noting that Paul in his letter to the Ephesians in chapter 1 verse 10, looks on, looks on and uses the plural form of this statement. He speaks of that which will be the "fulness of the times"! Here it is singular, "the fulness of time", he looks on and says, "In the fulness of the times God will gather together all things in Christ". There will be another great climax when all the divisions of time will be gathered into this one thing. But that by the way; we need not stay with that, nor even hold it for the moment.

Here is this wonderful statement, there has been something in view from the beginning of time. God has had something in His mind right from the beginning of time which was introduced into this world when time was introduced. When God made day and night, summer and winter, springtime and harvest - made weeks and months and years and decades and centuries, and all the rest of the departments of time - God had a thought that was to run through all that section of time and govern it. As we have said, the Holy Spirit pursuing that from the beginning and now says this startling word that has reached its climax, that has come to its issue. All the meaning of time up to this moment is now divulged! It's out! It comes out with the Son of God incarnate, "In the fulness of the time God sent forth His Son". What is it? Well, the other passages and the other half of the statement tell you: "Time is fulfilled... the kingdom of God is at hand". Now you are let right into all that has been in God's mind from the beginning.

What was this eternal purpose? A kingdom, a Divine kingdom! God's kingdom, heaven's kingdom, "The kingdom is at hand" and the last thing about which the Lord Jesus spoke, as was the first thing that He uttered in His preaching in Acts 1:3: "Speaking to them of the kingdom". Comprehending His life, He steps out onto the platform of His world ministry and says: "The kingdom is here... at hand" meaning, more literally, "on hand" - it has arrived, come, it's imminent: the first thing.

And after His resurrection up to His return to heaven, the last thing He's speaking about is the kingdom. It's impressive, you know. It's impressive that that was the last thing that the apostle Paul spoke about that we have any record of. In the last chapter of this book of Acts, "in his own hired house, receiving all that came unto him, he spake concerning the kingdom". This is something, this is something! Yes, the purpose, comprehensively, is the kingdom of God, the reign of God, and that order of heaven: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as in heaven..." that's the kingdom. That's the kingdom. So the eternal purpose is this Divine, heavenly, kingdom and rule, over this world at least.

From that general and inclusive truth and revelation we are led to these three things that come out on the day of Pentecost, because, on that day Matthew 16:28 had at least a partial and immediate fulfilment: "There be some of those that stand here, and I verily say this to you, who shall in no wise taste of death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom". That happened on the day of Pentecost. When He was about to leave them, He said, "Not many days hence, not many days hence..." it happened! But when it happened, the advent of the kingdom, the long-delayed, the long-awaited, the long-prophesied kingdom, the long-illustrated kingdom, when it happened, what were the three things that related to its coming? Well look; look at Acts 2. If Acts 2 is the advent of the kingdom in the consummation of time up to that point, the thing, the first thing that is brought right into view so powerfully, so pre-eminently, is the King is enthroned!

The King is Enthroned

God raised Him up... He has ascended up on high. Of course we need to crowd into that all this other wonderful teaching in the New Testament, "God raised Him and set Him at His own right hand far above all rule and authority and every name that is named... He sat down at the right hand of the majesty in the heavens", and so on and on. But that is here on the day of Pentecost. It is both explicit and implicit, that this One whom they crucified, God has made Lord and Christ. The King is in His place. The King is there. You must have the King in order to have a kingdom.

So, with the coming in of the kingdom, the great reality of Christ's Lordship becomes the dominant note of apostolic preaching. We've heard it: "He is Lord of all" - we can say that from one standpoint. The whole of this book of the Acts (so called) is the account of His Lordship in many ways. But there it is, inexorable, unchangeable, unchallengeable, because in the hands of the Holy Spirit. This kingdom of this King is something eternal, and not just of an hour. The King is installed. The kingdom has come with power; with power.

With all the heart-sinking that comes with our contemplation of things today where we are concerned, where the church is concerned, the spiritual state is concerned, it still remains that this kingdom is a kingdom of superior power; it's the kingdom of power. It seems to me that the Holy Spirit went out of His way causing this record to be written to indicate this feature of the kingdom: its power. Well, if you've ever been caught in anything like a hurricane, you know something of the meaning of power. You get into a gale on the sea, and see what you can do with it. Some of us have travelled on the mightiest ships that exist in this world, those great vessels with their immense engine power, and we have been hove to for many hours, because the gale was too great and couldn't cope with it. The only thing to do was to stand still; let it blow itself out - wait. It's useless to try and cope with that.

"A mighty rushing wind" is the simile of the advent of the Holy Spirit, to convey the idea that this kingdom is a kingdom of power. Oh yes, you're saying with me, "Oh, for the recovery and the experience of that... oh, to know something more of that!" But our failure and the church's failure - and it has its reasons - it is not my subject, it is not the Lord's fault, it's not the change in the Holy Spirit - it's the church's fault entirely that this power is not in manifestation as it should be. But of course it's still working, and very mightily working, hiddenly very largely. Oh, what a story there will be read at last when we can see even what the Holy Spirit has done in days like these, when everything seems to be in suspense or defeat, or arrest. Oh, the Spirit of God hasn't evacuated the scene, and has not let go His committal, not at all. But, the Advent of the kingdom is in power, "...and you shall receive power", said the Lord as He was going, "when the Holy Spirit is come upon you".

I, dear friends, do not want to be just giving out a lot of words and ideas, even though this may be the truth. For me, there's a challenge in it all the time, and I want that challenge to come to your hearts. Our powerlessness, our weakness, our ineffectiveness, our impotence and confusion cannot be attributed to the Holy Spirit. We ought to seriously and solemnly investigate the matter to see why it is that there is not more power. Oh, for more power in our preaching: the Holy Spirit registering with impact as the word is given. That's what I covet, but oh, for more power in our hearing and our receiving, that there may be in us like the hammer blows of the Word of God. Yes, we are sadly in need of the power of the kingdom, for the kingdom is still amongst us.

And the third thing that characterised the coming of the kingdom - such a significant thing - was the birth of the church. The birth of the church. On that day the church was born and what is the relationship of the church to the kingdom? It is here, of course, that the reason is given for so much careful, serious instruction about the church. If you have lost any of the great impress of that word, by reason of familiarity, if it has become but a system of truth to you: an idea, in a more or less objective way, listen now and ask the Lord to recover that loss. Because, you see, this that is called "My church, My church", has a very, very close place to the heart of the King, of the Lord, in relation to His kingdom. What is it? Well, if we use a figure from the Word of God, this is the innermost thing in the whole range of the Divine rule which is to be ultimately. The Divine rule, kingdom, is a very far-reaching and comprehensive thought and intention of God to embrace all things. But right at the heart of that great spiritual territory there's a City. There's a City! A city is a Divine idea, or it is taken up by God and used as a Divine idea; it is.

Chapter 4 - The Holy Spirit's Passion for the Name

In Acts 2 in which we continue our consideration to which the Lord has led us for this day especially, this morning we began by pointing out firstly, the tremendous importance of this chapter in the history of the people of God, then the very great need for a new apprehension of its significance. We mentioned that this chapter contains the third and final part of that cycle of Divine activities in relation to this world's salvation; the first being the Incarnation - God manifest in the flesh; the second being the Cross of the Lord Jesus, on both its sides: His death and His resurrection; and now the third: the mighty advent of the Holy Spirit by which the other two are made effective universally.

The Holy Spirit coming in the great committal to carry into effect God's eternal purpose; that purpose being the establishment of His heavenly, Divine, Godly kingdom over this world. This chapter marks the point at which, to use the words of our Lord Jesus Himself, the first words that He ever uttered in public when He had taken up His ministry: "The time is fulfilled... the kingdom of God is at hand". This chapter sees the completion of all that time had contained up to this point, and the breaking in of that which had ever been in view through past time: the kingdom of God.

We pointed out that as the first words of the Lord Jesus in His ministry related to the kingdom of God being imminent, His last words before He went back to heaven to His disciples were concerning the kingdom of God. And at that point He was saying: "Not many days hence... tarry ye in Jerusalem, not many days hence..." and so it proved not many days after this day, "And when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled..." the day of all days up to that time had arrived, and heaven opened. The Spirit came and the kingdom in its spiritual form was introduced. Underline that phrase: in its spiritual form; it has yet to come in its literal form, but it has come in its spiritual form. Now, we went on, took a lot of time, to show what that meant and what that means. We must hasten on because this is such a mighty chapter; the fulness is far beyond us to unfold. So we take another and further fragment this afternoon.

We closed the earlier part by pointing out that this chapter, in the first place, set forth the great fact which was proclaimed on that day in the power of the Holy Spirit: that the King was in His place - the King so long waited for! The King, having come, and having been rejected by at least the nation to which He came, has been given His place: "God raised Him... set Him at His own right hand... He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens... this Jesus whom ye crucified, God hath made Lord and Christ". And it is upon that that we are going to spend just a little more time this afternoon: the essential factors of the advent of the Holy Spirit. And the first, out of which everything else rises is:

The Lordship of Christ

Jesus Christ as Lord. "God hath made Him Lord and Christ", a King and a Saviour. I wonder if you have noticed and been sufficiently impressed by this wonderful thing in this whole book, which is introduced with this chapter, that it is the Name of Jesus that becomes the great dominant factor throughout; the Name. I would like, of course, to quote every mention of it and cite every instance of it being in evidence. That we will not do, you can do that at another time, but here the very first thing that the Holy Spirit did, and mark you, it's the first thing in this new dispensation inaugurated by the advent of the Holy Spirit as a thing which is to be established as the platform upon which everything is to be enacted; as the basis upon which everything is to be built; as the stream from which everything is to be derived. The first thing that the Holy Spirit did in coming, was to establish the pre-eminence of the Name of Jesus - the pre-eminent and ineffable Name. There is a sense in which this whole wonderful book of beginnings, the beginnings of the new creation, the spiritual creation, there is a sense in which this whole book is gathered into that one fact. A Name has been given. A Name has been established. A Name has been laid down, and there is no other name given under heaven among men. It is the alone Name, the unique Name, the supreme Name, the ineffable Name - the Name of Jesus.

While I'm speaking, I would that you would be praying in your heart and you would be praying this one thing to the Lord: "Lord, don't let this be just a lot more teaching. Strike this right deep into my very being and make it a living reality." This that the Holy Spirit did was not just and only objective to the men concerned. It was not some truth proclaimed to them. You don't have here some unfolding of truth about the Name of Jesus. It was not something proclaimed in specific terms; that came afterward. It was something that was done in them. While the Holy Spirit came upon them, they were also filled with the Holy Spirit, and if you look to see what that meant, how did it work out? What was the effect of it, the consequences, the issue? If you look, you find that in a very powerful and overwhelming way they became possessed; just possessed, gripped, mastered by this Name, this Name!

Whatever they had known before, and however much they had known Him, something happened that day that transfigured His Name, that gave to that Name a new meaning, and a new glory, and a new power. They were just caught up in the mighty grip of the Holy Spirit with this Name. Now, I am not exaggerating, though I'm being very strong in my statements. You see, from that moment, when they stood up together before the great multitude (and it was a great multitude, as we have before pointed out - men from, it says, "every nation under heaven". Every nation under heaven crowding into Jerusalem, at that time) when they stood up before them in the power of the Holy Spirit, the thing that characterised them then and from then onward, was a passion for the Name of Jesus. It just was! A passion for the Name of Jesus. They were... I was going to use the word "obsessed", I use it, not a good word in this connection, perhaps it's a bad word in most connections, but do you know what it means for a person to be obsessed by something? Just cannot stop talking about that thing or that person, that matter. Whenever you meet them, that's the thing they're talking about. They live with it through the day, and if they sleep at night, they sleep with it in their subconsciousness in the night. They wake in the night with that; and on it goes, that something has taken hold of them. That's not a good thing usually in human life, but here it's alright! That is what happened with these men.

The Name got a grip upon their inward life; the Name of Jesus. And as you move through the book again and again it's the Name and it became so evident and so strong that when persecution arose, as you have it in chapters 4 and 5, very early you see, the enemies said: "No more preaching in this Name. It's this Name that's the trouble with you!" But they went forth rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer for the Name. You see, it's like that through the book. The Name became a passion. What do you think that means? How do you interpret that in your mind? Surely not just as a title, "Jesus", surely not just that by which a certain Person was called, "His Name was So-and-So". Surely that Name, for them, embodied everything, everything of God's great grace, God's great mercy, God's great love, God's great redeeming activity, God's great disposition to save, God's great power; and in all, and over all, God's great purpose concerning this One. He, He is God's appointed King and Ruler for this whole world. His Name meant all that and much more to them. Who can exhaust the meaning of His Name? My point is this - the Name became a passion. Their one thought... (oh Lord, put this into us!) their one thought was: "That Name must go unsullied before men; that Name must stand in this world in all the honour that belongs to it. That Name must be shown forth as the most precious Name in this universe. Everything, everything, that can be done, must be done, that that Name, the Name of Jesus, may be glorified." That's simple in language, I know; nothing profound in that as a statement. But oh, how deep and almost terrible is the challenge of that truth.

Dear friends, it works two ways, you see - both ways. First of all, that is the meaning of the Holy Spirit getting hold of a life.

The Holy Spirit Came in the Name of the Lord Jesus

The Holy Spirit came for the Name of the Lord Jesus. The Holy Spirit was burningly jealous for the honour of the Name of the Lord Jesus. That is what the Holy Spirit does, and that is the result of His really getting hold of the inner life of any person. A passion for the Name! And of course it works the other way: it just tests us and finds us out absolutely along every line, that does. It heads right up to this: how much really, truly, are you and I men and women of the Holy Spirit? What will we do for the sake of the Name of Jesus? Oh, I am not saying: "Will you go out into some distant land to preach and to work". That might be the line along which your service to the Name might be fulfilled, but, dear friends, it begins, it begins with ourselves in our disposition - our disposition - that we are wholly disposed to make any kind of adjustment, any kind of sacrifice, bear any kind of opposition and persecution in the Spirit of grace, attend to any kind of thing that we can in any way attend to, if by so doing this Name shall be saved from reproach; this Name shall be brought into honour. It would touch our relationships; it will be the cure of many of our ills.

This Name is a redeeming name when it really gets hold of the inner life. I must leave you to work that out to all its meanings, but I see it here, I see it here. Here were twelve men, at least twelve, really a hundred and twenty gathered in that upper room on the day of Pentecost - men and women and very human people. So human that even in the days when they had the Lord with them, with them day and night, they could quarrel amongst themselves, they could show bad spirit... yes, all that. They could exhibit their rivalries to try to outdo one another. I speak to the book, yes, all that about them. On this day, they are standing up together. They are like one man. They have transcended a lot of that that belongs to our humanity. They have been lifted on to a higher level of life and relationships and fellowship. And what did it? You say, "The Holy Spirit". Yes, but the Holy Spirit's work of making every one of them a subject of the Name of Jesus. Only one thing now concerned them, only one thing: "How can that Name be served by any means, in any way? How can we serve best the Name of Jesus?" Yes, it was a passion born of the Holy Spirit and John had been right, John had been right, John the Baptist, when he said, "He shall baptise you in the Holy Spirit and in fire" for this passion was like a fire in their bones. And if you think that I am making more of it than I should, I bid you read the book again - read it with the Name in view and you will be newly impressed.

So, in the first place, the Holy Spirit made the Name of the Lord Jesus supreme as a passion in their lives. If I said no more, that's enough to get on with for us, we don't need anything further added to smother that, bury that, take from that. But then, having become so mastered by the Spirit and the Name of Jesus, they went forth. They went forth, it says, "for the sake of the Name" and because that was the thing that was so real to them, so wonderful to them, had so powerfully mastered them, through them that Name mastered practically every situation that they encountered. Why, immediately after, in the third chapter, Peter and John go up to the temple at the hour of prayer and find lying at the gate this lame man. He has been there for a long time. There he was and everybody who went to the temple saw him, looked at him, perhaps many threw him a coin and said, "Poor fellow, poor fellow!" Peter and John came along and looked at him. Whether they said, "Poor fellow" or not, they did say, "Sorry, we haven't got any silver and gold, but we've got something inestimably greater than silver and gold, in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk!" In the Name... what no money could do, no human pity could do, what nothing that man could do or in any way could achieve, the Name did. The Name did, and dear friends, if you want a real estimate of the power of that Name, you always have to look in another direction to find it. Whether men recognise and accept it or not, Hell does. Hell does, hell is fully alive to the efficacy of the Name of Jesus, and so that was the signal for the first outburst of persecution for the church.

What was it that roused the evil forces, and caused this outbreak against the church? The Name.

The Name

Oh, you can use the Name, every time you say a prayer you can close it "In the Name of Jesus" or something like that, and nothing happens. But I am talking about the second chapter of the book of the Acts. In the power of the Holy Spirit, that Name is omnipotent! Have we lost something in this matter? Have we lost the mighty virtue of the Name? Is that Name really powerful amongst us? Are we not still allowed to stand over a situation and say, "In the Name of Jesus"? Surely we are. Surely we are! Why are we not doing it? That's the question that we have to answer amongst ourselves, but it ought to be like that.

While we will agree that in laying the foundations for the dispensation the Lord did some unusual things, and associated with matters such evidences. It may not be His mind always to do it in exactly the same way. Oh, the Name hasn't changed! The Holy Spirit has not changed! The virtue remains, the power is still in that Name. And mark you, it's a Name (if I'm not going to be misunderstood) a Name to be used. That wants guarding: be careful, many people want to use the Name for purposes and objects that will bring them glory, but it is something to be used in the Holy Spirit. There is power in the Name of the Lord Jesus, still power in the Name; the same power.

As I have already hinted, while this was the passion and while this was the power, following the advent of the Holy Spirit, this was and has remained the battle ground of the centuries, the battle ground of the church. The whole controversy rages over and around this Name. Dear friends, in saying that, I wish that you had the comprehension to recognise how much is involved in a statement like that. The whole controversy and conflict in which the church has been centres in, focuses upon, the Name of the Lord Jesus. Openly and hiddenly, obviously and subtly, the ways along which that controversy arises are countless, but the issue is one. The issue is one: from the side of the forces of evil to discredit the Name of Jesus in this world, in this universe; just to discredit the Name of the Lord Jesus - to make that Name a shame and a reproach rather than an honour and a glory. The battle centres in that; bring all the battles to that point, and you've got the key, the only key... if only there is an adequate agreement to use it.

The tragedy is the enemy has brought such disintegration, such division, such scattering, that it's difficult to get an adequate company who are one here, focussed upon this. The honour and glory of the Name of the Lord Jesus demands concerted action. And given that, given that (and we are keeping very close to the book, the book of the Acts) given a group who are there stretched out concerning that Name, its honour in this world, and you see what happens! It's like that. The battle of the Name! His very Name stirs the wrath of evil powers. This very Name is the signal for trouble... for trouble. If you are not in the good of the Name, the power of the Spirit related to the Name, you can have a fairly easy time; you won't have very much trouble. But come on to this ground... and while this book, called the book of the Acts, is a long and full story of the triumphs of the Name, it's the story of a great deal to be triumphed over, of many, many assaults and withstandings. There you see: this is the kingdom!

This is the kingdom that came in on that day. It is the kingdom of the Son of God's love. It is the kingdom in which He is King and it is His Name that gives meaning and character to this kingdom. "The time is fulfilled." What time? What time? Let us examine the time that is fulfilled. It has come to fulness with this day. Well, as we said this morning, it is the time from the beginning of time up till now. But what was the central character and content of that long period of time from creation to Pentecost? That, of course, means taking the Bible, taking the Bible as heaven's interpretation of history, not secular history as such, not the way in which man reads the history of this world, but heaven's view and interpretation of history through that time. What is central to that? A great object lesson, a wonderful object lesson that God created. An object that He created and planted right at the centre of the nations, to be His means, His object of the great lessons concerning Himself. I speak of Israel, Israel in that time which ended on the day of Pentecost and was fulfilled in its content.

Israel was God's great object lesson in the first place on this very thing, note. Israel was constituted a nation on the basis and principle of the theocracy - the government of God, the alone government of God, the unique government of Jehovah. The Name of the Lord was basic, was central, was supreme, as that constituent of that nation. When a rabble in Egypt, to be redeemed out of that world of evil tyranny and bondage. Do you remember? Moses said to God on receiving the commission, "What Name shall I say? What shall I say when Pharaoh says, 'Who sent you? What's the Name?' Please, the Name..." which means the authority. It was by the very Name of the Lord that they were redeemed, delivered.

Always spoken of, again and again, so many times, as "out of the house of bondage". It was by the Name of the Lord that they were redeemed to become His people at all! But, of course, it had begun long before that with Abraham, but I can't take the whole Bible in this half an hour. You're familiar with it, but here is this people, the seed of Abraham after the flesh, constituted by the Name, and planted right in the centre of the nations to be God's object lesson as to the supremacy of His Name. It was that: "My Name, My Name, My holy Name..." that's what the Lord is always saying to Israel, "My Name." That is the great theme and lament of the prophets: "The Name of the Lord". There's no doubt about it, it's spread over everything, it runs through everything, it affects everything, it explains everything - the Name of the Lord. When that Name was being honoured, there was no people on this earth that could gain the mastery over that nation. The romance of their ascendancy is just one of the wonders of history. When you make comparisons between them and the other nations, and say, "What accounts for this?" You just cannot suppress this people, you just cannot hold them down, there is some force at work here that transcends all human force against them. When the Name was in honour it was like that. Like that. When the Name was in dishonour they went to pieces, just went to pieces and lost their place God-given. Everything is like that in the balances of the Name. I say, this was God's great object lesson.

Now, that's the figure, the type, the illustration. That time is fulfilled, that time is completed: "In the fulness of the time God sent forth His Son". The time of figures, and object lessons, and illustrations, and kindergarten is over! The real, full thing is now come. In the fulness of the Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, that Name which had been given to Christ, the Name which is above every name, in which "every knee shall bow, things in heaven, things in earth, things under the earth; every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" - that Name was introduced by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. And history is repeated: while that Name remained in honour, in honour, while that pristine passion for the Name continued, nothing could stand before that church. We heard here last night something from this very book of what happened when there was an uprising against the Lord Jesus, when a Herod, a Herod, a king, as it says, "lifts up his hand", put forth his hand against the church. Herod put forth his hand against the church... so much the worse for Herod, as it proved; and for anybody else who puts forth his hand against the church when the church is in the good of the Name. You can, you can touch, injure, and bring much trouble upon the church if it is not in the power of the Holy Spirit, but if it is, the church is "terrible as an army with banners". Woe betide any who will destroy the temple of God, God will destroy.

Well, there you are, there is a mighty conflict circling around this Name, but it is the Name, the Name which is above every name. That is the beginning; as we said, that is the basis, the spring, of everything. Out of that the church received its mandate; it received its mandate. And the mandate of the church for the dispensation was in the form of a depositing of the Name in it, as though it were said: "Take this Name into all the nations. Take this Name and proclaim it in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's your mandate. That's your world mission, that's your commission: 'Go ye into all the world... make disciples of every nation... baptising in the Name...'" In the Name! The Name you see, governs the church's world mission.

Now, I do just want to touch a point I trust you'll be sufficiently alive enough to grasp. We must always realise:

The Essential Association of the Gospel with the Name of the Lord Jesus.

You may not grasp what I mean. You know, it is possible to preach the gospel as a kind of system of truth; a wonderful system, comprising all those elements of Christian doctrine, of justification by faith, redemption by the blood - all these features, a wonderful system of gospel truth. And we can both hold that and preach that as something in itself, as something in itself. And somehow or other it seems to fall short somewhere. It's the truth; it's the gospel truth; there is not a flaw in the truth and in the presentation of the truth, but somehow it seems to fail, fall short. There's a gap between that and the mighty effect that we find in this book in the preaching, in the preaching. Do you notice the preaching in the book of the Acts? It is always kept in the very closest relationship to the Person who bears the Name; it is never something in itself. It's the gospel, but it's the gospel of the Lordship of Jesus Christ; it's the gospel of what God has done with Him, and where He has put Him, and who He is, and what He is in the thought and will of God.

Oh, we must keep this association very close, not to preach wonderful gospel truth as something in itself, but the issue has got to be that those who hear, and those who receive, do not hear and receive salvation for its own sake, but hear of and receive the mighty Lord of the salvation! He is made a Prince and a Saviour - that's the order, that's the order. If you and I want to know salvation really, fully, wonderfully, it will not be that we accept salvation for its own sake, it's we accept Him as the Prince - the Prince that God has made Him; the Lord, the Master in everything. It is only here in all the universe that a word of evil association is permissible and fully permissible, because it's one of the original words, titles, used of the Lord Jesus: Despot! You're afraid of a despot, and rightly so in this world, but Jesus, Jesus has the right to that: absolute domination. That is what the Holy Spirit does. You see, the church's mandate is not only to go and preach the truths of the gospel, the church's mandate is to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It's a very costly thing to do that in many parts of this world, and is becoming more and more costly. You see, that is, after all, the issue in China - it is. You pierce that whole situation to its very heart, and you'll find that it's the old issue that arose in the days of the apostles: another king, another king. "We don't mind your ideologies, your theories. We don't mind your systems, but if you bring in this idea of Somebody to rule, to rule human life, very well, then the battle is joined." And that's it. And that is spreading over this world more and more. You see, it is Christ or Antichrist; it's who is going to be Lord!

Oh, dear friends, this comes right down to our lives, surely. When you preach what you call "the gospel", remember what Paul calls it, "The gospel of God concerning His Son", not concerning your salvation - it's that, but concerning His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord! That's the gospel.

Now Israel's mandate, (to come back to the object lesson of the time fulfilled) Israel's mandate in the nations and to the nations, was not to try and teach the nations monotheism or some kind of theology or doctrine about their God. Their mandate in the nations was: the Name of the Lord. That's all! Just that Name! They were there as the repository of the Name - one Name.

May I take just a minute or two longer on one thing that I want to clear up this afternoon so as to get over to something else this evening, if the Lord wills. That is,

The Constitution of the Kingdom According to the Name.

We're called "children of the kingdom", children of the kingdom. And these children, subjects, of this heavenly kingdom that has come in are to be constituted according to the kingdom to which they belong. Now that brings us to this very title of the Holy Spirit. This morning we were speaking about Him as the Eternal Spirit, as related to God's eternal purpose. Here is this most familiar, most common title, "The Holy Spirit". But again, break it up, the Holy Spirit... the Spirit of God who is Holy....

He came, the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost to indwell, and He came, be it such simple language, He came to indwell as the Holy Spirit. But, dear friends, how far reaching that is! What an immense thing that is. God designed this kingdom for Himself before times eternal, and projected it into this world with the creation, with the creation. And, as it came from His hand, it was a holy thing, a pure thing: untainted. We cannot understand or appreciate what that must mean. We have such very, very minute experience of that, but there it was. And then there was an unholy invasion. This, that God had made, was invaded by an unholy creature. The effect of that invasion was that the whole creation, man and things, became shot through with something unholy, something evil, like an evil virus spreading and gaining mastery. And not so very far into the Genesis story you read that God looked down and saw that the imagination of the heart of every man was evil... oh, this thing... right through. We know the story so well: the presence of evil, the contamination of evil, the assault of evil - a mighty force.

Now, when God took Israel to be His object lesson He took them right out of their association with the world; planted them alone. And in the symbols and typical sacrifices, He cleansed them, He sanctified or made them a holy people, and called them "a holy nation". That is, they were to be in virtue of all His wonderful provision in sacrificial blood and fire, a people separated from the evil of their natural life and association - separated. God called their great forefather out of Ur of the Chaldees, separated him, and built up from him this holy nation. All a type, a figure, imperfect we know in reality, but nevertheless God has His great object lesson, and He says that the Holy Spirit was operative in all that, in all that... said so many centuries later: "My Spirit that brought you out of Egypt abideth among you", the Spirit is the Holy Spirit working this separation to make a people different. This is what I want to get at: a different kind of people from other people. He called them a "peculiar" people. That word has taken on a meaning, of course, in our days that it does not really allow, "peculiar" people... something different; something different. Something unique, something strange amongst the peoples of this world. Something that is not like the others. It is a holy people. The Holy Spirit, indwelling and working has made for a different people.

Take the object lesson again, God's great object lesson. Was Israel a nation different from others? Well, we know that's true, we know that's true. Of course different races, nations, have their own peculiar characteristics. We know one from India when we meet that one, or from China, and usually we know someone from the West. We know by the features, characteristic features, of that particular nationality or race when it is pure and true, and not mixed up by cross-marriages and so on, but when it's genuine, there it is; you know! There are the features. Now Israel is like that, and I need not dwell upon it. God took these people, and forbade cross-marriages. The heinous sin of Israel later on was that, was that: marriage, intermarriage with people of other races, because God was creating an object lesson, setting forth a great spiritual truth in the natural world.

So here are a people who have their own characteristic features; you can tell them amongst other people by that. They have their own language, a language which is common to them. They have their own customs, diet, and manners. In the life of this new kingdom that has come in this people, they are not doing things that other people do; they are doing things that other people don't do and it isn't illegal, it's simply spontaneous! The Holy Spirit has taught them what is pleasing to God and what is not pleasing to God. The features of Christians... beautiful to see the features of these people and the language. The language, it's a spiritual language. Have you met a Christian in some part of the world where you don't meet many Christians, indeed, it's a rare thing to meet a Christian and you met a Christian, never having met that one before, and you begin to talk, and you say: "Oh, you speak my language; I can understand you!" We speak the same language.

Chapter 5 - The Holy Spirit's Quest

Will you please turn to the second book of Samuel. The second book of Samuel, firstly in chapter 5:

"Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron, and spake saying, Behold we are bone, we are thy bones and thy flesh. In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was thou that leddest out and broughtest in Israel. And the Lord said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be leader over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron and king David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord. And they anointed David king over Israel."

Chapter 19, at verse 10, second part of verse 8:

"Now all Israel had fled every man to his tent. And all the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel saying, The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us out of the hand of the Philistines. And now he is fled out of the land from Absalom. And Absalom, whom we anointed over us is dead in battle. Now, therefore, why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back. King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priest saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Why are ye the last to bring the king back to his house, seeing the speech of all Israel is come to the king to bring him to his house? Ye are my brethren. Ye are my bone and my flesh, wherefore then are ye the last to bring back the king? Say ye to Amassah, Art thou not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also if thou be not captain of the host before me continually in the room of Joab. And he bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the heart of one man, so that they sent unto the king saying, Return thou, and all thy servants. So the king returned, and came to Jordan."

Having spent this day in the second chapter of the book of the Acts, I think we can say that the thing which has been uppermost, foremost in our consideration as the preeminent work of the Holy Spirit on His coming, was the proclamation, the demonstration of the fact that the King was in His place and the kingdom was come. We can say, I think quite truly, that the book of the Acts is the account of what things are like when the King is in His place. We so often hark back to those times, to those days... we so often crave that it might be like that again. And we so deeply deplore that it is not so with the church today as it was then... the terrible and pathetic change and difference now from what it was at that time.

And, dear friends, I am going to suggest to you that the change, the painful and grievous change, is due to the one thing - that there came a point at which, so far as the church on the earth was concerned, the King lost His place; the place that He had had. And all the trouble of these centuries and today; the weakness that we deplore, and the many other conditions that we grieve over, all may be due (very likely is due, and if we think about it enough we shall go beyond that and say, "Yes, it is due") to this one thing: the Lord Jesus has not His place that He had at the beginning. That means that the Holy Spirit has been in some way interrupted in His great work of making known what it means and what things are like when the Lord Jesus really has His place. That is the thing - that is the issue upon which any season of gatherings like this, should really end. I can conceive of nothing more important, more vital, more appropriate, than that the last note should be that of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Everything must head up to that, and issue in that.

Now, we have read from the Old Testament in this one book, the second book of Samuel, of two occasions when the king was out of his place. The king, of course, in this case, being David. In the book of the representations, figures and types of heavenly things, of New Testament things, here we have these two accounts of the two occasions when David, the anointed of the Lord, was not in his place. If you read (probably a chapter which you do not read: the first chapter of the gospel by Matthew 1, that is, all of it!) you have that long, long list of people who formed the links in the chain of the ages from the beginning right up to Christ. And there are forty-two generations. And if you look through that list, you will not find in the list any mention of Saul or Absalom. Saul, the king - Absalom the usurper. They were not in the Divine line, of the Divine choice and appointment for the position that they came to take. Neither Saul nor Absalom are mentioned in the long chain. They came in, one by man's choice; the other, by his own personal ambition. And they represent two factors, two principles (if you like), two elements that not only have no place in the Divine course of things, but get in the way of the Divine and, as they did, bring about a great deal of confusion, and chaos, and suffering, and loss.

In the case of Saul it was the principle of worldliness brought into the realm of the kingdom of God: "Make us a king like unto the nations", said the people, "Give us that which corresponds to what the world does, and how the world does it. Give us that which the world chooses and favours for doing its work; make us a king like unto the nations".

The Worldly Idea and Conception of Government

The thoughts of men, the ideas of men, the things made by men - machinery constructed by men to run the things of God. That's a large subject and embraces a very great deal, and covers a lot of painful history. But that's a principle, a force, a mentality which displaces the true anointing and the anointed one, the true God-chosen king.

We who know anything about church history can put our finger fairly accurately upon the point where that began to come in in the church's history, when from Holy Spirit order and government - the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ - institutions and many other things were introduced to govern the things of the church and the kingdom. That word "world" is a very, very big word. And dare I say it again, it is very impressive, when the Lord Jesus had spent all that time in instructing His disciples about the new era that was coming with the Holy Spirit, a long discourse from the table to the place of prayer, between John 13 and John 17 inclusive. Speaking of that coming day, His departure, and the coming of the Holy Spirit it is impressive that as He, having said it all, turned to prayer. He recognised that the chief enemy of it all was the world, "They are not of the world even as I am not of the world". How often that word occurs in that prayer. Yes, world and worldliness in its spirit and its mind, its methods, and its principles, is a great enemy to the throne of the Lord Jesus, to His kingship. It is a matter, dear friends, about which we, the people of God, need all the time to be very watchful.

The apostle beseeches believers: "Be not conformed to this world. Do not take the form of this world. Be ye transformed by the making anew of your mind". There is a kingdom-mindedness that is to indwell us. Saul, then, is the embodiment of a worldly principle in the kingdom of God. And look at the result: not only is the truly anointed king forced out, and driven away, and persecuted, but, as we shall see in a moment, the consequences were very deplorable.

In the case of Absalom, here we have:

The Personal Ambition and Pride of Man

Forcing itself into the realm of the anointing. There's quite a lot said about the personality of this young man - the subtlety of his attractiveness, his manner, and how he sat in the gate and ingratiated himself with all who came in and went out, and stole their hearts by fair words. A fair presence with fair words, deceiving... stealing the heart. Pride in man - ambition in man. I am not dwelling a lot upon that this evening, although there's a lot of history there. Just man in his own self-importance getting in the way of the anointed one.

Now, the strange thing, mysterious thing, the thing that is to us such a problem, is that the Lord allowed it. The Lord allowed it! He is the Lord, high over all, everything is under His power and in His knowledge; and He allowed it. You might even say, so far as Saul was concerned, He seemed to be a party to it. He allowed this; a tragic and disastrous thing to happen in both instances. And therein lies a lesson that we do well to learn. It's a very painful lesson.

It's a very painful thing, this permission of God. Why does the Lord allow things like this to happen? But He has. And not only in these cases, but again and again He has allowed that sort of thing to happen. We have very often cried with that question: "Why have You allowed this? Why didn't You prevent it?" Now, you see, that question could apply to the whole state of this world, couldn't it? But there it is: there was God's allowing, permission. Why? Just for this: that it is necessary both to God and to the people concerned, to prove, to prove, to demonstrate the disaster that comes from His king not being given His place, or being put out of his place. It is useless to theorise about this matter, indeed, it is vain to even teach it. We might here stand behind this table and year after year, and conference after conference, and week after week, say these things, with very, very little effect. The Lord finds it His grievous necessity to let people prove that if His appointment in His Son Jesus Christ is violated, the most grievous consequences follow. And that is the way in which we learn most things, isn't it? By painful experience, because we don't learn them in any other way, really!

And so the Lord allowed Saul to get in the way of David for a considerable period. But, my word, the ultimate reaction secured something and established something stronger than there was before. The Lord allowed that scoundrel, for a man who will take it upon him to kill his own father is nothing less than a scoundrel, seeing who and what David was, but the Lord allowed him to do it. And we've read what the people said in the long run. You notice, of Saul, the Lord said, to Samuel: "They have rejected Me from being King". "They have rejected." Of Absalom we read the people said: "The man that we anointed" we anointed. Not "the man that God anointed", they could never say that; "we, we"! Therefore, in both cases, the responsibility lay at the door of the people, and they have got to learn by grievous experience. And in the end, the man that we anointed is dead, and the man who really did the work of our salvation has been driven out. It is terrible, but here it is.

What were the results of God's anointed man, (the type of the Lord Jesus, we are keeping our eyes on the Lord Jesus), the results of God's anointed being out of his place? Well, it seemed, for a time, to go on all right. You know, the Lord is as clever as men, and the Lord, the Lord can be subtle. And so He gave, in both cases, for a time, for a period, an apparent success and prosperity, so that the people began to congratulate themselves, to feel very pleased with what they had done, and what they were doing. Saul seemed to be the man; things were going all right. Absalom, well, yes; it's all right. An absolutely false and illusionary success for a little while, for a little while. The perpetrators congratulating themselves! That is a build-up, the overthrow of which is going to make the ignominy all the greater. The Lord must do that. So, let it go; let it seem to prosper. Let it seem to be successful - that's its greater doom in the long run. The disillusionment will be the more terrible than if God had stepped right in and cut it off from the beginning. A false prosperity and then, at a point we are not able to put our finger upon exactly, but it is here in the record, at a point: an awakening awareness that things were fundamentally doubtful, a sense creeping in and growing that somewhere, somehow, things had gone wrong. An apprehension, a consciousness that things are not as right as was thought, as good as was imagined. It's coming in.

And you'll find David out there, in the cave of Adullum... there is a stealthy secession "day by day", it says, "day by day they went out to him... those who were discontented and in debt" disappointed and disillusioned, because this thing was not putting them in a position to meet their obligations. This thing was hollow. And so they went out... and the number increased. And I would like to have heard what they said when they got there. I don't think we would be wrong, or far from the truth, if in our eaves-dropping we heard them saying: "Look here, we've backed the wrong horse!" May I use that slang? "We've made a great mistake! We've discovered that what we thought was the way, was the right thing, was the good thing, the thing that was going to bring about what we wanted, we've discovered that we've been on the wrong road; there's something about it that is all wrong." You notice that in the end, when the real crisis came, the verdict came out in full: "It was thou, even in those days when Saul was king, it was thou that leddest, it was thou that the Lord appointed and said, Thou shalt be leader of My people". What a confession! What a realisation.

You see, in both cases, it amounted to this: by man's way, man's worldly way, man's earthly way, man's fleshly way, the whole principle of spiritual authority was lost. And when that goes, there will most surely soon set in disintegration, confusion, frustration, questions and doubts and fears, and growing acknowledgement that something's wrong; somewhere something's wrong.

Now, I say that that is true of a very great deal of Christian realisation and confession in our day. Things are not right... there's something wrong somewhere; we have lost something, we are all at sixes and sevens - it's like that. That really does explain Christianity in a very large measure today, and can be true of the individual life. It can be true of any companies of the Lord's people - just like that.

What is the remedy? What is the remedy? How shall this whole thing be put right on a single issue? I like to think that there's always one key to many doors, there is one answer to many questions, there is one issue to a large and many-sided situation. It's usually like that. It's usually like that, when the Holy Spirit just puts His finger upon a single point, very often a whole lot of things collapse. One thing, and the one remedy for all lost cohesion, power, testimony; for the loss of those conditions which we read in the book of the Acts, the remedy is: bring back the King!

Bring Back the King!

That's the answer here. And when the king came back into his place, the situation very quickly changed. It very quickly changed. It's almost thrilling to see the change or the changes that took place: the renewed national unity, the renewed national ascendancy. Read the story; read the context. Why, David is hardly anointed, as we have read, in Hebron, before the Philistines know all about it. The Philistines know all about it - that menace to the kingdom, that long drawn-out menace to the kingdom - they know all about it when David is in his place, the place to which he was anointed.

The forces of evil will know all about it when Jesus is in His place; they will. When we're struggling and wrestling unto defeat with these evil forces, making little or no headway against them, and they just playing with us... and we need Somebody right at the heart in control, with absolute authority. The only One appointed for that is the Lord Jesus. Not in His place... dear friends, maybe He is not in place in your life, therefore yours is a life of disintegration, scatteredness, division - a life of defeat and weakness, a life in which the great enemy is having far, far too much of his own way. It may be true in some company of the Lord's people here, as it is true so very largely, without embarking upon unhappy criticism, it is easy, it is so easy to criticise and judge Christianity; and yet we all have to recognise that the church of God is not that force to be reckoned with in this world that it was at the beginning. These conditions do obtain. The answer: bring back the King.

Now you can see that has two applications. It has a spiritual one for the present. A spiritual one for the present: there needs to be a re-instating of the Lord Jesus in His absolute authority in the life of the Christian, in the life of the local company of Christians, and in the church of God at large. I don't think there's any question that when that is so, we shall see mighty things happening. We shall again see something, something that corresponds to this book, when that is so.

Oh, that we might see the great need of our time. It is, if we use a word concerning a thing, it is Authority enthroned, but what we mean by "Authority" is Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit: Lord over all, high over all. It is the need: bringing back the King now, in a spiritual way, a spiritual way.

But, of course, it has its dispensational application. Nothing will be wholly right until He comes whose right it is to reign. Nothing will be just as it should be in the purpose of God until the King returns. In this world we know it's true. The answer? The answer fully and finally, is the coming again of the Lord. It's the answer. Unto that, unto that, the whole creation groans; the whole world is in unrest, waiting His coming.

What will bring Him back? Well, you see if you look at these accounts again, you will find three things that result in the return of the King. One, that they truly learned their lesson. The Lord never, never moves until that is the case, it may take a long time. It may be a long drawn-out miserable history. If it's got to be ever so long, the Lord will not move until the lesson is learned. The one thing that this world has got to learn, and the one thing that the church has got to learn, and the one thing that we have got to learn, is that it is a most disastrous thing for God's anointed King not to be in His place and for us to come to the place where we say, and we know, the only thing - the only thing is not this and that as a remedy - the only thing is the Lord Himself being where He ought to be, and what He ought to be. We've learned that through painful experience, and it is something worth learning, and worth the painfulness. They learned their lesson - it is quite evident, isn't it? In both cases, they were quite intelligent as to why it was; the reasons for their state.

The second thing was their confession, which included repentance. Confession! Confession is a very deep factor, mark you, in the Lord's new movement - being quite ready to go right down and acknowledge the failure, the fact of the failure, the cause of the failure, the thing itself - not just the consequences being felt badly and you want to get out of them! But no, no: this is wrong before God. Before God! Before heaven it is wrong. It's all wrong when Jesus has not His full place, anywhere and everywhere. It's all wrong.

Repentance, confession, and finally: the quest.

The Quest

I think it's grand, that movement, isn't it, when they, from their side, said to David: "You are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh and all our trouble is because you're not in your place. Come back! We need you; we must have you; we cannot get on without you!" That's what it amounts to, "Our very life and future hangs upon your being where God appointed you to be" - that's the Lord Jesus. And there must be this quest, this heart-felt quest.

Dear friends, if what I am saying does not come home to you, because you feel that this is not true of you, that you have not so behaved toward Him, that in your case there has been no driving Him out, won't you join the quest for His church? Won't you join in the quest for others, for His people? Won't you be the representative of the nation, like Judah who took the initiative in this matter for others, for the church's sake, whether it be local or universal? Won't you be drawn out in this matter for a new instating of the Lord Jesus? Won't you do that? It's the only solution.

But then as to the dispensational application. There is something to be done to bring back the King. Although God may have His fixed time for the next intervention in this world's history, the times and the seasons which are in His own keeping, there's another side to it - there is another side. "Shall not God avenge His church which cries unto Him day and night?" That's a side, see? There is an earnest looking for and hastening of the day of the Lord Jesus. There's work to be done. There's the Testimony to go into the nations. There's the preparation; "for every one who hath this hope in himself purifieth himself even as He is pure". There is all that which the Lord must find in us when He comes, and not finding it, may delay His coming. I don't know whether that is dispensational truth or not, but I believe it is spiritual truth. The Lord on one side, waits for His people to be of those who are on stretch for His coming. And being on stretch, are active, occupying till He comes and doing everything possible to prepare the way of His coming.

This is Holy Spirit work: to put the King in His place, and to restore the King if He is not in His place, and to energise us all in this matter of bringing back the King. "Why speak ye not a word of bringing back the king?" The answer: because you don't realise that this is the cause of all the trouble, that He is not where He ought to be, or that you have settled down to wait for something to happen. Oh no, the exercise, the quest, the outreach... He has got to be brought back; that's the point: brought back! You say, "He's coming!" You say, "He's coming and will come in His appointed time..." But I say: He is to be brought back! And I, when I say "I say" I believe that is what the Word of God says: there is something to be done to bring Him back.

Oh, may we be found in that prayer of the church... the Spirit and the Bride in combination saying, "Come, come, and come Lord, come quickly!" in both these senses: now spiritually, and soon literally.

Table of Contents

Author's Rights

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Holy Spirit's Power

Chapter 2 - The Holy Spirit's Day of Liberty

Chapter 3 - The Holy Spirit's Function

Chapter 4 - The Holy Spirit's Passion for the Name

Chapter 5 - The Holy Spirit's Quest