Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the Institute to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.
[00:00:24] Lord, we do thank you again for this opportunity of coming together.
[00:00:29] We pray that you might be present with us. We pray that your Spirit, the same Spirit that we are talking about, might be present to speak through your word, to open up our eyes to a greater vision in our own lives.
[00:00:46] O Lord, we pray that we might not take your Spirit for granted in our lives, that we might not quench, grieve, or resist the Spirit, but that we might be those who are characteristically filled with the Spirit. We pray, too, Lord, that you might give us special fillings of the Spirit so that we might be more bold, so that we might be more loving, so that we might be able to take on tasks for you that you call us to.
[00:01:11] Oh Lord, we pray that you might be present with us this morning and teach us more about you.
[00:01:17] We ask it in Christ's name.
[00:01:19] Amen.
[00:01:23] All right.
[00:01:24] In these three mornings, I wanted to speak a little bit about the topic is the Spirit of wisdom or the Spirit in reformation and revival.
[00:01:37] And I want to try to give you some perspectives more in a teaching mode, try to give you a context for the Spirit's work a little bit today, especially the Spirit's work in the Old Testament that is often, from my perspective, often neglected.
[00:01:53] And then tomorrow deal with the whole matter of gifts, try to have a deeper understanding of the gifts of the Spirit. And then on Wednesday morning, speak to the whole matter of the Holy Spirit as the advocate and how the advocate enables us to go out to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, and particularly look at the whole matter of outreach into the world.
[00:02:21] But today I want to really focus on an introduction and the Spirit's work in the Old Testament. And we're going to be covering a lot of content.
[00:02:33] And I don't want to get you lost as we deal with all of this content today, because my main focus is this. I want to give you a context to let you see that as New Testament believers, we are not cut off from the Old Testament. I mean, in a sense, there's a continuity between Old Testament and New Testament as far as the work of the Spirit. The Spirit was working in the Old Testament in profound ways and also in the New Testament.
[00:03:06] However, we need to understand something of the new dimension that's given to Us as New Testament believers at Pentecost, we need to realize particularly that we are empowered for ministry and we are baptized in the Holy Spirit and something of what that means. And we're not going to deal with all of the debates on baptism, Holy Spirit. That would take another couple weeks or another couple days at least to cover that in any kind of depth.
[00:03:33] But my main point, I've always heard it said that it's a good thing to say what you're going to say and then say it and say what you said.
[00:03:42] All right? And that's what I want to do, that despite everything, I don't want you to get lost. My main point is to summarize it another way. I don't want you to live as if you're in the Old Testament. I want you to realize your privileges as New Testament believers. That's my whole reason for going through this whole survey. I don't want you to miss the forest for the trees.
[00:04:05] All right. That's my main point in what I'm approaching this morning.
[00:04:12] All right. And then tomorrow we want to look at the importance of you having gifts, a little bit of how those gifts relate to the Old Testament and New Testament and some of our responsibility there, how we come to know those gifts.
[00:04:29] And then on the third day, as I say, look at the empowerment for ministry, the advocate, particularly. What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit given as advocate?
[00:04:42] All right.
[00:04:44] I think it's very easy for us, and it certainly has been the case in recent church history, although maybe not in the last 10 to 20 years that's been somewhat rectified that the Holy Spirit has been taken for granted.
[00:05:00] If you look on seminary shelves and look at the relative sections, I would think that generally you'll find that the sections on the Father and certainly on the Son are much larger than the section on the Holy Spirit.
[00:05:16] And I think that's been to the impoverishment of the church, that the church has not only at periods of time and certainly now has been caused by more to focus on the Spirit.
[00:05:29] I don't think even in the midst of all the debates over the charismatic movement in the last 20 years, that there's necessarily been a deeper understanding across the boards of the Spirit's work. And I think that that's an important thing for us to grasp because it's a profound. Has a profound impact on our lives. I think it's easy for us to take a lot of things in life for granted.
[00:05:52] Some of you have heard a couple of these stories. I'll just mention them.
[00:05:55] Some of my exposure to inmates is going into federal and state prisons have opened my eyes to a lot of things in life.
[00:06:03] I go into federal and state prisons periodically with prison fellowship. And I was also involved at the Ligonier Valley Study center with a discipleship seminar. And they would send maybe about 10 to 12 inmates from federal prisons to come to Ligonier for a week and then down here to D.C. for a week and to be involved in a discipleship seminar. And one of the things that I noticed was how grateful they were to be out and how much they really appreciated everything around them.
[00:06:37] That the first thing that the first group of inmates. I'll never forget it. A guy came from the MCC in Chicago, a 22 story building prison in the middle of Chicago. First thing he did when he got to Ligonier was he went out on the porch, the dining hall in this beautiful country setting, and he jumped off the porch and he started rolling with his face in the grass because he was so glad to be out and to be free.
[00:07:01] The last group we had at Ligonier was a guy from Boron, California, out in the middle of Death Valley. Not too many trees there, and yet he'd come from the north, where trees were very plentiful. First thing he did when he got to Ligonier, totally sane, but he went up and he hugged a tree, all right, and three or four more times as he was going around, he hugged trees.
[00:07:25] I wish I had a picture of it. I mean, it was beautiful. It was touching, you know, and to be around kids, I could tell you story after story of times with kids, some of the relationships that would be developed over that week. It's like they knew each other for years and had a deep, intimate relationship. I remember one guy gave his pocket knife that he had brought with him to one of the sons, and another one gave his T shirt to one of the boys.
[00:07:59] But it was like a ceremony, a sacrament almost as they did. So, I mean, it was very touching with all their emotion that they were like giving part of themselves to the little boys or to see little Amy Wellock.
[00:08:16] The Wellocks are close friends, and little Amy was about 4 or 5.
[00:08:20] To see her grab a great big inmate and pull him into the living room to play with her toys or something and to see the look on the guy's face. Or one time an inmate was sitting around in the living room, little Amy got up just out of the blue. I don't think he'd even talked to her before. She just Jumped up on his lap and put her head on his chest.
[00:08:47] And just to see tears came to the guy's eyes because he hadn't been around a little kid and he'd been such. Almost like a leper rejected by people. And just to be close to a little girl like that and to have that kind of openness and freedom of affection, but just really unusual. Or later that same evening, Amy for some reason started to cry.
[00:09:11] And first thought of a mother is to remove the distraction from our meeting because we were having a little small group meeting.
[00:09:19] So as she was taking Amy out of the room, one of the men said, wow, it's great to hear that sound, sound of a baby crying.
[00:09:31] And I shook my head because I had never heard that before.
[00:09:35] I had never heard anybody talk about the goodness of a baby crying. But I guess if you hadn't heard it, you would take it for granted, you'd know that you'd taken it for granted and you'd really appreciate being able to hear it. Or food. I mean, I think the all time record is 21 pounds that a guy put on in two weeks.
[00:09:57] All right. Some serious eating, you know, shows prison food is often an enforced diet. And many people lose a lot of weight as a result of going there or to go to restaurants. We used to try to take them out sometime so they could order their own food.
[00:10:12] We took them out once to Pizza Hut and they could order whatever they wanted. And even though they were trying to be cool and it was really diverse group, black, white, Hispanic, old and young, you could see like they were little kids on the inside.
[00:10:32] And as they were in there, you know, just to see them all excited about ordering their own salad bar or ordering exactly what they wanted on their pizza or to be served. I remember the first waitress was incredibly friendly.
[00:10:51] And later. I'll come back to that story in just a second.
[00:10:58] But the second time we went, they treated the waitress. The men treated the waitress so well as a group. Kind of rough looking group, not quite a caricature, but I mean old and young, black, white, Hispanic, you know, and they treated the waitress so well. The manager came out and asked, who are you guys?
[00:11:21] They had a chance to share that they were a group of federal inmates that were Christians and to share the gospel with a manager, which is rather amazing, isn't it, that they treated her so well that the manager came out to find out who they were.
[00:11:37] In any case, the.
[00:11:40] That first time, I'll never forget it, the waitress was treating, everybody was very friendly and they said, well, who are you guys?
[00:11:49] And they couldn't quite figure out what it was. And they didn't have the heart to tell her that time that they were a group of federal inmates still in prison. I mean, that would have totally shocked them. So anyway, they sort of laughed and joked with her, but she was very friendly and really helped them all the way along the way. Tremendous service.
[00:12:09] And at the end of the time, one of the men up at the end of the table said, ma'. Am. He said it just loud enough. Everybody stop talking. He said, ma', am, I want to let you know this, that this is the best service we've had in years.
[00:12:24] Certainly true.
[00:12:28] You can take a lot of things in life for granted, okay? Grass, trees, food, service, kids.
[00:12:34] All right? But how much worse is it if we take for granted the things of God, if we take for granted who God is and don't praise him or thank him, if we take for granted God's word, if we take for granted his grace, if we take for granted Christ and who he is, if we take for granted the gift of the Spirit, I mean, of all things, we should be most appreciative and least take for granted.
[00:13:03] And I think it's very easy yet for us to take it for granted. I suggest that throughout history that the Holy Spirit has been in many ways taken for granted.
[00:13:13] And we'll look at that a little bit more in a minute. Well, I'll just touch on it now.
[00:13:19] In the Apostles Creed, what is the place given to the Spirit?
[00:13:24] A little response here can. Okay, you got a few lines for the Father. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ. And you've got quite a few phrases that are devoted to the Son. Okay, how about the Spirit?
[00:13:41] What does it say? What does it say about the Spirit?
[00:13:46] I believe in the Holy Ghost. And then what's the next line?
[00:13:52] Well, I suppose you could call that an amplification of it, but really not. I mean, it's really simply, I believe in the Holy Spirit. So in the Apostles Creed, you've got somewhat given to the Father, more space given to the Son, and very little given to the Spirit.
[00:14:11] And in the Nicene Creed, it's essentially the same. And also the Council of Constantinople, that creed in the Westminster Confession, which is the Reformed Presbyterian Creed, there's really no chapter specifically on the Spirit, although I suppose you could argue that there are nine chapters on the doctrine of salvation, which you could see is the Spirit's work, the application of the work of redemption by The Spirit. But nevertheless there's not a real focus on the Spirit's work per se, that we have holidays devoted to Christmas and to Easter, but we don't really focus on Pentecost now.
[00:14:55] You know, we choose the things that are important and certainly Christmas, the birth of Christ and the death and resurrection of Christ are very important.
[00:15:02] But so also is the giving and empowerment of the Church at Pentecost. And there's very little recognition of the place of Pentecost and therefore less understanding thereof, less understanding of what the empowerment for ministry and for Christians really are.
[00:15:24] And I could develop that for a little bit. But just let me reflect on the nature of revival and reformation. If you study the whole history of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and I wish we could go through that in somewhat detail if we had the time, I would.
[00:15:41] But I found this, that anytime there's been real revival and reformation in the church, there have been two major understandings.
[00:15:52] One is an understanding of Christ for us.
[00:15:57] The work of Christ on the cross, the doctrines of grace, understanding of justification by faith, the atonement, all the things that Christ has done for us.
[00:16:11] All right, there's been a profound understanding of that.
[00:16:14] But then the other aspect that's also been there is the understanding of Christ in us, all of the work of the Spirit.
[00:16:24] And it's when both of those have been profoundly understood by the people of God, the doctrines of grace and the work of the Spirit, all right, then there's been real revival and reformation. It's particularly when those two have come together that there's been that kind of profound understanding.
[00:16:43] And that was certainly true, I think, in the Reformation.
[00:16:46] The Reformation certainly had the profound understanding of Christ for us and really to quite a great degree, Christ in us.
[00:17:00] If you look at Calvin particularly, you know, Augustine is called the theologian of grace.
[00:17:07] John Calvin is interesting enough by B.B. warfield, called the theologian of the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:15] Alright, you might think of him in other ways as the theologian of predestination or some other kinds of doctrines. But Calvin is thought of by Warfield as the theologian of the Holy Spirit. He's the one who most developed the work of the Spirit for the Church.
[00:17:30] And later we have the Puritans who really did focus on it. People like John Owen and Thomas Goodwin and Jonathan Edwards certainly gave a great deal of exposition to the Spirit's work. Later we have people in Reformed tradition like Abraham Kuyper who did the same thing and his great work on the work of the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:53] However, that emphasis has only been there sporadically within the Protestant tradition.
[00:17:58] All right, it was there at the Reformation. It was there at the Puritan period. And there have been a few authors since then who have had that kind of emphasis, but it hasn't been a sustained emphasis, a sustained understanding of the work of the Spirit. I would say, characteristically, the doctrines of grace have gotten a lot more exposition than the doctrines of the Spirit within the Reformed tradition. And that's to our poverty that we haven't understood the work of the Spirit there.
[00:18:28] And I think that we need both fully for real revival and reformation. Christ for us and Christ in us both.
[00:18:42] Perhaps part of the reason that there's been this kind of neglect is because the work of the Spirit is a very difficult thing to understand because for a couple different reasons.
[00:18:56] One, it's a very difficult matter because it touches so deeply on our experience.
[00:19:03] And the corresponding danger with that is that because we are so touched by our own experience and we have so many diverse kinds of experiences that we can so easily interpret the Spirit's work by our experience.
[00:19:19] All right, that experience can be the means of really interpreting the Spirit's work.
[00:19:27] And another real danger is this, that the Spirit's work is so mysterious and so intangible that we're torn between academic precision and academic understanding and the mystery of the Spirit's work. And we need to again understand both of those.
[00:19:46] Kuyper says this about the Spirit's work, says Christ can be seen and heard.
[00:19:53] Once men's hands could even handle the word of life. But the Holy Spirit is entirely different of him. Nothing appears in visible form.
[00:20:03] He steps out of the intangible void, hovering, undefined, incomprehensible. He remains a mystery. He is as the wind.
[00:20:11] We hear its sound, but cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. Eye cannot see him, ear cannot hear him, much less can the hand handle him. There are indeed symbolic signs and appearances. A dove, tongues of fire, the sound of a rushing, mighty wind, a. A breathing from the holy lips of Jesus, a laying on of hands, a speaking in foreign tongues.
[00:20:33] But of all this, nothing remains.
[00:20:36] Nothing lingers behind, not even a trace of a footprint. And after the signs have disappeared, his being remains just as puzzling, mysterious, and distant as ever.
[00:20:49] All right, so that the Holy Spirit's work is very mysterious.
[00:20:55] And that's one of the reasons, perhaps, of the difficulty of studying the subject. I mean, we can study Christ because we have the records of Christ in the Gospel, but the Spirit's work is as the wind, and it's hard to define or grasp the wind.
[00:21:12] There's also been contributing to the difficulty of the matter is a danger of isolating one member of the Trinity.
[00:21:24] That is often a danger to focus.
[00:21:29] I suppose the dangers in church history have been to focus solely on the Son, Christ to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit.
[00:21:37] Or perhaps more in the Pentecostal wing of the church, to focus on the Spirit to the exclusion of the Father and the Son.
[00:21:45] All right. And that's always a dangerous thing to do.
[00:21:49] If you look at John 16, you particularly get the perspective that the Spirit, one of the roles of the Spirit is to glorify the Son.
[00:21:58] He will glorify me in John 16.
[00:22:03] And there's no way that we can more grieve the Holy Spirit, I think, than to isolate the Spirit from the work of the Son and the Father.
[00:22:12] But the Spirit particularly is there is to glorify the Son and also the Father. So we ought never to just isolate or focus on one member of the Trinity apart from the others.
[00:22:26] No greater insult, no greater way to grieve the Holy Spirit than to worship him in isolation from the Father and the son.
[00:22:37] J.I. packer says this, that there's no greater issue in the church today than how to honor and how to avoid quenching the Spirit.
[00:22:48] No greater issue in the church today than how to honor and how to avoid quenching the Spirit. Now, I don't know if that judgment would ring true to you, but it's at least a statement that's worthy of our consideration.
[00:23:00] And that's because, as I indicated a little bit yesterday, if you were here, that the Spirit's work is to apply the work of redemption is to help us, to put it in another way, to help us see the reality of the Christian faith in our lives. Help us not only to see it, but to feel the reality of it. That when the Spirit is present, it brings home to us the truthfulness, the assurance, the conviction, the reality of our faith.
[00:23:32] And that's what we so desperately need. Because often we're torn between our understanding here and our hearts here.
[00:23:42] And how can we really bridge that gap? Well, there are a lot of ways that we can consider to do that.
[00:23:48] All right. But one of these central ways is that the Spirit has got to take those truths that can be like dry bones that can be held just merely in our minds and take those truths and make them part of us, help them to be real to us. There's often a sense of unreality to our faith. I mean, we hear Things, and we believe them, but we also disbelieve them.
[00:24:15] I believe help my unbelief. There's often a degree of doubt or a degree of uncertainty along with our belief.
[00:24:22] How can we fully believe the things that we hold?
[00:24:26] I'd say it's particularly when the Spirit comes down. Then there is not doubt, there is assurance.
[00:24:32] The Spirit's work is a work of conviction.
[00:24:36] All right, There's a section in Martin Luther's works where he's arguing with Erasmus. And Erasmus is very hesitant to make assertions. And Luther responds to him. You take away assertions and you take away Christianity.
[00:24:53] And then he goes on to say, the Holy Spirit is no skeptic.
[00:25:00] And the assertions that he burns on our hearts are twice as inflexible as those of the Stoics.
[00:25:06] All right. The Holy Spirit, though, is no skeptic. The Holy Spirit is the one who drives home the message of Christ in our hearts and brings home the reality of it.
[00:25:19] And that's why we desperately need to pray for the Spirit's work in our life, that we might experience the reality of the things that we believe and that we are talking about, that the Word needs to be preached not only in word, but in the power of the Spirit in order for it to become real, fully real in our own experience.
[00:25:46] I want to turn for a little bit to this outline on the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament.
[00:25:58] And touch on just a few points. We're not going to be able to go through it in great detail.
[00:26:10] Okay, just a few points here.
[00:26:12] First of all, the word for spirit in the Old Testament is the word ruach.
[00:26:20] And the word ruach, as is the case with the Greek pneuma, has a number of different meanings. It can mean breath, it can mean wind. It can mean personal spirit. It can also mean spirit of God.
[00:26:35] All right, now, the word ruach in the Old Testament, though, as you see, there's a distinction between the word ruach and the word neshama, which is another word for breath or wind. And the word neshama often means a quiet breathing, whereas the word ruach means to breathe out violently through the mouth or through the nose. That there's the idea of strength and power even within the word ruach, as opposed to neshama.
[00:27:07] So that the very idea of ruach itself, and especially when you talk about the ruach Yahweh, the spirit of the Lord, there is something of power already indicated there. And if you want the passages, some passages that would argue that we're not Going to go through those. There are some illustrations of that in the next few points.
[00:27:28] But for the Hebrew, even the word ruach, the Spirit of the Lord, the ruach Yahweh had that kind of connotation, of intensity, power, the idea of a sovereign wind that comes upon and clothes God's people.
[00:27:48] And we need to have something of that understanding of the power of the Spirit, the intensity of the Spirit's work. Certainly the Spirit can come as a still, small voice, but Spirit often comes with power as well.
[00:28:05] There are three main areas that the Spirit works in the Old Testament.
[00:28:12] First of all, the Spirit works in the creation.
[00:28:17] And there are a number of different passages that would indicate this.
[00:28:23] I don't know if I can find them quickly here.
[00:28:26] Like in Genesis 1:2, it talks about the Spirit of God moving over the surface of the deep.
[00:28:32] In job 2613 it talks about, by his ruach, by his Spirit, the heavens are cleared. Or another translation made beautiful or garnished. In Job 33:4, the spirit of the Lord, the ruach of the Lord has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
[00:28:50] Psalm 33:6, by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts.
[00:28:57] Or in Psalm 104, 30, Thou didst send forth thy Spirit, and they are created, and thou didst renew the face of the ground.
[00:29:07] That you have the Spirit working profoundly in the creation.
[00:29:11] And you also have, as you go through the Old Testament, the Spirit working, I would say, in recreation.
[00:29:20] The Spirit is the one that completes the work of God in the creation. The Spirit is the one also who particularly works in redemption. The Spirit is the one who's going to work to restore all things.
[00:29:33] Spirit has a profound role in terms of redemption as well.
[00:29:38] The Spirit also works in terms of the individual, in terms of regeneration and sanctification. Again, we don't have a lot of time to be able to devote to that. I just want to mention it, though, because most people don't have that understanding of the Spirit working in the Old Testament. I believe that all people in the Old Testament that came to salvation, that came to know God, were regenerated by the Spirit. They were born again by the Holy Spirit. The whole doctrine of being born again is not something that's new to the New Testament.
[00:30:08] As a matter of fact, Jesus in John 3:10 talks to Nicodemus in that great passage about being born again.
[00:30:17] Amen. Amen. I say to you, you must be born again.
[00:30:23] And he says, are you the teacher of Israel. And you don't understand these things that Nicodemus should have known from even what he knew, what he had available to him, namely the Old Testament, that the Spirit was working in that way.
[00:30:39] And there are a number of passages. One of them is Ezekiel 36, 25, 27, if you want to look it up sometime. There's. That should have taught Nicodemus about the nature of being born again, especially as one of the. Perhaps the best teacher of Israel. That's the word there. Are you the teacher of Israel? And you don't understand these things that Nicodemus should have understood about the whole doctrine of being born again, I believe, from the Old Testament. In any case, how could people in the Old Testament overcome their own sinful nature apart from the Spirit's work? How could they come to really love God and to have the kind of praises and thanksgiving without the Spirit's work?
[00:31:22] I believe that the Spirit was working in very similar ways as today in terms of regeneration and sanctification. And there's a bibliography that's included in your handout that you could pursue that. And I located different chapters in different works that would spell out some of the evidence for that.
[00:31:42] All right.
[00:31:44] But really what I want to focus on a little bit in this last time is the Holy Spirit's work in terms of the theocracy, all right. That the Holy Spirit empowered people in the Old Testament as well.
[00:32:05] If you look at the whole matter of osniel in Judges 3:10, when the Spirit came upon Othniel, he was empowered to go out as a judge to defend Israel and to wage war with the kings of Mesopotamia.
[00:32:19] And he won the victory. So when the Spirit came upon Othniel, it gave him a real capacity for leadership to lead the people of God.
[00:32:27] Gideon. When the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, he was enabled to go out and defend of Israel against the Midianites.
[00:32:36] Jephthah. Again, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah, he was enabled to go out and defend Israel against the sons of Ammon.
[00:32:46] Samson. What do you think happened when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson?
[00:32:51] What happened?
[00:32:55] Strength, all right, that I imagine that Samson was already strong.
[00:33:02] But when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, then he became really strong.
[00:33:07] That made the real difference. It developed all of Samson's potential, I guess, or maybe even increased that. I don't know quite how to understand that. In any case, when that lion attacked Samson, you remember the story.
[00:33:20] It says the Spirit of the Lord came upon Samson and he was able to tear that lion.
[00:33:27] Or the other time when Samson was captive to the Philistines, and he was bound, and he was walking in the midst of the Philistine army.
[00:33:37] And it says, the spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, and he was able to break those bonds, and he was able to pick up that jawbone of the ass and fight his way through the Philistines.
[00:33:52] So when the spirit of the Lord came upon Samson, that was a key to his strength, that liberated all his strength.
[00:34:01] Or in the case of Bezalel.
[00:34:04] And we'll be touching on this more tomorrow when we come back to the whole matter of gifts. But why don't you turn quickly to Exodus 31:3 5.
[00:34:20] It says this.
[00:34:22] Now, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, see, I have called by name Bezalel, son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver and in bronze, and in the cutting of stones for settings and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship.
[00:34:48] Behold, I have appointed with him Moholiab the son of Ahishamach of the tribe of Dan. And in the hearts of all those who are skillful, I have put skill that they may make all that I have commanded you.
[00:34:59] All right, so that you have Bezalel, who it seems, already had a kind of skill or wisdom, the word Hokmah there. Wisdom or skill.
[00:35:12] Alright, in craftsmanship. Now it says, in the hearts of all those who are skillful, I have put skill.
[00:35:18] In other words, it seems like Oholiab and Bezalel had artistic gifts already.
[00:35:24] They already were both inclined and had real gifts in the whole matter of the arts.
[00:35:29] But what God did was he not only gave the blueprint for the tabernacle, you know, if you look, there are chapter after chapter in here in the Old Testament that lay out the dimensions and the specifications for all the details of the tabernacle. Well, God not only gave the blueprint all of the details for how to approach it, but he gave Bezalel and Aholiab and, I guess, others the artistic skill to do the most excellent job possible on it. In other words, he took their natural gifts, you might say the gifts that he had given them in creation, and he took away, or he liberated the full potential of that and took away maybe the effects of sin the way that sin damps that potential. He liberated the potential of those gifts so that they could do the most excellent job possible.
[00:36:20] I mean, they already had artistic skill. And that potential was brought out by the spirit's work or increased by the spirit's work.
[00:36:31] That's an interesting pattern that I think we might come back to tomorrow. In understanding some of what the spirit does in terms of our gifts. One of the real questions is how do natural gifts in quotes and supernatural gifts relate?
[00:36:45] I think it's often the case, and again, we'll come back to this over and over tomorrow, that grace completes nature, not opposed to nature or necessarily on top of nature, but that one of the things that the spirit does is to. Is to enable us to achieve our full potential as we were created to be.
[00:37:10] And that's certainly what happened in the case of Bezalel, case of Aholia.
[00:37:16] When the spirit of the Lord came on the prophets, they were enabled to prophesy.
[00:37:29] You have the case of Azariah and Jahaziel, Zechariah, Balaam, Amasai.
[00:37:38] Sorry, I wish I had more space here. I didn't have to look all this up here.
[00:37:47] Last one. The case of Amasi is very interesting.
[00:37:50] When the Spirit of the Lord came upon Amasai, there were some fighting men that came to David, men from Judah and from the tribe of Benjamin, that came to David at Ziklag to join forces with him.
[00:38:04] And David, after greeting them, questions their motives.
[00:38:08] And Amasi, one of these men steps out and says, it says this about Amasai. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him or clothed him. Then Amasi, the chief of the 30, said, we are yours, O David, and with you, O son of Jesse. Peace, Peace to you and peace to your helpers, for your God helps you.
[00:38:33] All right? In other words, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he's able to make a bold statement of affirmation of loyalty.
[00:38:42] A bold statement of affirmation of loyalty to.
[00:38:49] A bold statement of affirmation of loyalty to David that enables David to have confidence in him. In other words, the Spirit moves him to eloquence. In this particular passage, it's not a prophecy particularly, but he's able to speak passionate, strong, eloquent words and with real conviction and sincerity and a sense of loyalty behind it that enables David to trust him.
[00:39:15] So the Spirit can often bring that kind of eloquence, that kind of ability to speak strongly. And we see that in the case of Amasai.
[00:39:25] So David received these men and made them eventually captains of the band.
[00:39:31] So it's just kind of interesting to see all these different ways that the Spirit's working in the Old Testament. I think there are 88 passages of the Spirit working in the Old Testament. We've only just touched a few of them. There are certainly many, many more.
[00:39:46] The case of the civil administrators is also illuminating in Samuel. I just picked two, David and Saul, particularly that passage in 1st Samuel 16, and I won't really look it up now, but the Spirit of the Lord, when Samuel anoints Saul, the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul.
[00:40:11] Now, I don't think that when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul that he was made a believer in the sense of being regenerated or born again. Well, what do you think from this previous pattern here in these other passages? When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul, what do you think happens?
[00:40:25] He's anointed to be king. When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Saul, what's the purpose of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Saul?
[00:40:31] What do you think from this past pattern?
[00:40:37] Authority, certainly. But maybe one step, one other step perhaps to enhance his natural gifts or in some ways to give him the gifts, that capacity to exercise leadership, just as it happened to the judges that they were given that empowerment to be able to lead the people. So Saul, when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, he's given the capacities that he needs to be king.
[00:41:08] Now, later, it says in this passage in 1st Samuel 16 that Samuel anointed David. And it says the Spirit of the Lord came upon David, that David was given that spirit that empowered him for kingship. And at the same time, it says that the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul.
[00:41:29] Now, that's caused people a lot of questioning, because does that mean that Saul lost his salvation?
[00:41:36] I don't think so. I think he lost that special empowerment, that special gift that was given to him to exercise kingship.
[00:41:45] Later. David, in Psalm 51, this caused people questions, says, don't take your Holy Spirit from me in Psalm 51.
[00:41:54] Now, in what sense do you think David meant that? Was David afraid that he would lose that spirit of regeneration?
[00:42:02] I don't think so.
[00:42:05] In what sense had the Spirit of the Lord been taken from Saul?
[00:42:09] I think it was that special gift, that special empowerment for kingship.
[00:42:14] Right? In the same sense, I think David was saying, lord, you're certainly within your rights to take away that spirit from me, that spirit, that anointing to be king.
[00:42:26] All right. Oh, Lord, don't take that away from me.
[00:42:31] All right. So anyway, that's an interesting passage about that special empowerment for the civil administrators or for the kings to exercise their kingship.
[00:42:41] So the main point here is that the Holy Spirit came upon people in the Old Testament in these passages to fulfill particular tasks related to Israel. And you certainly see illustrations of that throughout these various passages that I've touched on.
[00:42:56] All right, and we'll skip over those other New Testament passages for now and just focus on that last one.
[00:43:05] Turn in your Bibles to numbers, chapter 11.
[00:43:11] We'll start with verse four.
[00:43:13] Well, I don't think we'll take time to read the whole thing. Just let me tell you the story a little bit, and we'll touch on some of the different passages.
[00:43:20] Well, the people of God were out in the wilderness, and God had certainly provided for them. God had sent down the manna. But the people really got to the point where they took for granted what God had given them. And they started to complain about the manna.
[00:43:37] And they said in verse four, who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, and the onions and the garlic.
[00:43:46] But now our appetite is gone, and there's nothing to look at except this manna.
[00:43:51] And people would gather it and grind it and beat it and boil it and bake it down in verse eight.
[00:43:58] Now, the dilemma here is this.
[00:44:03] There wasn't a lot of variety in manna for breakfast. What did you have? Manna for lunch, manna for dinner, manna evening snack, manna. Now, I suppose there's a certain number of ways that you can cook manna. You can bake it, fry it, you know, manna a la mode or something.
[00:44:21] Banana bread. That was pretty bad.
[00:44:27] But after all, you know, all you got is manna. And they said, oh, that we were back in Egypt, and we had the cucumbers, the melons, and the onions and the garlics and the leeks.
[00:44:37] And they even made Moses life so miserable. In verse 10, it says, Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man in the doorway of his tent.
[00:44:48] And the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased.
[00:44:53] In fact, they made his life so miserable by their complaining that in verses 14:15, he says this.
[00:45:02] I alone am not able to carry all this people because it is too burdensome for me.
[00:45:07] So if thou art going to deal with me thus, please kill me at once.
[00:45:12] If I have found favor in thy sight, do not let me see my wretchedness.
[00:45:17] I mean, Moses was pretty discouraged at this point. I mean, the People were really complaining about the lack of variety in their food. I mean, to have such ingratitude is to think about going back in slavery for a few cucumbers and melons, you know?
[00:45:32] So the Lord says to Moses, okay, gather for me 70 men from the elders of Israel. And then verse 17, I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit who is on you, and I will put him upon them so that they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you shall not bear it alone. So he says, I've given you the empowerment of the spirit, all right?
[00:45:56] And I'm going to take of that spirit and put it on the 70 elders, all right? So that you won't have to bear this burden alone. I'll empower them for leadership as well, all right? And then he says to the people, all right, consecrate yourselves. Verse 18. For tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the ears of the Lord. Oh, that someone would give us meat to eat, for we were well off in Egypt then. Verse 19. You shall eat not one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor ten days, nor twenty days, but a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils.
[00:46:33] It becomes loathsome to you because you've rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him.
[00:46:42] And then in verse 25, Moses goes out and he takes the 70 elders out into the wilderness or out to a little retreat center, sets up a tent out there.
[00:46:53] And the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit who was upon Moses upon him, and placed him upon the 70 elders. And it came about that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did not do it again.
[00:47:11] But two men had remained in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad. The name of the other, Medad, and the Spirit rested upon them. Now, they were among those who had been registered but had not gone out to the tent, and they prophesied in the camp.
[00:47:23] So a young man ran and told Moses and said, eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.
[00:47:28] So you get the picture that I guess only 68 elders had gone out with Moses out to the tent, and two, Eldad and Medad remained in the camp. But when the Spirit came down and dwelt upon the 68, the Spirit also came on Eldad and Medad, and they began to prophesy in the camp. Now, I don't know quite what that prophesying was like, but I don't think necessarily it was like out of control kind of thing where people were upset because of that. But perhaps they were just speaking eloquently, just prophesying strongly or speaking great praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, or empowered to speak about the Word powerfully. In any case, I guess all the people out at the tent were. And so were Elded and Medad. And that was causing some real excitement, excitement in the camp because of Eldad and Medad.
[00:48:20] And so a young man comes out and says, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, says this Moses, my Lord, restrain them.
[00:48:32] Moses said to him, are you jealous for my sake?
[00:48:37] All right, I guess now that the Spirit was on the 70 elders, that was taking away some of the soul's efficiency there.
[00:48:45] Moses.
[00:48:47] Moses says, are you jealous for my sake? Now, I've gone through all of this passage just to get to this line, so let's focus on it here.
[00:48:55] Says this Moses said, would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them.
[00:49:06] Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that he would put his Spirit upon them.
[00:49:15] All right, that the Spirit of prophecy had come upon the seventy elders, but taken from Moses and given to the seventy elders. And Moses wish, or you might even call it a prayer, all right, Is would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that he would put his Spirit upon them.
[00:49:34] What was the wish or prayer in Moses becomes a promise in the Book of Joel in Joel 2:28:32.
[00:49:56] In the promise.
[00:50:06] Is. And it shall be in the last days that I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see dreams, and your old men shall dream visions.
[00:50:23] And even upon my bond, slaves, both men and women. I will in those days pour forth of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy, and I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth beneath.
[00:50:39] So that what was a wish or a prayer in Moses became a promise in the Book of Joel and became a reality at Pentecost.
[00:50:53] Now it's a difficult and treacherous area to decide exactly what is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
[00:51:00] We certainly know that there was something distinct that happened at Pentecost.
[00:51:05] Jesus says at one point that the spirit.
[00:51:10] There's a sense in which we could say the Spirit was not yet given until Pentecost. Now we know that the Spirit worked in many ways. We've already seen that in the Old Testament. But there's another sense in which the Spirit comes upon the people in the New Testament. That's the difficult area.
[00:51:26] What is the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament?
[00:51:31] All right. I would suggest that one area is a special empowerment for ministry. That the people of God are empowered to be able to bear witness to Christ.
[00:51:46] And we'll see that more on the third morning where we talk about the Holy Spirit as advocate.
[00:51:52] If I don't leave, this advocate cannot come. And this advocate, when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness and concerning judgment. The people of God are empowered to go out and bear witness to the whole matter of the Gospel. Think that this baptism of the Holy Spirit is also involved with.
[00:52:12] You're baptized by the one Spirit into the one body, this baptism into the body of Christ. That you have something that happens there that's an initiatory thing that the.
[00:52:24] The Christian church comes into being.
[00:52:26] That the Pentecost is the birthday of the Christian church, that we're baptized into the body of Christ.
[00:52:34] There's something there too in this whole matter of baptism of the Holy Spirit that what happens at Pentecost, but this whole matter of being able to prophesy, you know, prophecy has not not only the idea of foretelling, but forth telling, that idea of speaking forth the word of God.
[00:52:53] So in any case, what was a prayer or a wish in Moses becomes a promise in Joel and becomes a reality at Pentecost.
[00:53:04] The Spirit of the Lord has worked in many ways in the Old Testament.
[00:53:08] But you particularly have now been empowered from ministry.
[00:53:13] We need to realize the privileges of receiving that promise of the Spirit, that we have now been baptized with the Holy Spirit. And I believe, and this is another whole discussion in itself, that we all believers are baptized with the Holy Spirit.
[00:53:32] That you all have been empowered for ministry.
[00:53:37] And we need to live not as if we're in the Old Testament, but under the privileges of that promise to realize that we are empowered for ministry.
[00:53:54] I think that that's important for us to grasp that the Spirit's work has been all throughout the ages. But we're in a special time after Pentecost. We need to realize the privileges of that position, to realize that we've been empowered to take the message out.
[00:54:11] And that's especially encouraging when we think about the whole matter of revival and reformation.
[00:54:16] We can't say that we haven't received the promise of the Spirit.
[00:54:21] I believe that was given at Pentecost.
[00:54:23] Now the reason we often don't see it is because we grieve, quench, or resist the Spirit, and we are not, therefore, filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:54:36] I think we need to have a more profound understanding of what it means to be filled with the Spirit and how to avoid quenching, grieving, or resisting the Spirit.
[00:54:49] And we're going to talk some about these things in the next two mornings. I wish we had a couple weeks to develop these themes.
[00:54:59] I think it's important for us to realize the privileges. Yes. Just going back to numbers, chapter 11. Yes.
[00:55:08] You've got the word ruach, right?
[00:55:11] Yeah.
[00:55:15] Now in verse 30, Then in verse 31, it says, There went forth a great wind in the Lord.
[00:55:31] How do you know? If you were a Bible scholar, why would you say wind and not spirit in verse 31?
[00:55:40] That's always the difficulty. That's up to the judgment of the translator as to when they think. In fact, if you look at.
[00:55:51] Yeah, I think that it's always up to the judgment because it's the same word.
[00:55:56] There are questions where they're. There are passages where there's a question about that, and I illustrate a couple of those in that first page. Well, right. There is an example where the congregation.
[00:56:12] Could be.
[00:56:15] I think we need to let people go because they need to get to work and things like that. So let's just close with a word of prayer, and then I'll be around to talk afterwards with anybody that has questions.
[00:56:29] Lord, we do thank you for this time, for the opportunity to come together.
[00:56:33] We pray that we might realize the privileges of the promise of the Spirit that we have had poured out on us at Pentecost.
[00:56:43] We do thank you for that birthday gift of the New Testament Church.
[00:56:47] And we pray that we might understand both our continuity and the privilege of our position.
[00:56:53] We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:56:59] The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information, please visit our website at www.www.cslewisinstitute.org. thank.
