How then do we stand?

Wherefore take up the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. Eph 6:13

Sometimes people say the most astounding things; things that are like a flash of lightening across your life, a blinding illumination.  It gets you thinking, doesn't it?

So a recent speaker, talking about preaching the gospel, said: you can't take a poor weak gospel to a people who can levitate for 20 miles across the desert.  Let's face it, these are a people who know something about spirituality!  And how true this is!  Not just for our indigeneous population but for anybody.  You cannot take a poor weak gospel & expect people, who are made to be innately spiritual, to be impressed ~ because they aren't.  They never have been.

Sadly the one thing the church has managed to do down the centuries is defuse the gospel of it's power.

Now I need to be very clear.  The Word is the word of God & it never returns to Him void. It is vital & living & sharper than a two edged sword.  It has it's own life & purpose but it was never meant to work on it's own.  It was meant to be seed in a believer who outworked it's power through their life, witnessing to its Truth.  The Spirit & the Word work together to achieve God's purposes.

Back in the Good Old Days God was chary about whom He shared His Holy Spirit with.  If you were a King you would be anointed with His spirit for the office of Kingship.  If you were a priest you would be anointed with His spirit for the office of priesthood.  If you were a prophet you would be anointed with His spirit for the office of Prophet ~ but...for the most part the Spirit came & went.  He did not stay.  He did not indwell & He could remove Himself from people, thus removing the anointing , as King Saul discovered [1Samuel 24:6], & which is why we find David begging the Lord to remove not His Holy Spirit from him[Psalm 51:11], & Elisha bartering for a double portion [2Kings2:9].  The ordinary person knew almost nothing of God's Spirit because that Spirit was not for Him.  He had the Torah, the Law & the Prophets.  He did not have access to God's Holy Spirit for Himself.  If he wanted to know God's will he had to go & enquire of a priest.

That all changed at Pentecost. Jesus was the first man to fully live & walk in the Spirit, showing us how it was to be done.  He promised that His departure was for our good but that we would not be left as orphans but He would send us a Helper. That Helper arrived at Pentecost.

So far so good.   The Church grasped hold of the fact, & taught, that the Holy Spirit indwelt in us; that the Holy Spirit sealed us unto the Day of Redemption; that the Holy Spirit testified as to the Truth of God's Word.  All this is true.  But somewhere along the way we lost sight of who the Holy Spirit is.  The Holy Spirit is God.  He is the 3rd person of the Trinity.  He is part of Elohim.  He has personality.  He has power. And He wasn't given to us for us!

He is our Helper: to help us live the God~life.  To help us witness.  To help us understand.  To lead us into all Truth. To help us pray as we ought.

Oh, but you say, He is the Comforter!  Indeed He is ~ but His comfort is of a robust sort, the sort that comes alongside to help us shoulder a burden, the sort that points us constantly to Jesus, the author & finisher of our faith, [Hebrews12:2] the sort that enables us to pick up our cross & lay down our life! This does not mean we will never experience Him comforting our grief but the comfort will be given because we are not without hope & we need to be strengthened for the work that has been given to us to do.

We need to get hold of, grasp like a nettle, understand with our heart as well as our mind, that the Spirit who dwells in us is the Spirit of God!  We have the Living God indwelling within us!  If that is true, & scripture says it is, then certain other facts follow automatically.  If God Lives in me, then His life lives in me.  His power lives in me.  His strength lives in me ~ for He has not given us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline [2Timothy1:7]  And the word for power is dunamis ~ from which we get our word dynamite!  The explosive potential is there but we have to activate it!

I am not interested in bandying doctrine around.  That is neither my purpose nor my intention.  However I will say two things to you in the strongest possible terms.  If you cannot access the power of the Holy Spirit how on earth do you expect to stand, when you have done all you know to do in the evil day?!  And if you do not know the power of God's spirit have you gone to Him, with a humble & contrite heart, a heart that is willing to stand corrected, a heart that is willing to hear & submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit & asked of Him yourself?  Have you studied the scriptures?  Power is always given for a reason.  If for no other reason it is so we can match, then overcome, anything that is thrown at us by the evil one.  Does it impress the unbeliever?  You betcha bottom dollar!