This week's "thought"
comes to you from a superb yet not-so-well-known book by William Barclay.
It is entitled: "The Promise of the Spirit."
Barclay is known mostly for his popular "Daily Study Bible
Series" covering the entire New Testament. Yet the "Barclay
Prayer Book" and this volume about the work of the Spirit, are also
good resources to have around on your shelf.Today's selection has to do with the power and work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. It focuses on His moving in both extraordinary and everyday ways. I trust his words might challenge and encourage you. And for those who may be put off by the exclusively "male" language, please remember it was written in a time (1959) when no one really gave it much thought, and the terms "man" and "men" had a more generic "person" or "people" connotation. Enjoy!
Men
of the Spirit
"No man who asks for, and receives, the guidance of the
Spirit can ever be an irrelevant teacher or preacher. The Spirit of God is
always looking for men who will be messengers to their day and generation.
There is no moment without its message from God, there is no crisis without its
word -- if a man can be found by the Spirit to bring that message and that
word... It is the conviction of the Old Testament that no man can
prophecy without the Spirit. No man can teach others unless he himself is
taught. The Spirit is God's witness in any human situation. It is through
the Spirit that with the need there always comes the power. And it is the
Spirit who gives the prophet the strength and courage to bring to men the
message of God, whether that
message be consolation or condemnation.
Great
as the work of the Spirit is in creation in the Old Testament, still greater is
the power of the Spirit in the lives of individual men. The great leaders of
the Old Testament are all men who possess the Spirit, have been possessed by
the Spirit, and in whom the Spirit dwells... When God has some great task to
give a man, He gives it to a man whose equipment for the task is the power and
presence of the Holy Spirit. The conviction of the Old Testament is that no man
can do the work of God without the Spirit of God, and that no man can lead his
fellow men unless he himself is led by the Spirit of God...
In
general the work of the Spirit is connected with the extraordinary and the
abnormal. The work of the Spirit is not so much a daily power and presence as
it is an abnormal phenomenon and manifestation.... It is not everyday life with
which the Spirit is connected, but with the unrepeatable moments. Even in
the case of prophecy, the prophecy in early times tends to be ecstatic and
abnormal... The manifestations of the Spirit are wonderful and miraculous.
[Dreams, interpretation of dreams, visions, prophecies, miracles, tremendous feats
of strength, victory over enemies, etc. Such things begin to happen when,
or after, it is said: "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him..."
Gen. 41:38 / Numbers 11:16-17 / Numbers 27:18 / Judges 3:10 /
Judges 6:34 / Judges 11:29 / I Sam. 11:6 / I Sam. 16:13 / Isaiah 42:1...]
Yet,
as we shall see, it is not always so... It is possible to over-stress the
element of abnormality in the idea of the working of the Spirit in the Old
Testament, for the Spirit also stands for the universal presence of God. The
Spirit stands for the fact that it is neither possible to lose God in trouble,
nor escape God in sin (Psalm 139)... In Exodus 31:1-3, God told Moses to
set Bezaleel aside for the work of building the tabernacle, because, “I have
filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in
knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to devise cunning works, to work
in gold, and in sliver, and in brass, and in cutting of stones, to set them, and
in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.”
Here
is something new. Craftsmanship is the gift of the Spirit. Here is
something which in an illuminating flash transfers the Spirit from the realm of
theology to the realm of life, from the stillness of the Church to crash of the
hammer and the buzz of the saw and the noise of the chisel on the stone in the
workshop. Here the Spirit is indeed in the midst of life and
living. We do well to remember that, whatever gift a man has, of mind or
heart, of brain or eye or hand, that gift is the gift of the Spirit. It
is not only the theologian in his study, the priest in his church, the prophet
with his message, who is working in the power of the Spirit. The man at
the bench and at the machine, the man in whose hands wood and metal become
obedient, the mechanic, the engineer, the carpenter, the fitter, the mason, are
all men of the Spirit, and can, and must, serve God in the Spirit."
Anyone who has been
in ministry for any amount of time knows that apart for the power, presence and
unction of the Holy Spirit attending our words and efforts, there is little or
no lasting (and definitely no eternal) transformational result. As
Spurgeon once said in all earnestness in regard to the task of preaching: “We might preach till
our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul
would be converted unless there were a mysterious power going with it—the Holy
Ghost changing the will of man. Oh Sirs! We might as well preach to
stone walls as preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to
give it power to convert the soul.” To believe otherwise is to miss the point of
divine grace and the indispensability of Spirit's work in the hearts
of people.
As Barclay states in
his introduction of this book: "It
is my prayer that those who read this book will by their own study come more
and more to know the Holy Spirit, not as a doctrine, but as a Person, and that
they will thereby experience more of His power in their own lives." That
is my prayer as well.
In His Service, Pastor Jeff
