Hi, thank you, dear friends, for the warmth of your welcome back again.
In heart, our brother Harrison said something about the link resulting in his being here. I was not quite sure whether I was to be blamed or to be praised. I am afraid I must leave that uncertainty with you. But he seemed to feel that it was not such a bad thing. I trust that it is working out that way. I believe it is.
Now, without any further loss of time, let us get to the Word. I ask you, first of all, to look at a fragment in one of the best-known chapters in the Bible, in the Gospel by John, Chapter 3. The fragment I am lifting out of this well-known story is at Verse 8.
The wind bloweth where it will,
and thou hearest the voice thereof,
but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:
so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
I want to bracket alongside of that three other fragments from the Book of Acts.
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they were sitting.—Acts 2:2
If then God gave unto them the like gift as He did also unto us,
when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I, that I could withstand God?—Acts 11:17
Now therefore why make ye trial of God,
that ye should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?—Acts 15:10
Back to our original fragment, John 3:8: “The wind bloweth where it will.”
Here the Lord is drawing a similarity between the wind and the Holy Spirit. He says, “The wind bloweth where it will; so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
The similarity between wind and the Spirit is not peculiar to this passage, as you know. There are other places where the two are brought together. For instance, in Ezekiel, in the valley of dry bones: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” And the Spirit entered into them. The wind and the Spirit.
Everybody knows that on the Day of Pentecost it was the Day of the Holy Spirit, coming as the sound of a mighty rushing wind.
Now, the point that the Lord makes here is that of the absolute sovereignty vested in the Holy Spirit: His catholic, free, and independent action.
He says there are some things that you do not know: whence it comes, whither it goes. We know not. Something which you do not know. But as to the fact and the effect, there is no gainsaying that. There is no question about that.
The wind—we are not talking about a soft, gentle breeze now—the wind is indisputable. Ability, or no ability, to understand and explain makes no difference. It is the fact that matters, not whether you can explain the fact or define this thing.
The greatest of all facts, dear friends—the greatest of all facts in relation to God and man—is the Holy Spirit.
Everything, even Christ, even the work which He has done, all the meaning and value of His Cross and of His Person, of His incarnation, of His atonement, of His heavenly glory, and everything else, depends entirely upon the Holy Spirit to become of any value to us.
He said, “It is expedient for you that I go away. If I go not away, the Spirit will not come,” clearly implying, “Ah, more important that the Spirit should come than I should stay in the flesh.”
Everything depends upon the Holy Spirit:
Now, I could, of course, stay for a week or more speaking on the Holy Spirit, but that is not the message for this morning in general. The particular aspect of this matter for this present moment is that of the absolute sovereignty of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit’s absolute demand is to have His own way, to have His own weight; and that demand will be refused or resisted at the expense of your spiritual life.
This is a life-or-death matter: the Spirit being sovereign—what all of that means.
Now, that is really borne out by this very simile: the wind, the wind blowing.
When the wind really blows—and we hardly need pause to say that there is nothing indefinite about the Holy Spirit, nothing uncertain about the Holy Spirit—if there is one thing that marks the Holy Spirit from the first reference to Him in Genesis 1:2, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” to the last reference at the end of the Book of Revelation, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come,” if there is one thing about the Holy Spirit from beginning to end, it is that He is always positive, always positive, always very definite.
If you know anything about the wind really blowing, you know that the wind takes charge. It takes charge.
Have you ever really been in a hurricane? Have you ever really been at sea in a raging storm? Have you ever been in the presence of a strongly blowing wind? You know how futile it is to try to resist.
The wind takes charge. So is every one that is born of God according to the divine thought: taken charge of, taken over, taken out of their own hands, out of their own power, out of their own reason—taken over, everything into His hands.
Now, that is the New Testament teaching about the Holy Spirit. That is the very basis of a true Christian life. Because that is not recognized, acknowledged, and accepted by so many who bear the name of Christians, there is so much that is indefinite, uncertain, unsure, wavering, vacillating, double-minded, undependable, about so many Christians.
Do you notice how meticulously careful the apostles were about this matter?
Look at the Book of Acts. Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. The Spirit started moving; there is no doubt about it. Then it came to the ears of the apostles at Jerusalem. What did they do? Did they say, “Well, this is good news. This is a time when we rejoice in this”? No. They probably did say that, but they went down.
When they had come down, they looked into this thing. What happened? They did not just accept it as it was. Then they laid their hands upon them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
You notice that procedure was followed carefully, meticulously, all the way through. With Paul, he came to Ephesus and found certain disciples, sensing a certain lack or weakness. He was perplexed, perhaps, turning it over in his mind: “Now what is this? They are disciples. They are Christians. They know their Old Testament.”
Apollos, that man mighty in the Scriptures—that is a good Old Testament foundation. That is the only Bible, of course, that existed. But there is something. They have got the name, the profession, the Scripture, but there is something here lacking.
“Oh, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When you believed—can you believe without receiving the Holy Spirit? I leave you to answer that question.
Here is a case in mind. There was a flaw in their foundation. You will not deal with that? How can they? They said, “We have not so much as heard whether the Holy Spirit is.” He got his finger on the weak part, had he not? He had the right diagnosis.
Well then, he got busy on the situation, laid his hands upon them, and they received the Holy Spirit. There is the complement of faith—the completion of faith: the Holy Spirit.
My point is, how careful were the apostles about this matter: not just taking things at their face value, but making very sure, very sure. For anything short of this would be disastrous, sooner or later. Making sure about this—that these people had really received the Holy Spirit.
Why? Why? For this one reason only: that when the Holy Spirit really is present within, the sovereignty of that life, from centre to circumference, is taken over by the Spirit of God.
That individual is no longer in possession of themselves, no longer in their own sovereignty, no longer on the ground of their own rights. He has taken over everything—everything.
The wind takes over, and if there is one thing about the wind when it really gets going, it is that it demands submission—absolute submission.
So is every one that is born of God. A life under the aegis of the Holy Spirit is a committed life. It cannot be otherwise.
You are not under the aegis of the Holy Spirit if you are not committed. A state of controversy will be going on between you and the Spirit of God until that point is reached where complete and utter submission is given to Him.
Look at the Lord Jesus. The Spirit came upon Him as He moved out into His life vocation. There was a point at which it is written of Him, Jesus “steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” See what that means? All that was involved in that, we know.
But He set His face steadfastly to go up to Jerusalem. He is committed. He is under the Spirit’s government.
Now, you travel by air; you travel long distances by air. There is always a point which the pilot knows to be the point from which there is no turning back. They have gone too far to turn back. It will be far more fatal to turn back if anything goes wrong. From this point, the only thing to do, whatever happens, is to go on. We are committed.
Jesus went all the way. From the day when the Spirit came upon Him, His heart had gone all the way. There was no turning back. He set His face steadfastly.
I repeat: life under the Holy Spirit’s government is a committed life from which there ought to be no coming back. Have you reached that point of commitment? Have you ever reached that point completely?
As we say, all the boats burned behind, all the bridges blown up—committed.
The wind takes over. It is in the position of mastery: subduing, controlling, a force which subdues every other force. See that working out in a moment.
The first thing about the Holy Spirit as the wind from heaven—and as we have seen on the Day of Pentecost, which is the great foundation of this dispensation, the dispensation of the Holy Spirit—is that He takes everything into His hands and demands that place of absolute strength.
Are you going to argue with the wind? You know it is futile to argue with a hurricane. It is futile to try out conclusions with a mighty rushing wind. You will either be disastrously broken or gloriously broken.
It is possible to be gloriously broken, but everything of Christ comes along that line, following the Spirit.
The next thing about the wind is that the wind chooses and takes its own course. You cannot tell the wind which way to go or to come. You cannot dictate to the wind as to what its choice should be, this or that. It will just choose its own course and take its own course.
So is every one born of God, born of the Spirit. The Spirit demands the right to do this with us, dear friends: to choose His course with us and to take His course with us. He demands the right to do it.
Now Peter is a very splendid example of this whole thing. In a very real sense, Peter is the embodiment of all that I am saying. It is not without significance that Peter is the foremost figure on the Day of Pentecost.
Not without significance, I have said. What significance? Why, the very significance of Peter himself.
Remember the last words that the Lord said to Peter in the old regime, before the ascension:
Simon, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself,
and walkedst whither thou wouldest:
but when thou shalt be old,
thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,
and another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.—John 21:18
“Whither thou wouldest,” “whither thou wouldest not.” Naturally, here you have Peter with his own natural temperament, this mercurial man.
Well, the descriptive word is apt. Have you ever spilt some mercury on the ground and tried to pick it up again, get it together? Why, you have got to go after it in all directions. When you think you have got it, you have not. That is Peter, is it not? Simon—very descriptive.
The old Simon: his temperament, his natural makeup and constitution and disposition, diving off all the time, frustrated in one way after another.
“Walkedst whither thou wouldest.” That sums Peter up well, does it not? Whither thou wouldest. You dictated your own course. You chose your own way. You followed your own likes and dislikes and preferences. You were the sovereign of your own life, master of your own destiny.
But another shall gird thee; another shall gird thee. That belongs to your spiritual immaturity, all that. Your spiritual maturity is going to come out by this: another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
This Spirit that will gird you will work quite contrary to your own makeup, your temperament, your disposition; make it impossible for you just to do as you like, or as you are disposed to do. Another shall gird thee.
The wind chooses its own course; it takes it. So is every one.
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, came under the mighty girding, and now the battle between old Simon and new Peter begins.
You know Acts 10. Peter is on the housetop praying. He has been fasting and praying, and he becomes very hungry, falls into a trance, and sees a vision. You remember the story of the sheet let down, full of unclean creatures.
And a voice: “Arise, Peter; kill and eat.” Old Simon rises up and says, “Not so, Lord.”
We all mix things up, do we not? We get into that realm of nature. “Lord”—that word will not do when it is accompanied by saying, “Not so.” You cannot say “Lord” and at the same time say, “Not so.”
And three times this happened, and the vision passed. Peter—oh, you know the rest of the story, do you not? There arrived the three men from Caesarea, sent by Cornelius, knocking at the door. Read the story; I have not time to go over it again.
Peter was girded. The Lord said, “Go with them.” The Spirit said, “Go with them.” The Spirit said, “Go with them.” There is a headache for Simon. And he was girded, and he went into the house of a Gentile, into the company of Gentiles.
Unclean beasts, they called them in the Jewish ritual. According to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, he had the Scriptures on his side, as he thought. He was standing upon his interpretation of the Scriptures. They were supporting him. But God was doing something which seemed a contradiction to the very Scriptures and to his whole position.
I know the danger of what I am saying, but you see the point. The Holy Spirit knows what He is doing, and He demands absolute sovereignty in this matter. For it is not even our interpretation of the Scriptures that is final; it is the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the Scriptures.
Very often, as we go on with the Lord, we come to the place—yes, repeatedly in our life—where we have to say, “I have got to make an adjustment over that. I believed very strongly this and that about that, but I have got to adjust. The Lord has made a demand that I change my position over that.”
I remember some years ago a retired army colonel, a friend of mine, who had written books and books on a certain prophetical subject—published them, well known and read everywhere. He said to me, “You know, I have got to recall the whole lot. The real light that the Lord has shown me upon this matter makes it necessary for me to change my whole position, my whole life position, over this matter.”
But honest—it was honest. There is no doubt about it. The Holy Spirit had taken over this matter of his mental play upon Scripture and interpretation. There is all the difference between a mental interpretation and a spiritual revelation.
Well, here is Peter in the house of Cornelius, and this wonderful story. What was Peter doing, really—or old Simon doing—in this matter? Listen: he was making Christ much smaller than He really is.
If there is one thing that the Holy Spirit is against, He is against that. He is against that.
Israel—the elect, the spiritual aristocracy; the Gentiles, the dogs, the unclean beasts. Israel.
The Holy Spirit is saying to Peter, very emphatically, “Jesus Christ is a much bigger Christ than ever you have seen, Peter. Yes, you will have to adjust for that.”
If there is one thing that the Holy Spirit is against, it is exclusivism. Make no mistake about it. When exclusivism makes Christ smaller than He is, the Holy Spirit is against it.
That is the tragedy of Israel. Chosen, yes. Elect, yes. Given the oracles, yes. All that. But why? For the sake of the nations—a testimony of God in the midst of the nations, that the nations might see and believe and turn to the Lord. That is the horizon of God for Israel.
Oh, Jonah—Jonah is really an example of this. “Go to Nineveh, that great city.” You know the story of Jonah. But Jonah represents the traditional position of Israel: exclusive, shut up within themselves. “We are the people, and no other. We are the children. We have received the light. We have got the truth.”
But why? Why? Not for ourselves, not to make us something in ourselves, not to draw around us a fence shutting out all others, but for the sake of all others. For the sake of all—that is all.
This is our last disposition, dear friends, for this whole dispensation. These two thousand years of tragic, so tragic history, issue in this: are we making God’s Son less than He really is—less than God meant Him to be to Israel and to the world?
It is in this very chapter that we have the most familiar words of all: “For God so loved the world,” “whosoever.” You have got to be born from above, out of this exclusivism, out of this narrow traditionalism, out of this fixed position of pride, born right out into the greatness of God’s all-comprehending purpose in His Son.
How great Christ is! Oh, may we be saved from having a smaller Christ than God means us to have.
There is no danger in that. The Holy Spirit can look after that. But my point is that the Holy Spirit in this tenth chapter of Acts is just saying this: “I am not having any of your circumscribing of Christ on any ground whatsoever.”
You may quote me Leviticus 11 if you like. Not what God hath cleansed call thou common. The Cross has dealt with all that ceremonial uncleanness and opened up the vast vistas of grace for all men.
Third occasion of Peter. First, his temperament; then, his spiritual bigotry.
In Acts 15, Peter is called to account for this by the elders of Jerusalem. He is, as we say, on the carpet, on the spot, having to answer for this unusual, unheard-of behavior.
Peter sums it all up in this: “Who was I? Who was I, that I should withstand God?” That is what it comes to: who was I to resist?
But something else happened. Peter is at Antioch. Gentiles in Antioch had been saved. The Spirit had done something among the Gentiles, and Peter was down there rejoicing. He was following up Caesarea happily at Antioch, eating and drinking with them, all right.
Well, certain came down from Jerusalem, from James and certain others. When they had come down, Peter withdrew. Peter withdrew. Peter withdrew.
There is the withdrawing. This is a dangerous offence to the Holy Spirit, a violating of what He is doing. Paul recognized the significance of this, and he said, “I withstood him to the face,” for his dissimulation. “I withstood him to the face.”
Simon is having a bad time, is he not, under this aegis of the Holy Spirit? He really is.
What happened now? Here something has come up in old Simon: bondage to man. “What will the brethren say? What will the leaders say? What will the chief men say? I must, I must be careful because of what they will say—perhaps what they will do.”
That kind of thing is set over against the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit. Two things in collision—you cannot have both.
I am so glad that Peter must have got the better of this. He could not have written his two letters if he had not. He could not have said later on of this man who withstood him to the face and said, “Peter, you stand condemned before God. You stand condemned. You are guilty of dissimulation”—later Peter wrote, “Our beloved brother Paul,” in all his writings, “in which are some things hard to be understood.”
But he got over his hurdle. The Holy Spirit, who is choosing the way and taking it, is finding Peter coming into line, coming into life.
There were some, mark you, who did not come into line. “Demas forsook me, having loved this present world.” I do not know about Demas. I do not know about that.
Even Barnabas—oh, even Barnabas was carried away. Dear beloved Barnabas, good Barnabas, who meant so much to the church at Antioch. Even Barnabas was carried away.
Barnabas falls out of the New Testament. I hope I do not exaggerate judgment or condemnation, but there are those who just get out of the way of the wind when He is blowing toward this great, full purpose of God—to dissimulate, to withdraw.
I do not know where to finish this. The wind searches. May I finish on this? Leave the other.
The wind searches and tests everything, especially foundations and structures—of what kind they are.
I spent a great deal of my life in Scotland, in my childhood and later. There is a common sight in Scotland. We had many pine trees, pine forests, and pine trees growing along the roadside. It is a land in which the wind blows sometimes.
After any of our great windstorms, you can go along and see these pine trees uprooted, lying level with the ground, roots up in the air.
Before, people admired them, said very nice things about them: “What fine trees they were. What a magnificent sight.” And the wind broke, and the wind blew, testing the depth of their roots, testing their power of endurance, testing stamina.
Down went so many of these, before-time admirable, praiseworthy trees, down in the wind, crashing to earth. The wind blows.
The Holy Spirit just does that, you know, friends. That is what He is doing. The Holy Spirit is going to blow on us all.
Christian experience is just this: under the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, our foundations are going to be tested. Make no mistake about it, they are going to be tested—our structure, our building, our stamina, our endurance.
It is the ministry today. The wind is blowing over this. Look at all the testing. See all the tragic crashing to the ground.
Do you know, dear friends, that Christianity as we now know it is going to be blown to bits—absolutely to bits—and there is going to be nothing of it left? Christianity as we know it.
“All these things must be dissolved,” says Peter. The cosmic order and this whole Christian system as we know it—it is going.
You say, “That is a terrible statement. On what authority?” Well, plenty. I have lived through two world wars. What have we seen?
As only a simple and very small example of what I am saying, we have seen many and many a place with a great Christian tradition, something that stood for something, simply crushed to the ground—not one stone left upon another. Everywhere, destruction. No preference, no favouritism.
“And God—where is God? Where is God? Oh, if anything ought to be preserved, that ought to be. God ought to protect it.” No. The answer is no.
Why? Because God is not interested in things. God is only interested in one matter. The Holy Spirit is only concerned about one matter, dear friends—one matter only.
History bears this out. The Holy Spirit is only concerned with Christ—with Christ, with what is Christ, what is of Christ, with the measure of Christ.
The Holy Spirit has only One in His vision: that is Christ. He is always saying, “How much, really, of the eternal measure of Christ is here?”
You can go to Asia Minor today and find no trace of the churches in Asia. You can go to Galatia. You can go to all these places of the New Testament and find nothing today, as places.
Now, the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation just bear down upon that. Note: to the seven churches in Asia, “what the Spirit saith,” “what the Spirit saith,” “what the Spirit saith”—seven times, “what the Spirit saith.”
The wind is blowing upon what? Just to discover, not whether this has got a tradition, not this and that and something else; not whether they have got a building and a place of meeting, or a technique of worship, or a kind of New Testament order—but whether they have that or not, how much of the risen, living, exalted Christ is here.
The Holy Spirit will go as far as to say:
Repent; or else I come to thee quickly,
and I will move thy candlestick out of its place,
except thou repent.—Revelation 2:5
Because the light has gone. What is the good of a lampstand if there is no light? Mere ornaments—the Holy Spirit is not interested.
You see the point? The issue is Christ, the measure of Christ. It is Christ—Christ.
What the Spirit says is not merely, “I know thy works, and thy toil and patience.” Oh, that is very good, but, “I have this against thee.” But, but, but—what about Christ in you, in your assembly, in your gathering, in your corporate life, in your testimony in the world?
If that Christ-place goes, all of that will go—or, forgive me, will then eventually go. It will go eventually. It is not here if we do not have Christ.
All the other places, however much they may have stood for the Lord, are going. The great final issue, dear friends, is not the place, and not many things that you make a great deal of, things you think are very important. The issue is this measure of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Against dissimulation, withdrawing, division—the Spirit brings us all down onto the common ground, the one foundation, which is the unique and only foundation:
For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
—1 Corinthians 3:11
The Holy Spirit is concerned about that, and that only. He demands—I come back to it—the sovereignty, this kind of submission, subjection, committal, of our temperament and our tradition, all things in us and outside of us committed to Him, to have His way utterly, unreservedly, and undividedly.