Perhaps we could begin this session this afternoon by turning to the Roman letter and Chapter 15.
We will read from Romans 15:17.
I have therefore my glorying in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God.
For I will not dare to speak of any things save those which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed,
in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit;
so that from Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ;
yea, making it my aim so to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man’s foundation.
Then in 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, we will read from verse 1.
And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Now, will you just underline in those two Scriptures these words? In Romans 15:18-19, Paul speaks about those things which Christ wrought through him: “By word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Again, in 1 Corinthians 2:4, “My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
Then, if you will turn once again to 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1, we will read from verse 5.
How that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake.
Now, shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Lord, we do pray that Thou wilt redeem this time this afternoon from any futility or vanity of any kind. Thou knowest, Lord, the afternoon sessions are never the easiest of sessions, physically or mentally. But we ask Thee, Lord, that Thou wilt so quicken our bodies and our minds that we shall be enabled, Lord, to receive from Thee.
By faith, Lord, together we stand into that provision which Thou hast made for this particular time, that we may meet with Thee and that something may be deposited in us by the Holy Spirit. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, I spoke the other afternoon in this matter of Christian leadership—spiritual leadership—about true authority. Naturally, what I had to say at that time must have raised, and has raised, many questions. Many of you have asked a number of questions.
I would just like to say one thing to clear up any misunderstanding. When I said that you must never master those who are allotted to your charge, I was not thinking of Sunday school children or youth work. I was really thinking, in that connection, of adults.
It is very easy to abuse authority and so to substitute yourself—your history, your life, your experience—in the place of original experience and original appreciation of the Lord in the person who is your responsibility. That is something you and I have to be very careful of.
That is why I personally would never exercise authority over any brother or brethren unless they first came and asked me, and I felt that they were at a place where it would not damage them. We do great damage to one another when we master one another, for we inhibit one another from growing up.
Now, this is a very delicate matter, and it would take a lot more time to talk about it. But I just wanted to clear that up.
Then I said one other thing, too, that seems to have been a little misunderstood by at least one person. Mr. Sparks did not tell me that I should not marry personally; he told me that I should not perform marriages.
So I have cleared up, I hope, those two points from our first session.
Now, in this second session on spiritual leadership, I would like to introduce—we cannot deal with it adequately—the subject of anointing: the necessity of anointing.
The first thing I would like to say straight away is that it is a most remarkable fact that, in the Old Testament, every single thing that God used, or every person that God used, was anointed.
In other words, under the old covenant, from the moment God had a people, everything that was set aside for Him was anointed.
The high priest and the priests were anointed: Exodus 29:29 and Exodus 28:41. The king—all the kings—were anointed: 1 Samuel 10:1. The prophet was anointed: 1 Kings 19:16, or Psalm 105:15. All these whom God used—prophet, priest, and king—were anointed.
Then every single thing in the tabernacle was anointed. All the furniture of the Tent of Meeting was anointed: the lampstand, the table of shewbread, the golden altar of incense, and the actual Tent of Meeting itself. The brazen altar was anointed. The laver was anointed.
If you want the Scriptures for this, they are in Exodus 30:26-28. Everything was anointed.
Now, this must have some very real and important meaning for us all. Why did God go to such pains that not only everything was sprinkled with blood, but everything was anointed with the holy anointing oil?
Then I would like to underline another very instructive fact. The very term Messiah in Hebrew means “Anointed One.”
We use the Anglicised Greek word from the New Testament, Christ, from the Greek Christos. The Greek word means what the Hebrew means. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew: it means “the Anointed One.” The Messiah was the Anointed One.
I think that is very, very important, especially when you understand that we find a little phrase running right through the New Testament in connection with every single aspect of our salvation, our Christian life, church life, and service to God. It is the little phrase, “in Christ.”
That simply means that every true believer, every born-again believer, is in the Anointed One. That is their position. They are in the One who is anointed.
Now, it seems a very odd thing to me if you can be in the Anointed One and be ignorant of the anointing—to be in the Anointed One and somehow or other never come to your own experience of what it is to be anointed.
Another very instructive and fundamental fact is that the Lord Jesus was born of the Spirit. I do not think I have to labour that point here this afternoon.
We know from the Gospel according to Luke and from other Scriptures that the Lord Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwelt in the Lord Jesus as He had never dwelt in any other human being.
As a man, altogether apart from His divinity, the Holy Spirit dwelt in the Lord Jesus. He was born of the Spirit. I cannot conceive of any time in the life of the Lord Jesus when He was not full of the Spirit, when He was not indwelt by the Spirit.
But when He was thirty years of age—as our brother Stephen has pointed out, the year when the Levite or priest entered into his actual service—He was anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power.
Remember, He went down into the River Jordan, and there, as He was being baptised, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit came down like a dove and abode upon Him.
It did not just visit Him. It did not just use Him. It did not just inspire Him. The Holy Spirit came down and took up His dwelling place, His abode, in and upon the Lord Jesus.
Now we read in Acts 10:38 a very interesting comment by one of the apostles. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, he says:
Even Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power: Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.
This is interesting because it does not just mean that God was with Him in a kind of supportive way, but that God had committed Himself totally to Him as the Son of Man.
That anointing was the committal of God to the Lord Jesus totally—for His ministry and for His work.
Now, if this is so, for me as a servant of the Lord it has tremendous value. It is tremendously important, because we may be born of the Holy Spirit. We may walk in the Spirit. We may know what it is to be indwelt by the Spirit. We may have the fruit of the Spirit.
But we need, for service, the anointing of the Spirit.
Now, if anyone has any problem over this, I do not want to argue about it. If you feel that everything is yours at birth, I am not going to argue with you. Maybe it is true.
If you are satisfied with the quality of your service, the power with which you are serving the Lord, and the ability with which you are fulfilling the will of God in your life, please do not argue with me. Be happy. Just pray for me, that I may be delivered from any error.
But if, honestly, in your heart, you know that you are saved, you know that you are born of God, you know that you are called of God, and you know even that God has given you some work to do, yet you are terribly conscious of being unclothed, then you may need to take heed to what I say.
You have not got the right equipment. Somehow or other, you cannot meet the emergencies produced by your calling. You cannot meet the problems inherent within the work to which God has called you.
I want to be quite clear on this matter: it is yours. The anointing is as much part of your salvation as anything else, and in that sense it belongs to you at spiritual birth.
The moment Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit, He had all the potentiality for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But there came a point in the ordination of God when He entered upon His work.
Not one moment early, and not one moment late, God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power. From that moment, for three—or just over three—years, Jesus fulfilled a ministry such as this world has never seen or heard.
Furthermore, when it came to Gethsemane, it was, in my opinion, the Holy Spirit Who enabled the Lord Jesus to come right through that anguish which, at one point, nearly took His physical life—when He sweat great drops as of blood and angels came to minister to Him.
The writer to the Hebrews says that by the eternal Spirit He offered Himself up to God without spot or blemish.
It was by that anointing of the Holy Spirit and power that, in great weakness and humiliation, Jesus was crucified. Yet by the anointing power of the Holy Spirit, He fulfilled the work God gave Him to do in that moment—the work for which He had come into the world. He finished it.
Now, I would just like to say one other thing before I go on in this matter: the essential nature of anointing. Whatever theological differences people may have, the fact remains that the anointing of God is an essential constituent in service.
An essential constituent in service.
Otherwise, we are like people who know that we are saved, know that we are born of God, know that God is doing something in us, know that He is producing something in us and conforming us in some way to the image of His Son, and know that we are called to a ministry, work, or responsibility amongst the people of God, but who are always unable to do it.
We go around like zombies in the work of God. We honestly do not know what to do or how to cope. We have to run off to other brothers all the time to ask. We just really do not know.
This is because we have not got that anointing which comes from God and which somehow brings with it the grace and power to know what we should do and the ability to do it.
Now, do not misunderstand me on this point. It does not mean that there is no fellowship. It does not mean that there is no counselling. Maybe there will be more fellowship than ever before, and more counselling than ever, because sometimes the very reason we do not seek counsel is an inferiority complex.
We want to stand on our own two feet. It is only when we really have our own experience of the Lord that we can honestly open ourselves up to one another. But we have nothing to fear.
So this matter is, in my estimation, of tremendous importance.
Now, if I may say so, I believe that a distinction is to be made between what I would call general anointing and specific anointing.
I am very sorry for those meetings where people are belaboured, pushed, persuaded, and compelled to come forward to have hands laid upon them so that they may receive an anointing.
Again and again, people come before their time. Sometimes they get an emotional type of experience which very quickly subsides, and then they are left with very real problems.
The general side of this matter is as follows: in the Lord Jesus, every single believer has an anointing, and if by faith he comes and abides in it, it operates.
I have known even carnal people sometimes come under the anointing. Now, that may shock you. “Oh, that is impossible!” Oh no, it is not.
Who has not been in a real prayer meeting where some person whom you know is ninety percent flesh suddenly prays under the anointing? They really pray under the anointing, and we all know it is the Lord.
We know they are saved, but normally they are a pain in the neck because of their carnality and worldly ways. Yet suddenly, at some point, they come forward in prayer and hit the matter right on the head.
How does that happen? Everyone says, “Isn’t it strange? There is godly so-and-so tied up in knots over there, and here is so-and-so, all flesh, suddenly coming in and touching the matter in prayer.”
Why? Because that person happened to operate under the anointing upon that gathering.
There is an anointing on the whole body. It is on the Head, and it goes to every member.
For instance, in 1 John Chapter 2, the apostle speaks to children, young men, and fathers. Then he says in verse 20:
And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
Then, in verse 27, he says:
And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you: but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
That is, you need not that anyone teach you as to what is right or wrong. This is for babes as well as young men and fathers spiritually. It is for the whole family. There is a general anointing.
There is a general anointing when God’s people gather. Very, very, very rarely does anybody bother to come under it or seek the Lord concerning the anointing for a gathering. But every time God’s people truly gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus, provision is made for that time.
There is an anointing for that gathering, so that the will of God can be done in that time, the mind of God may be known in that time, and that meeting may not just be a meeting, but may actually leave the people of God further on in the path God has mapped out for them.
It is one of the jobs of leaders. That is why we should sometimes get together before a meeting simply to get into touch with the anointing for that time.
Then we do not go in with confusion, lethargy, or apathy, but have put ourselves under the anointing for that time. This is general anointing in a sense.
But there is such a thing as specific anointing.
If God calls you to an apostolic work, He will give you an apostolic anointing. If God calls you to evangelistic work, He will give you an evangelistic anointing. If God calls you to a teaching ministry, He will give you an anointing for teaching. If God calls you to be a help in the body of Christ, He will give you an anointing to be a help.
For every single ministry, there is an anointing, and it is specific.
Now, people say to me, “Well now, is this specific anointing a second experience?” Here, I do not want to be too thunderous on the matter.
You see, a lot comes into temperament. Some people are not dramatic people. They are not what I call black-and-white people. They very rarely have great emotion. In fact, sometimes they belabour themselves because they never weep and never cry. They would love to, but they do not.
God does not condemn them because that is the kind of people they are. Almost sometimes these people can receive an anointing and not know it. Really, I mean it. They hardly know, but we all know.
I know people who tell me they do not believe in a second experience, and I knew them before they had it. The difference is between chalk and cheese, night and day. No one can tell me that something did not happen to them.
They say, “Well, of course, I did have dealings with God. I came to an end of myself, and I took this and this.” Yes, of course. They may not have had one of those great earth-shattering things where they were taken up, turned down, knocked out, laid on the floor, and so on, as some others have had. But something happened.
Now, in the history of God’s people, can anyone bring me any great servant of the Lord who did not have a specific anointing? I do not know of any.
I think of D. L. Moody, who lay for a day on the floor. I think of Reuben Torrey, who was turned upside down and could not speak for a week. I think of John and Charles Wesley.
Charles Wesley got so excited in the middle of the night that he ran out shouting at the top of his voice. Everyone thought he had gone out of his mind. Then he went back and wrote:
O for a thousand tongues to sing,
My great Redeemer’s praise.
John Wesley came over this side and went up and down these colonies, preaching the gospel to the colonials who were here, right through these very parts. He knew the gospel, and he preached the gospel, but he wrote in his journal, “I am seeking to convert the Red Indians, but who will convert me?”
When he had that strange warming in his heart, which was his new birth, it was not the end. Some time later, he had an experience that he called perfect love. But the change in the ministry of John Wesley was distinct.
I remember years ago Mr. Sparks telling me, when I first went to speak with him about my own need and experience, that he had something of the same experience.
He said, “I went to one great evangelical, and he told me, ‘Go and play golf. You need to go and play golf. Get out in the fresh air.’”
But he said, “I said to him, ‘I cannot preach any more. Everything in me is dead. I just feel as if I had come to an end of everything.’”
He went to another, and that man told him, “Take a holiday. Go to the Mediterranean. Forget everything for a while, and you will be all right.”
But Mr. Sparks said to me, “I could not accept their advice. I felt somewhere there was something.” Then one day he took his Bible and said to his wife, “You will not see me again until God does something.”
He went up to his study, shut the door, fell on his knees, and said, “God, I am a hypocrite. I cannot go on. Here I am taking Keswick-type meetings all over the country, but in my heart I have no real life or power.”
He began to read Romans. Then he came to Romans 6. He had spoken on Romans again and again and again. He had taught on Romans 6—the old man done away, and walking in newness of life. But suddenly, he said, it was as if the whole thing came out of the page and hit him.
Suddenly he realised that he was crucified with Christ. He said it was as if heaven opened and the Holy Spirit fell upon him.
Once I said to him, “Do you believe that there is such a thing as a baptism of the Spirit?” He said, “Not what a lot of people call the baptism, but there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I have had it.”
Those people who knew Mr. Sparks before and after that experience all said the same thing: it was like the difference between night and day.
I believe that B. T. Austin-Sparks had some such experience as well, but I shall leave that to Stephen, on one of these occasions perhaps, to explain.
The fact of the matter is this: I wonder where you can go in the history of the church and not find that, if God specifically calls people to a particular job and work, He specifically anoints them.
Even in my little experience, I can remember Billy Graham when he first came to England as a young man of twenty-three. I was only just saved, and I went along.
I remember that meeting. I remember the soft, blue-type music played in the background and the sob-like appeal that was made. I remember how he nearly leapt over the rail of the pulpit in Westminster Chapel and rolled on the floor wrestling with the lions. It was supposed to be the Christians being eaten by the lions.
I had never seen anything like it. I was nearly out of my seat watching him. I never took my eyes off him. It quite saved me because, at that time, I was almost tempted to go back. It was the point of my own experience when I was in a great period of darkness and death spiritually.
I thought, “If that young man can go to such lengths to try to get somebody saved, there must be something in it.”
Then, two or three years later, Billy Graham came back. I have never forgotten it. I had had my own experience then, but I sat there, and that man stood up and took the Bible.
Whereas before it had been illustration, illustration, illustration, wonderful stories, and antics, now it was just the Word, the Word, the Word, the Word. There was no soft playing of music when the appeal was given, but hundreds of people went forward.
I thought, “Whatever has happened to that man?” I only heard later that he had had an experience of God. The man was saved, but something happened to him that brought him finally to an end of his own energy and power to produce a ministry and fulfil a work for God.
God was then able to fulfil in him the work He had given him to do.
Anointing. What is the significance of anointing? Well, I do not think it needs to be said to most of you here that it was oil.
Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. That is the first thing. The second thing about oil is that it was poured on.
So it is the Holy Spirit coming upon.
All through the old covenant, the Holy Spirit came upon people to do a specific job. The interesting thing was that in the old covenant the Holy Spirit was not in them.
Now, it seems that some people believe the Holy Spirit is in us, but they do not seem to think that you can have any experience of the Holy Spirit coming upon you. Whatever is wrong with us?
We believers are so small in our minds. We can only ever seem to contain one part of a truth at one time. You cannot believe in the sovereignty of God and at the same time believe that there is such a thing as human responsibility. You cannot believe in church truth and believe in evangelism.
Somehow, you are either all for deeper, deeper life or all for superficial evangelism. That seems to be the way many people’s minds work, but God has the two things together.
Are we, under the new covenant, with the Holy Spirit indwelling us, to throw away the precious truth that the Holy Spirit comes upon us? What kind of service are we going to render? How far are we going to go?
You know me, I hope, well enough to know that I am not asking that somehow or other you all become wild, excessive, noisy people rolling around on the floor. Mind you, it would do one or two some good.
Maybe it would be good for one or two to loosen up just a little—not all the time, but just for a little while. It is interesting that sometimes, when the Holy Spirit comes upon a person, they are knocked out.
But I am not asking you to act in some peculiar or eccentric way, contrary to your own temperament or nature. All I am pleading for is that we know an anointing with the Holy Spirit and with power to do the work God has given us to do.
The United States could be changed if every person in this building today was truly anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power.
Think of the potentiality within the ministries God has given us. Think of the potentiality within the work to which God has called us. Think of the tremendous scope of the purpose of God into which we believe He has brought us.
If we only had that anointing with the Holy Spirit and with power to see the thing fulfilled—to be able to war in the place of prayer, to tackle things in the unseen, to come against the works of Satan and see them undone, and to see the Word of God communicated in a living, vital manner—then even the youngest amongst us would receive something from God, even if they did not understand everything.
Oil poured upon the person or upon the thing.
There seems to be a threefold meaning in anointing.
First of all, whatever is anointed is set aside. It is separated unto the Lord.
The second thing is this: whatever is separated unto the Lord is under divine authority and government.
The Lord is very, very jealous over this matter. You will remember a prophet who was anointed and given a word by God to do a certain thing, but he disobeyed. An older prophet said to him, “Come aside and stay,” and he listened.
Now, is this not interesting? Here is a little exercise on authority. The young prophet should never have listened to the older prophet, and the lion got him and mauled him to death.
God is very jealous on the matter of anointing.
When a person is anointed, they are separated unto God. They are not to prostitute what God has given them. They are not allowed to allow it to be adulterated. They are not allowed to water down anything. They are under divine government and authority.
Thirdly, divine grace, wisdom, and power are made available to whoever is anointed. In other words, it is not just a question of power, but specific grace, specific wisdom, and specific power made available to the one anointed to fulfil the job or ministry they have been given to do.
Now, if that is anointing, I want it.
I cannot think of anything more terrible than to be called into the work of God, to be given a vision and an understanding of the purpose of God, and to be given an appreciation of what your ministry is—the work God has given you to do—then to find yourself totally incapable of doing anything.
We know the Lord is the power, but it is the breakthrough of the spiritual sound barrier that I am bothered about. Though we are weak, broken, and nothing, He in us is everything.
He becomes the power. He becomes the grace. He becomes the wisdom. He becomes the ability. That is anointing.
The people of God have good horse sense, do they not? We will go a long way to hear somebody anointed.
People may say they do not believe in anointing, but we can tell in our churches and assemblies who is anointed and who is not. They have not got to stand up on their hind legs for long before we know exactly where they stand.
This is not being critical or judgmental. It is just a fact. One person can sing, and all we are left with is their singing. Another person can sing, and the Lord ministers to us.
One person can play the piano, and all we are left with is their technique. Another person can play the piano, and it is as if the Lord stirs our spirit.
One person can preach, and we hear words, thoughts, and sometimes wonderful thoughts, but it does nothing to us. Another person preaches, and it is as if a sword goes into our being. That is the difference between the unanointed and the anointed.
What about the place of temperament in anointing?
One of the most interesting things—and I find it one of the glories of the Word of God—is that everyone who is used of God is no automaton.
Isaiah remains Isaiah. His royal blood, sophisticated background, education, and very temperament come right through that infallible, authoritative, inspired Word of God.
Isaiah remains Isaiah, and Ezekiel remains Ezekiel. I have always felt that Ezekiel was a mathematician. I am dying to see him.
I think a person’s temperament never changes. I think we shall find that Ezekiel was of a more scientific bent of mind, able to describe a vision such as his.
I suppose God knew there was no good giving Isaiah a vision like the one He gave Ezekiel, because Isaiah could not have described it. Wheels within wheels, going this way and that way—he just could not do it. But Ezekiel could understand.
God knows just what He is doing with His sons before they are even born. He is forming them in their mother’s womb. He knows their grandparents, great-grandparents, and all their genetic history. It is all out before God, marvellously foreordained.
No servant of the Lord is a mistake, even though sometimes we who are recipients of their work and ministry think it. We sometimes pity dear so-and-so, but God has made no mistake.
When He has a special thing to convey, He creates a special vessel. When He has a special aspect of truth, or a special truth, to communicate, He creates a vessel peculiarly suited for that ministry.
Ezekiel is Ezekiel. You will not confound him with Isaiah. The way he puts things is just not like Isaiah.
And what about Jeremiah? Jeremiah is the psychologist par excellence. You cannot go very far before he is talking about himself. He starts answering, and it is, “Oh Lord, I wish You had not got me here.”
He puts it all into the book: “I wish You had not got me here. I have said many times I will never say another thing.” Then he says, “The fire burnt in my bones, and I could not do anything else. Here I am speaking again.”
Jeremiah is on every page of his prophecies. He cannot help it. It is not that he is self-centred; he is a different type of man. You do not confound Jeremiah with Isaiah or Ezekiel, do you? They are quite different.
If you think that is only Old Testament, come over to the New Testament. You will never confound Paul with James.
Paul says things that James could not say, and James says things that Paul could not say. They would choke in his throat.
James says, “Do you see that you are not justified by faith alone, but by works also?” We know very well he is saying the same thing as Paul. He does not mean that you are justified by works of your own. He means a working faith, a faith that operates, a faith concretely expressed in action.
But Paul could not have said it. Paul laboured on this: you are saved by faith alone and not by works. Here is James saying, “You see, you are saved by faith, and what?”
How can some liberals say, “Of course the Bible is not inspired; you have just got people”? No, that is not so at all.
The glory of it is that James is the kind of man through whom God says something true which is true James. The stamp of James’s temperament and personality remains on his contribution, rightly. It is not a mistake.
It is not as if God said, “Well, I wish I could get James out of this, but since I cannot, I shall just have to take him in with it.” No, it is by ordination. It is by foreordination.
That man James could only say the things he could say and see the things he saw because of who he was, what he was, and the type of person he was.
When the anointing comes upon him, it modifies his excesses. It balances what could be extreme. But he remains essentially the temperament he was.
So it is with Paul. Take John: does anybody write like the Apostle John in the New Testament? Even the youngest believer who knows their Bible and has begun reading it would be able to tell the style of John.
John has a very black-and-white style, does he not? He is not at all like Paul.
So you have three quite different men, yet all inspired, all infallible, and equally valuable. It is not as if we can say, “Now, Paul is our man. John comes next, and James—well, James was bound.”
Then you have Peter. In one of his letters, he actually says, “Our beloved brother Paul, who writes things very hard to be understood.” It is all in the Book.
Do you not think that is amazing? Here is an anointed Peter writing a letter, and he actually says that Paul says things which are hard to be understood.
I am sure that if Peter had realised it was going in the Book, and that thousands of believers down through the centuries were going to study the words, Peter would have said, “Take that out.”
I have often thought that about Paul when he wrote, “You Corinthians have pushed me overmuch, and now I have to say this and this.” Then he said, “When I wrote that letter to you, I was overcome with grief and sorrow. I felt I should not have written it.”
Then he said, “But now I have got news about you. I am so glad I wrote it.” Well, I am glad he wrote it. It was the first Corinthian letter.
There was the apostle having a bad time over what was inspired and infallible Scripture. Is it not interesting how God deals with His servants? Even when they are anointed, He allows them to have bad times. He allows them to have doubts.
Some of us, when we minister most powerfully in the Lord, are least conscious of it. We go away and have a bad time about it, thinking, “Oh, that was dreadful. Dear Lord, deliver me from that kind of thing again. I will not do it again.”
Only then do we find out that people got saved, people got blessed, and people met the Lord. Is it not amazing?
I have found that when I thought the Lord had been with me, generally speaking, yes. When I thought the Lord was not with me, I found out afterward that He was.
It is strange, this matter of anointing. The idea some people have is a kind of pagan, spiritist, spiritualist idea—that the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you become like a tank: immovable, able to bulldoze anything, absolutely strong, knowing God is with you, and knowing exactly what you have got to say.
This is a mediumistic type of inspiration and anointing, where an evil spirit comes upon a medium, possesses and manipulates them. They do not even know what they are doing, but they know they have got to say this and this and this.
This is not biblical or spiritual anointing or inspiration at all. At all times, the spirit of the prophet is under the control of the prophet.
The prophet may not know exactly the full extent of what he is saying, but he does know what he is saying.
This matter of anointing is, therefore, very, very important. If we can get this matter of temperament clear, we shall understand that when the Apostle Paul said, “I was with you in much fear,” we might say, “Paul, you need deliverance.”
“Much fear, much weakness—oh my, you need a healing ministry! And much trembling—perhaps he had high blood pressure. Why was he trembling? You are an apostle. You need to know the Holy Spirit.”
It is an interesting fact that Paul says in one of his letters that some of you say that when I am present, I am very weak. So the impression sometimes given was one that people could easily dismiss.
But then he said:
My preaching was not in persuasive words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith might not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
Now every time—listen to me, Kev, if you forget everything else I say—every time a servant of the Lord ministers in an unanointed way, people end up trusting in men’s wisdom.
They trust in that man’s ability. They trust in that man’s teaching or whatever else. But when it is under the anointing, they end up trusting in the power of God.
Anointing enables a man or a woman to do a supernatural work—not just to lecture in a university or college, but actually to communicate the Lord Jesus to people so that they receive Him. They receive more of Him.
Now, I think our time has gone. May I, in closing, just say something about the obtaining of this anointing?
First of all, all the work necessary for any child of God to be anointed has been finished by the Lord Jesus. There is nothing you have to do. It is not given on the basis of your merit, goodness, or zeal.
It is given on the ground that Jesus has perfectly won your salvation. That is the first thing.
The second thing I want to say is this: we learn a lot from the anointing of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 3:13-17. I will not read it, but you can go away and read it.
What did He do? First, He obeyed His Father explicitly.
Secondly, He committed Himself to the will of God at that time, whatever the price.
Thirdly, He laid down His life as far as self-centredness, self-assertion, and self-fulfilment were concerned.
That is the baptism of Jesus. That is why He went into the waters of Jordan. They represented for Him, not a need for His sins to be washed away, but symbolically the death of the cross.
Three years before He came to the cross, He said, “Father, I commit Myself to the work of the cross,” and laid down His life.
Then the Holy Spirit came upon Him to enable Him to fulfil the work God was giving Him to do—not only in the three years of His ministry, but in that final, supreme work of atonement.
Now, if you and I would know such an anointing, may I make these comments?
Do not give up. Seek, and seek, and seek. Be honest. Be pure in heart. Never give up.
If it is of any encouragement to any of you, the Bible says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Jacob was one of the biggest twisters in the world, but he was pure in heart. Think that one out, because he saw God.
He said, “I have seen the face of God, and I have lived.” With all the manipulation of his mind and everything else, there was in his heart a sincerity. As far as God was concerned, there was a purity in the man’s heart. He was honest with God in his heart of hearts.
It is a matter of timing. Do not give up. Go on. Some of these men, like Wesley and so on, sought the Lord for years. I know people who have sought the Lord for months, solidly. But I have never known anyone who sought the Lord for an anointing who has not, in the end, been anointed.
Maybe God will keep you in some humdrum job locally. I do not know. But you must be ready for the will of God, whatever the cost.
The other kind of thing is human charisma. It is not anointing.
Once you have said, “Not I, but Christ,” once you are ready to lay down your life totally for Him—you cannot do it of yourself. You can only be willing to do it, ready to do it. He will take you that way; do not worry.
But there has to come in your life, too, as in Jesus, a committal to those waters—a readiness just to go down and say, “Lord, I am not for all that it is going to cost, but I lay down my life in principle this night, this day. Hear me, Lord, and set Your seal upon it.”
May God help us all in this matter, because there could be no more important matter in leadership, in any way of holding responsibility in the work of God, than this matter of anointing.
Shall we pray?
Now, Lord, we may have raised many questions in what has been said this afternoon. We pray that by Thy Holy Spirit Thou wilt give real illumination and understanding. Thou knowest where we all are, Lord.
Oh Lord, bring this matter home to us with such clarity and such power that, Lord, we shall together begin to seek Thee, and Lord, Thou wilt meet us.
Oh, may every single servant of the Lord here this afternoon know that anointing in their ministry of life. Know that anointing in whatever, Lord, Thou hast called them to be responsible for.
Oh, hear us, Lord, we pray. In these days of such pressure and strain, and such antagonism from the powers of darkness, may we be empowered by the Holy Spirit as well as indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
We ask this for the glory of our Lord Jesus. Amen.