We quiet our hearts before You. Lord, we look away to You and pray that You would bless this time with Your very presence; that You would meet us and soften our hearts so that we can respond to You.
Lord, we pray that, as we are in the Word and fellowshipping on these things, You would give light and really give us the life experience to go forward. Glorious Lord, thank You for Your goodness, love, and kindness to us this morning.
Lord, we thank You for the precious blood, washing us clean from all our failures and past sins. We thank You that we can stand here as Your people together—not from our own failures, but in Christ—and stand face to face with You in Your presence. We trust this time to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I would like to start with a few Scriptures, just phrases from some Scriptures. The first is in Matthew 17. We will come back to these stories, but to begin with, I just want to catch something from them—something that is happening.
In Matthew 17:4-5, Peter said to Jesus:
Lord, it is good for us to be here: if Thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles;
one for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.While he was yet speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them:
and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying,
This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him.
Notice that phrase: “While he was yet speaking.” While Peter was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them.
Then, in Matthew 16:21-23:
From that time began Jesus to show unto His disciples,
that He must go unto Jerusalem,
and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes,
and be killed,
and the third day be raised up.And Peter took Him, and began to rebuke Him, saying,
Be it far from Thee, Lord: this shall never be unto Thee.But He turned, and said unto Peter,
Get thee behind Me, Satan:
thou art a stumbling-block unto Me:
for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
Notice that Peter began to rebuke Him. Then Jesus turned around and said that.
The last passage is Acts 10:43-44, in the middle of Peter’s message to Cornelius’ household:
To Him bear all the prophets witness,
that through His name every one that believeth on Him
shall receive remission of sins.While Peter yet spake these words,
the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word.
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell.
Obviously, Peter is involved in these three instances, and God is involved in interrupting Peter. This caught my attention a while back when someone mentioned one of these interruptions. I began thinking about the times Peter was interrupted.
One thing I noticed is that one interruption is from the Father, one is from the Son, and one is from the Holy Spirit. So I began wondering, is there something here to notice?
For a while, I contemplated it and did a short study. But a study of interruptions in the Bible is actually hard to do. I need to finish reading through the Bible searching for interruptions, so I am not finished with my study yet. But I felt that I had finished one aspect of it, and I wanted to share some findings—some discoveries.
This aspect is in the New Testament: when God interrupts us—God’s own interruptions.
Personally, I have not done well with interruptions in the past, unfortunately. I have misunderstood interruptions and thought of them only in their rudest sense. Normally, when someone interrupts you, you almost always think it is a bad thing. Most of the time, when we interrupt people, we end up doing it in a rude way.
So, for us, interruptions seem evil. But just as we discover in the Bible that anger is neutral, we find that when God is angry, He is never evil. His righteous wrath is always correct, righteous, and good.
I think we know this about anger, but interruptions—I never noticed that interruptions can be good and helpful. Sometimes we need to interrupt. Definitely, God needs to interrupt us.
I cannot try to explain the best ways that we should interrupt each other. I think almost always we do it the wrong way. But there are times when you have to ask somebody to hold on for a minute.
I learned this having children. When my wife and I are talking to each other, at some point, if a child is holding a steak knife, I just say, “Hold that thought.” The conversation is interrupted.
You could say, “How rude! I was in the middle of my sentence.” But if my wife says, “Hold on one minute,” she should pause me and grab the steak knife. There are appropriate times for interruption.
Maybe you have been talking to someone, sharing, and talking yourself into depression as you speak about your problems. Occasionally, it would be helpful for the other person to stop you. Sometimes we have experienced that, and in retrospect we discover that it was good.
In basic counseling, perhaps Psychology 101, they may explain that all people need is someone to listen—just be a great big ear and never speak, except perhaps when they are silent. There is some truth in this. But sometimes a person can talk for an hour—and perhaps get away with that if they pay a psychologist to listen for an hour—and still need someone to pause the thought, address something, and help them.
I always thought of interruptions as bad. So, with God’s interruptions, I began asking: Is there something to learn from this personally? Can I apply something from this to what I see going on with all of us?
Peter is an example of a disciple in the New Testament. He is very much our example among the twelve apostles because he is the spokesperson, always representing them. He talks a little more than the others, so he reveals what is going on in their hearts. We learn more about discipleship from Peter than from James the Less or some of the others, about whom we barely know what was going on. Peter is a good example.
I began to wonder whether the same thing happens with another person in the New Testament. Paul himself said that his life was like an outline, or pattern, for other believers. Even the way he was saved is a picture for us. We may not have had a bright flash of light blind us to the sight of the world while opening our eyes to see Christ, but that is like a picture of all our salvation.
The light of the gospel shines in the face of Christ; we believe, are struck down along our former path, repent, and so on. Paul says that, in a way, God set him apart as an outline.
I believe Paul also was interrupted three times by God: once by the Father, once by the Son, and once by the Holy Spirit. His interruptions were not while he was talking; they were in his actions. But Peter, with all his talking, was interrupted while he was speaking.
I think God interrupts us in both our words and our deeds. These interruptions are good and healthy. They show us that we are in a relationship, fellowshipping and walking together with Someone.
Interruptions mean that we are together. If there are never any interruptions, we can simply follow teachings, methods, and good practices while God is not involved. But if He is real, alive, with us, involved with us, and if we are walking and talking with Him, He is going to interrupt us. He needs to interrupt us—sometimes because we are making a mistake, and sometimes to show us something beyond what we have presently gained.
It is not always because we are doing something wrong.
I mainly want to speak about Peter’s interruptions, though I will bring in a little of Paul’s interruptions as well. I will go in the order of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, although their stories do not occur in that exact order.
The Father’s interruption of Peter happens on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17.
We need to learn something about the Father: the Father wants to reveal His Son.
Peter saw Christ and believed in Christ. In the previous chapter, Matthew 16, Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then the Lord Jesus told him that he was blessed because the Father had shown him this.
Without the Father revealing the Son, Peter would not have known. There is a revelation specifically accomplished by the Father within the Triune God. He is the One who reveals His Son to us.
On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father was revealing more of Christ to those who were already believers. Peter had already confessed faith in Christ, and now a further revelation was taking place.
Paul provides a side picture. As an unbeliever, he was on his journey to Damascus, acting with zeal for God, though he was persecuting Christians. The Father interrupted his action and revealed Christ to him. It is true that Paul had a conversation with Christ, but the revelation of Christ came through the Father: suddenly a light shone.
This happened in Acts 9. Paul fell down, his eyes were blinded, and he could not see. This was when he was first saved. His response was, “Who are You, Lord?”
That was the Father’s interruption as Paul was saved. Yet when the Father reveals Christ to us, it does not always come as an interruption. I do not mean that everything God does is an interruption. Sometimes it does not even feel like an interruption for those of us who have been saved.
Not all of us have had a drastic interruption in our lives or conversations. We may have been going along wanting to believe, and then someone shared with us, and we believed. But Paul happened to be interrupted when he was saved.
Peter had been saved earlier, had made his confession, and now the Lord was showing him something more. Peter describes this in 2 Peter. He says that the Lord appeared in glory before them. The Father was showing Christ’s glory, His kingship—Christ as King.
This further revelation of Christ was a revelation of Christ in all His majesty: as King and as Lord.
In Matthew 17, the Lord’s appearance suddenly changed. His clothing became shining white, and Moses and Elijah appeared beside Him. As the disciples beheld Him in glory, they saw Christ in His majesty. This was a further revelation of Christ shown by the Father.
Then Peter started talking. He said, “This is good,” and suggested making tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But while he was still speaking, he was stopped. I wonder what else he was going to say. He must have had plans for those tabernacles and all that they would do.
While Peter was still speaking, a cloud overshadowed them. Glory came over them. They could not see anything anymore; everything was cloudy. Then they heard the voice of God the Father declaring, “This is My beloved Son,” and telling them to hear Him.
They trembled. Imagine that experience: a thunderous voice, perhaps, a cloud surrounding them, and then everything gone so that they could see nothing.
When the clouds moved away, they stayed trembling and looking down. They did not open their eyes. Jesus had to come to them, touch them, and raise them up. When they looked up, they saw Jesus only.
That is a phrase we love from this chapter: “Jesus only.” The outcome of the Father’s interruption was that they beheld Jesus only.
Moses and Elijah appearing next to Christ cannot be a bad thing. We need to consider this in relation to our own experiences. If the Father is showing us more of the Son, He may use peripheral things to shine more light on Christ or explain more of Christ.
In this case, Moses and Elijah were talking to the Lord about His departure. There was nothing wrong with their presence, and there was nothing sinful in Peter knowing about Moses or Elijah. He simply looked to the left and the right.
Moses obviously represents the law. Not merely the law of the Ten Commandments, nor only the many hundreds of laws Moses wrote down, but also the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy. These are called the Law—the books of the Law.
It is God’s foundational standard. Even the history before Moses is included under that title. Genesis and the whole package are called the Law. This is the basis of our human beginnings and the foundation of the nation of Israel.
The law—not only the rules, though certainly the rules—is meant to tutor us. We find in Galatians that it is meant to lead us, teach us, train us, and point us to Christ.
Whether the commands come to us and we realize, “I cannot keep these commands; I need a Savior,” or whether we see that, as Jesus said, all the Law speaks of Him, the Law is leading us to Christ. Moses testified of Christ.
Moses spoke specifically of One who would come later, to Whom everyone should listen. But even the details that confuse us—the sacrifices in Leviticus, the ways things were made, and so on—speak of Christ in some way.
The Law testifies of Christ, speaks of Christ, and leads us to Christ. Spiritually speaking, Moses beside Christ should cause that side view to point us toward seeing more of Christ. When we read those writings or when the commands come to us, they should lead us right back to the Person of Christ.
Elijah represents the prophets. This is commonly known, but it is also obvious when you reach the end of the Old Testament. At the end of Malachi, two men are mentioned: Moses and Elijah. Elijah is specifically said to be coming back.
Elijah had been taken up, and we do not see him die in the Old Testament stories. So Elijah still had more work to do, and here we see him appearing in Matthew 17.
As a representative of the prophets, Elijah has to do with the speaking of God: the speaking forth of future things, the speaking of current things, and the Word of God coming to His people.
All the writings of the prophets testify of Christ. Jesus said that the Law and the Prophets testify of Him. He told others that they searched the Scriptures looking for eternal life, but they did not realize that the Scriptures testified of Him. They were pointing to Him.
Spiritually speaking, everything to do with prophecy, the prophets, and the writings of the prophets—the very speaking of God—should bring us to see Christ. If there is a timely word from God for us, it should bring us to Christ. That is always involved if God is really speaking.
Revelation 19 says that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. The very nature of all prophecy is the expression and testimony of Jesus.
When the Father places Moses and Elijah next to Christ, His entire intention is that we still see Jesus only. All the things of God in our Christian walk, church experiences, and fellowship with believers are not meant to take us away from seeing Jesus only.
The Father delights to use all these things at the side to draw us to see Christ. It is always like that.
If we find ourselves looking to the left or right, even at good things—the actions we should do according to the law, the wonderful speaking of God, or prophetic events—we can become distracted from Christ.
It would be easy to study the prophecies of Scripture and get distracted: “I am studying the Bible. I am studying how it all ends. I am studying the antichrist. I am figuring out my outline. I have almost all the pieces together.” Then I need to be interrupted.
I may need a cloudy experience, sometimes a frightening experience of the voice of God, to bring me back to Christ. Or perhaps I am learning how to love God and love my brethren. In those experiences, I learn what is right and wrong, the ways of God, and these become a spiritual law—the law of the Spirit of life.
As I follow the Holy Spirit, He shows me, “Do not go this way; go this way. This does not please God; this does please God.” But even when these things are used correctly, we can begin to wrap them into a package of rules.
We see the rules we have discovered and begin trying to fulfill them each day. We are trying to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. We are trying to be good people. Then we need to be interrupted. We need to see Jesus only and realize what all of this is leading toward.
Sometimes, when we are interrupted, everything feels cloudy and confusing. This is because we are in a relationship with God. Some of us can look back and see times when we were not doing anything wrong, yet we went through a period in which something felt wrong and confusing.
“I do not see anything now. It is not that I see Jesus; it is that I see nothing.” Some things may even feel frightening, and we may become confused about God.
It can feel as though a thunderous voice is speaking: “This is My Son. Hear Him. I am well pleased with Him.” It is a kind message, but it may sound frightening to us. The disciples were so afraid that they stayed down trembling even after the cloud was gone. They were not standing in the Shekinah glory cloud saying, “Wow.” They were hiding. They were afraid.
Sometimes, when God the Father interrupts us because we need to see Christ, He changes everything. He changes our whole view. It is almost as though He wipes the slate clean.
But after we go through that cloudy experience, the Lord Jesus Himself touches us. We look up and behold Him alone. In a way, He is the only One who can pull us out of the clouds.
Our confusion is sometimes purposeful from the Father. Of course, we can be confused for other reasons. But if we are trying to follow the Lord and turn to the right or left, even for good reasons, things may become confusing. It does not feel right. We feel distant from God and wonder, “Where did Jesus go?”
But it is only Jesus who can pull us out. This is the Father’s own design. He finishes whatever conversation is taking place with Moses and Elijah and pulls them away for a time.
Later, those disciples could read Moses’ writings and the prophets. Peter himself would speak about how the prophets and prophecies fit together to communicate God’s Word. He did not conclude, “I am never going to have the Bible or rules anymore, because they will distract me from Christ.” Rather, he found their right setting: on the side, never as the central viewpoint.
This is the Father’s interruption. Its design is that we see Jesus only. That is the Father’s delight.
Peter’s interruption from the Lord Jesus Himself occurred in Matthew 16, the chapter before the Transfiguration. Peter had just confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and then Jesus began to speak about going to the cross.
Peter took hold of Him and rebuked Him. Whatever exactly he said is difficult to translate, but it was a strong personal rebuke—something like, “God forbid it, Lord.”
Peter probably had many reasons. He may have had prophecies ready to explain why Jesus had to fulfill messianic promises yet to come and therefore could not die. He may have had very good reasons in his own mind. But he was interrupted. Jesus stopped him and made clear: “If you are going with Me, we are going the way of the cross. All disciples are going this way.”
When Jesus interrupted Peter, He turned around and faced him. Then He spoke to him about the cross.
When we are behind Jesus, thinking through many things in our minds, we can begin to argue about the way of the cross. We can reason things out and begin to make excuses or find other ways.
We can be very honest with God. Peter is a good example of not being fake. Like David’s Psalms, Peter’s responses are not fake. At times they almost embarrass us, but this is relationship.
Peter was truly following the Lord Jesus, but when the cross came up, Jesus rebuked him in the strongest way: “Get behind Me, Satan. Your mind is not on the things of God. You have the mindset of men. You are a temptation to Me. You are a stumbling block to Me.”
The thought against the cross is a thought from Satan. It does not mean Peter suddenly became possessed by Satan. But that mindset was coming from the enemy.
For Peter to realize that his thought process at that moment—the thought against suffering for Christ, suffering for God, or losing his life—was Satan’s thought, must have shaken him. It was the thought of man, but behind it was the thought of Satan. That was a real interruption.
Jesus turned to face Peter because, when He speaks to us about the way of the cross, it is always in sight of His face. It is the fellowship of His sufferings into which we are going. It is the way of the cross that He traveled before us, and we behold Him as we go forward.
If Jesus had merely spoken with His back turned, Peter might have returned with more arguments. But when Peter saw His face, something melted.
On one hand, Peter received the strongest rebuke of his life: he was called Satan. On the other hand, he saw the face of Christ, Who had set His face to go to the cross. There was disturbance in Peter’s heart, but there was melting too. He would continue walking the way of the cross.
This rebuke came in layers. Peter needed help along the way. At that point, he stopped talking and continued to follow the Lord as they went toward the cross.
Later, Peter brought his sword to Gethsemane. When those who came to arrest Jesus said they were looking for Him, Jesus said, “I am He,” and they fell down. Peter pulled out his sword and swung it, cutting off Malchus’s ear.
This was Peter’s reaction against the cross. I have been thinking recently that we should give Peter more credit for his swordsmanship. It is actually very hard to chop off only an ear. He may have been very good—or very bad.
He probably figured that he had the Sons of Thunder with him, perhaps two swords among them and some other things. But in his reaction, he was bold. There was no fear. In his boldness, he worked against the cross, and the Lord Jesus stopped him.
Jesus healed the ear and rebuked Peter kindly: those who live by the sword will die by the sword. He was going the way of the cross.
As Jesus spoke to Peter, I imagine Peter saw Him—saw His face. Peter put the sword away and escaped. He was not arrested for his swordsmanship. Instead, they all fled, and the people took Jesus away.
Yet Peter and John secretly stayed near the way of the cross. Peter’s boldness was rebuked, and his fight against the cross was rebuked. Now, though fearful, he stayed near the cross experience, still following Jesus.
This was another layer of going the way of the cross. The Lord Jesus’ interruptions and rebukes were leading His disciple toward that way.
If you get off the path of the cross, there is help from the Lord Jesus—help in seeing His face. Then you know that the way of the cross is your way.
We know the story of Peter denying the Lord three times. He was warming himself near the fire, and a little girl called him out. He was near Jesus for a good reason, but then his mouth began to speak, his shame came out, and he denied the Lord.
Then the rooster crowed. Peter saw the Lord’s eyes looking at him, turned, and saw the face of the Lord Jesus. His heart melted to its core. That was the end of his going against the way of the cross.
He went away in tears, shame, and deep repentance. The rest of his life was changed.
After Jesus restored him before the disciples, He told Peter, “Follow Me,” and said that at the end of his days someone would lead him where he did not want to go. At the end of John’s Gospel, it says this was speaking of Peter’s death. We are told that Peter died by crucifixion.
Peter was interrupted and rebuked, and he received it. It came in layers—rebuke after rebuke, face after face—but the Lord Jesus is the One Who helps us in the way of the cross.
When we find ourselves facing a choice between a path that is more selfless, more like Christ, but not what we want to do—a path that is more of God’s will, though we wish some of our own will could be included—we should maintain our relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Whether in action or conversation, we keep walking with Him. In the midst of a cross struggle, the Lord is welcome to interrupt us. We do not need to be afraid or fake. We are in a relationship.
He is able to rebuke us strongly or gently. But when we begin to speak to Him about our struggles, His face turns toward us. In the face of Jesus, our struggles are dropped.
We see Him, and He says, “I am going the way of the cross.” Then we say, “I am going too, because I see Your face. Where else can I go? I am going this way.”
This is the interruption of Christ. When we begin to veer off the path of the cross, we need to see His face again.
Tell Him, “Lord, wait a minute. I am not ready to go this way.” Talk it out with the Lord. Cry it out with the Lord. Struggle with the Lord. But remain near where He is going, even if you cannot yet fully go that way.
Be near the Lord’s crucifixion. Be near Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, even if you are going to make a mistake, even if your flesh is going to take over and you are going to react wrongly. You may know that you will fail, but do not give up completely.
If Peter had not actually been there, he would not have been helped. He would not have seen the face of Jesus, and his heart would not have been melted.
We need to be in the relationship that includes interruptions. As we walk with the Lord Jesus, sometimes it seems that we see only His back. He has turned and is walking another direction—toward the cross. It is all right to lay hold of Him and say, “Lord, no.” He will turn around, and then we will follow Him.
We must see the face of Christ if we are going to continue with Him.
With the apostle Paul, I will only mention this briefly because it is a much bigger story. At one point in Acts, Paul set himself to go to Jerusalem. Eventually, he would end up in Rome, and he wanted to reach Rome. But the way he got there was unique.
On the way to Jerusalem, Agabus prophesied, tying himself up with a belt and saying that this would happen to Paul in Jerusalem. Paul received warnings, including inward warnings, but he was a man of God following the Lord Jesus.
Something seemed different in this area of Paul’s life. He wanted to be in Jerusalem for a festival—something connected with the old covenant. There appeared to be a Jewish desire rising up in him.
Paul himself wrote in Galatians that if everyone could become Jewish, the offense of the cross would cease. The Galatian believers were being encouraged to become Jews. The Judaizers were saying, “Why do you not become Jews? You will be more perfect and mature. It is a better way with a rich history.”
Paul understood this more clearly than anyone. He was the one who later explained how it all worked, especially in Ephesians and, to some extent, Colossians. These letters came after this Jerusalem experience.
When Paul went to Jerusalem, he had a Gentile companion with him. Yet Paul shaved his head, performed vows, and paid for vows for other Jewish believers. It is true that he could become all things to all men; to the Jew, he could become as a Jew for the sake of the gospel. But something seems strange in this experience.
This is my wondering. We cannot blame Paul’s heart for anything, but it seems there was a potential slight veering off course through the influence of James and the timing of what he was doing. If this path had been fully carried out, many non-Jewish Christians may have been persuaded in that direction.
I have seen this in my own life. I grew up with a persuasion toward the old covenant and trying to live under it. I also saw it among Christians in Israel: a fascination with these things and the thought that it was a better or higher way. Some believers told me, “I just wish I was a Jew.”
But Paul showed the whole church that in Christ there is no more Jew or Gentile. In the church, that distinction is removed.
The wall that stopped his Gentile companion from entering further into Jerusalem—the wall of partition—is broken down in the church. This is what Paul taught and explained in Ephesians.
In this experience, Paul really was interrupted. He was not doing anything obviously wrong. This was not like his earlier history in Jerusalem, when he preached the gospel, caused trouble, and the apostles had to send him away for safety. Here, he was not preaching the gospel. He was doing vows, with his head shaved, looking completely acceptable. He was fitting in.
You would not even know he was a Christian. Again, that does not mean he was doing something wrong. But he was interrupted.
Thankfully, he had brought that Gentile companion. Someone misunderstood and claimed that Paul had brought the Gentile past the wall, and a riot broke out.
Through that riot and other events, Paul eventually ended up in Rome. He spent two years under house arrest, and in that time he wrote about the church: no Jew, no Gentile; the wall in Jerusalem broken down. It was as though the way of the cross had almost been distracted from, but the Lord interrupted him.
I would not say there was an active wrong choice in Paul. But if he had carried out everything James may have influenced him to do, things might have remained too closely connected to Judaism. James seems not to have been as clear on these matters as Paul, though we can understand why, given that he was surrounded by Jewish believers.
But there was an interruption. Paul’s course was completely interrupted in action. The Lord Jesus pulled him away from all of that.
Paul was not even allowed to appear simply as a Jew. Everyone called him out because of his Gentile companion. They even lied about him. To save himself wisely and rightly, Paul stood on his Roman citizenship and said, “I am a Roman. May I speak to the crowd?” He was protected as a Roman, not as a Jew.
Perhaps this was an interruption from the Lord Jesus, bringing Paul onward in the way of the cross. It led him into real cross-bearing and real suffering, but also into deeper fellowship with the sufferings of the Lord Jesus.
There is an obvious interruption in the actions of Paul by the Holy Spirit. Paul was burdened for the city of Ephesus. We know Ephesus clearly from Paul’s letter to them and from Revelation. As Paul went out on his mission, burdened for Ephesus, he was interrupted.
In Acts, he came toward that region and the Holy Spirit stopped him. The passage specifically says that the Holy Spirit stopped him along his path.
This may confuse a new Christian who sees Paul as an outstanding believer who never did anything wrong. Paul was not doing anything wrong. His actions were correct. He was walking as a mature Christian walks.
A mature Christian does not always know every detail. He has a burden, steps forward, and walks by faith. Walking by faith does not always mean knowing all the details.
Paul was on an apostolic journey, sent out by the Lord, but he did not yet know every detail of the route. That was completely all right. It had nothing to do with immaturity. He was simply stopped.
He was stopped more than once, and eventually this led to the vision of the Macedonian man and to his going into Europe. Paul was walking according to the burden God had given him, walking with the Lord, and sensitive enough to be interrupted.
Many of our actions as Christians are like that. The Lord does not always interrupt us. If every action we took felt like an interruption, our Christian walk would become strange. We could not abide in Christ and walk with Him; we would merely be controlled like robots: “He tells me to do this, so now I do this.”
That is the wrong concept of being led by the Holy Spirit. Being led by the Holy Spirit includes being willing to be interrupted by the Holy Spirit.
This is an abiding relationship. More often, we are led by burden than by detailed instructions. Paul likely prayed for Ephesus: “I am burdened for this. These souls are on my heart.” He began to go, was interrupted, and went another way.
That is part of normal Christian experience. The timing was not right. Looking back, we can see that more events had to take place in Ephesus before Paul would arrive. That is why the Holy Spirit stopped him.
The Holy Spirit’s interruptions are connected with the Lord Jesus building His church. The Lord said, “I will build My church,” in Matthew 16. He is the One doing it.
The Book of Acts may be viewed as the acts of the apostles or the acts of the Holy Spirit. We see both the apostles acting and the Holy Spirit acting. Yet Acts begins by saying that it records what the Lord Jesus continued to do after He ascended.
Even Paul’s interruption on the way to Ephesus was something the risen and ascended Lord Jesus was doing. He was building His church. In the interruption process, the Holy Spirit stopped Paul because the Lord Jesus had another route to take before Paul reached Ephesus.
The Lord is deeply involved in the church-building process. We are not blindly going out according to our own desires, but neither are we frozen, unable to speak or act unless we have some strong sense of divine direction.
The Lord only occasionally interrupts. Otherwise, we continue walking, and the Lord builds His church.
Peter’s interruption by the Holy Spirit occurred when he went to Cornelius’ house, a Gentile household. Before this, Peter had a dream. He was hungry, naturally, and he dreamed about food. He saw both unclean and clean food.
For a Jew, unclean food was not to be eaten. But God told Peter, “Eat this food.” In the dream, Peter answered, “No, Lord. I have never eaten anything unclean.”
We cannot say Peter was consciously rejecting God’s will three times in his dream. The dream simply revealed what was going on in Peter’s heart. His conscience was speaking in a good way, according to how he had been trained and what he knew.
After the vision was taken away, Peter pondered these things. Then he learned that men had come for him and that he should go with them. He was still pondering, but he followed.
When Peter began speaking to Cornelius’ household, he essentially said, “You know I am not supposed to be here, right?” He explained that it was not permitted, according to Jewish custom, for a Jew to enter a Gentile house.
This was going against Peter’s conscience, and we need to understand how deeply that ran. I have served strawberries to a Jew before, and he would not eat them because I was a Gentile. It was not merely the question, “Are the strawberries clean?” The thought was that the person who handed over the bowl was unclean.
The mindset could be, “I will not eat from a kitchen that has a Gentile in it.” That is why kosher food regulations are so significant. This was the whole mindset Peter was overcoming.
Peter was nevertheless continuing according to the Lord’s leading and walking by faith. He did not fully understand yet, but he was beginning to understand. He said, “God has shown me not to call any man unclean.”
Then he shared some of the good news. But his message was interrupted.
Peter declared that forgiveness of sins was available to all who believed on the Lord Jesus. While he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon the hearers. They manifested the obvious signs of people who had experienced the Holy Spirit, like the experience Peter had known at Pentecost.
Peter stopped and looked at the Jewish companions who had come with him. He said, in effect, “Who can forbid these people from being baptized in water? They have already received the Holy Spirit.”
He recognized that this was what happened at Pentecost. This interruption may have occurred for several reasons.
I would not say it happened because Peter could not have led them to Christ. He was already discovering that no person should be called unclean and that Gentiles could hear the gospel and become Christians. But there would have been many theological questions: should they first convert to Judaism? Should they receive John’s baptism before Christian baptism? Should they be circumcised first?
Peter would have needed to think through these questions, and he would have had to debate them with those back in Jerusalem. The interruption may have been for Peter’s sake, saving him from much trouble. It may also have been because Peter was not equipped like Paul to explain how Jew and Gentile become one.
It was a mystery. Peter himself said that Paul’s writings could be difficult to understand. But the Holy Spirit interrupted the whole process: “I will build My church.”
The Holy Spirit skipped the whole process. They were born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, and then baptized. Peter could return to Jerusalem and say, “This is what happened. What else could we do?” In general, the others received it because they saw what God had done.
This is an interruption of the Holy Spirit in the building of the church.
I want to mention something on a very small level: our walk and function in the church. As the Lord Himself builds the church, our actions and words will occasionally be interrupted by the Holy Spirit.
This does not always mean something drastic or outwardly obvious. Consider our church gatherings, where all of us are called to function and participate together.
With the Holy Spirit’s interruptions, there is already a path being followed. This morning, for example, we broke bread together. Many of us, because of our history with the Lord, can remember Him, vocally thank Him, and express our love for Him. We are together in the room, ready to speak, sing, quote Scripture, or do whatever is appropriate.
Sometimes we simply thank the Lord. I can thank the Lord at every meal. It is not that every prayer at a meal comes with a strong feeling of Holy Spirit leading. Occasionally, perhaps, there is a particularly strong leading and the prayer is different. But all of us can pray at meals without that strong sense of initiation.
That does not mean we are not abiding in Christ or that our prayer is fake. We can genuinely thank the Lord for our meal.
Likewise, in a breaking of bread gathering, we can be genuine, real, and right with the Lord even if we do not feel something dramatic. If we have been cleansed by the precious blood and have dealt with things before Him, we can express thanksgiving. That is normal. We are abiding in Christ.
But occasionally, as you sit there open before the Lord, there is an interruption. You may suddenly feel, “I really should…” Your own process is interrupted, and the Lord nudges you in a stronger way.
This is one way the Holy Spirit works in the breaking of bread. It can be even more obvious in Bible fellowship or open fellowship.
In 1 Corinthians 14, part of the fellowship gathering is to allow interruptions. They are called revelations. Paul says that if someone sitting by has a revelation, the first speaker should stop and let the other speak.
That is an interruption. It is a Holy Spirit interruption in a church gathering, built into the way that the gathering works.
You may come with something to share—a five-minute teaching you have gained from a verse. You are in the Lord, right with the Lord, and sharing with burden. But while you are teaching, someone catches something from what you are saying.
Maybe they do not say, “Whoa,” but you can see it in their eyes. They have caught something. Sometimes it is good to stop and say, “Go ahead.”
As they express what they have received, because it is a Holy Spirit interruption, it may come out a little messy—but it comes out. If you wait five minutes and do not allow that interruption, they may lose it.
It is that kind of fresh revelation. The freedom to express something is not always as easy an hour later. It can take real dealings to explain what the Lord showed you an hour ago. But when He is showing you something right now, it can be expressed more freely because it is presently coming to you.
In our case, we have Friday night Bible fellowship times. It is appropriate sometimes for someone to say, “Wait a second,” and share what they have just received from something another person began to say. That is not a rude interruption. The Lord is building His church, and the Holy Spirit is interrupting what we are doing.
At a prayer meeting, interruptions can happen as well. We should be able to pray and initiate prayer without having a strong feeling beforehand, while remaining open to the Lord.
Occasionally, while you are praying, words are coming out and you suddenly feel interrupted: a whole different prayer has come into your heart. You begin praying further than you had originally intended. That is a Holy Spirit interruption.
These interruptions, in general, are God’s relationship with us. The non-interruptions are also God’s relationship with us. We abide in Him and walk together with Him, and occasionally He interrupts us.
We appreciate and enjoy these interruptions. They help us when we are doing right, and they help us when we get distracted. This is part of our relationship with the Lord.
Thank God that He chooses to interrupt us occasionally. Thank God that He does not leave us alone to follow our own path, become distracted, or build in our own way. He is constantly involved with what we are doing.
Lord, we want to bring these few words back before You. We pray that, in the many details going on in our own lives and in our assembly here, You would continue to reveal to us how this relationship works.
Father, we pray that You would reveal Your Son more and more to us. Lord, as we have become confused and even struggled against the way of the cross, we pray that we would behold You face to face and continue on this path—the narrow way of the cross.
Lord, we appreciate Your goodness to us. You are not merely telling us what to do and leaving us to try; You are so involved with us. Thank You for Your love, in Jesus’ name. Amen.