Sunday, October 30, 2016

THE HOLY SPIRIT - V (The Spirit of Might - 1)

WBS.185
FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP

THE HOLY SPIRIT - V

Isaiah (Yeshayahu) 11:1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2  And the spirit of IAUE shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of IAUE;

The fact that IAUE says He is going to freely reveal things to us that we have not seen, not heard, and not imagined lets us know that the natural mind is going to reject them.  If the natural mind instructs us to reject what the Holy Spirit shows to us; we can KNOW that we can have total confidence that it is of IAUE.  If it appears to be too good to be true; then we have discovered the goodness of IAUE.

[Notice in our opening passage of Scripture, I have provided the REAL name of Isaiah.  How we have come to refer to him as Isaiah is a mystery to me; but his real name is quite significant.  Yeshayahu means “IAUE has saved.”  The name of our Master “Yahushua” means “IAUE saves.”  The prophet Yeshayahu is known as “the Messianic” prophet because of the high content of his writings being prophetic of the coming Messiah.  He essentially shared names with the coming Messiah.

I know it is convenient in our current religious culture to use the names in our English translations of the Scripture; but many times the names in our English translations are simply not the real names of the persons. If your name was Miriam, and I called you Mary, I would not be using your name; and you would most likely correct me.  Why?  Because, Mary isn’t your name.  If your name was Yeshayahu, and I called you “Isaiah,” very likely you would not even turn your head to look at me because you would have no idea I was speaking to you. I believe we honor the men and women in Scripture, including our Master and our Father, by using their real names.  This isn’t an effort to become what some people call “becoming all things Jewish.”  When we know someone’s name and we call them something else, it is insulting to them and shows disrespect and dishonor. Anyone who has followed this blog will know that it is only proper names that I alter.  It has nothing to do with conforming to the Hebrew language or culture.  It has to do with using the names that were given to people.]

The church, today, has nearly 2,000 years of “dumbing down” from the grace and wonder that characterized the first century church. Instead of being 2,000 years advanced from those first novices who took the gospel to every quadrant of their world, healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, setting the captives free, the church, today, is just struggling to believe the early church even did those things, struggling to discover the elementary doctrines of Messiah. 

Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of IAUE; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.

Right after Yahushua was baptized of John (Yohannes), the Holy Spirit descended upon him.  The Scripture says he being full of the Holy Spirit then immediately went out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights.  When he returned from the wilderness this is what was recorded of him:

Luke 4:14  And Yahushua returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

The “fame” that went throughout all the region was that a miracle worker was in Israel healing the sick, casting out demons, doing signs and wonders. Messiah had returned from being tempted of Satan; and he was full of the power of the Spirit.  He immediately began healing the sick and casting out demons. He was an instant celebrity.

After a period of time, Messiah went to his home town of Nazareth where he entered into the synagogue and opened the scroll of Yeshayahu to the place where it read:

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of IAUE is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of IAUE.  (Yeshayahu 61:1-2)

This is why the Holy Spirit came upon Messiah. He anointed Yahushua to liberate mankind from the oppression of the enemy; and to free them from their enslavement to a kingdom that was not of their own choosing.  Luke further recorded this in his record of the early church growth.

Acts 10:38 How IAUE anointed Yahushua of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for IAUE was with him.

Those present in the Nazarene synagogue who were trained in the Scriptures would have understood that this “Spirit of IAUE” was the same one referred to earlier by Yeshayahu when he said:

Yeshayahu 11:1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:
2  And the spirit of IAUE shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of IAUE;

Many teachers refer to this as the 7-fold Spirit of IAUE that was seen by John (Yohannes) in Revelation 1:4. Here the Holy Spirit is defined as:

The Spirit of IAUE
The Spirit of Wisdom
The Spirit of Understanding
The Spirit of Counsel
The Spirit of Might
The Spirit of Knowledge
The Spirit of the Fear of IAUE

We have already discussed Him as the Spirit of IAUE in our opening post to this series.  We also have discussed him as the Spirit of Counsel (This is what the KJV refers to in Yohannes 14:26 as “the Comforter.”  He is the advocate who represents our best interests and explains the accords of the New Covenant to us. We have already touched upon Him as The Spirit of the Fear of IAUE when we discussed how He takes the things of Yahushua and shows them unto us in order to glorify IAUE in Yahushua.  We will enlarge upon this aspect in a future post to bring more clarity to how these two ideas are related.)

Today, I want to look at the Holy Spirit as The Spirit of Might.  In the passage above, this word “might” is the Hebrew word “geburah.”  In the KJV Old Testament, this word is translated as:
might (27x),strength (17x), power (9x), mighty acts (4x), mighty (2x), force (1x), mastery (1x).

Throughout the books of I and II Kings, and I and II Chronicles, when a king of Judah or a king of Israel passed away and another person became his successor, there is almost always a brief one or two verse summary of that king’s accomplishments; and it always refers to the king’s “might.”  It is this word “geburah,” and it always refers to one or both things.  Its secondary use is to refer to the king’s major accomplishment (his mighty works); but more significantly, it refers to the kingdoms he overthrew and to the strength of his army.  Consider this carefully.  Might relates to one’s ability to overpower and to overthrow another’s kingdom and to maintain mastery over it once it has been conquered.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Might.  He is the power of IAUE to conquer any enemy’ kingdom, and to overthrow its works.

Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
10 That ye might walk worthy of IAUE unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of Elohim;
11 Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

This is a prayer of Paul for the disciples in Colosse.  He prays that they would be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Knowledge, the Spirit of Wisdom and the Spirit of Understanding; so we can know what is the supply to answer this request.

Paul continues to pray that they would be strengthened (dunamoo) with all might (dunamis), according to his glorious power (kratos).  Dunamis is the Greek word for the first two of these words. It is principally translated as “power” in the New Testament.  This third word, kratos, refers to the dominion one exercises over an enemy that has been conquered by one’s might/power.  Together, these two words represent the New Testament equivalent to the might (geburah) of the Old Testament.

Note that Paul ends his prayer by giving thanks to the Father who set us free from the power (exousia – authority) of the enemy, and carried us away from that kingdom of darkness and placed us into another kingdom…the kingdom of His dear Son. 

It is the might of IAUE, through His Spirit of might, that removed us out of a kingdom that we did not choose (but unto which we were enslaved at birth) by conquering and overthrowing that kingdom.  By His strong arm and mighty power He set us free.  Remember this concept, well.

Acts 1:8  And ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you…

Next week we will look at how the Spirit of Might is intended to work in and through our lives.


Kingdom heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the performance of the will of IAUE.



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