WBS.190
FUNDAMENTALS OF DISCIPLESHIP
THE HOLY
SPIRIT - X
Isaiah 11:2 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;
There are those who would say they can’t understand the
Bible. They need to be born again and
receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of IAUE. If a man has the Holy Spirit, he does not
need to be taught of man. If one has the
Holy Spirit in his/her life, their intellectual ability or lack thereof is not
relevant to understanding Truth. That is
the job of the Holy Spirit, to teach us all things and to bring to our remembrance
the words of our Master Yahushua.
IAUE drew us unto Himself by revealing His Son
to us as our Messiah. We responded with
repentance and submission to Yahushua as our Master. The Scripture tells us that when we receive
the Holy Spirit we shall receive power and we shall be his witnesses (Acts 1:8). It does not tell us that once we are born
again, we should wait and see who among us are “called” to become preachers or
pastors; and that those with a calling should go to seminary and become schooled
theologians. No, the Scripture says the field
is ripe unto harvest, now. We do not
need to wait to receive special training.
We are witnesses, now.
I want to discuss this matter before moving on
in this series because it is important that we renew our minds regarding
it. This will help us participate more
thoroughly in the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The contemporary Christian church has created
the very thing which our Master hates.
Revelation
2:15 So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the
Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.
What was this doctrine? It is referred to as the “clergy/laity split.” In other words, it made a distinction between
the clergy (the pastors, bishops, elders, etc.) and the general congregation of
believers. The “leadership” is distinguished from the general populace of the
church as having greater access to the truth and to a more perfect
understanding of the Scriptures. In
contemporary setting, it is the distinction made between the seminary trained
preachers and theologians (with letters after their name), and the run of the
mill believer who fills the pews on Sunday. To the schooled and studied are
given respect for their training which supposedly gives them an advantage to
understanding the Scriptures. The
natural consequence of this is for the common believer not to study the
Scriptures and to just listen to what the better trained are telling them. It would never ever occur to them to challenge
what the pastor or theologian is teaching for they are deemed clearly to be
better equipped to understand the Scriptures; especially if they understand how
to read Hebrew and Greek. (Just imagine
what would happen if, during a televised church service, someone stood up and
said, “Pastor, that isn’t what that verse means.”)
Here is the truth behind the doctrine of the
Nicolaitanes. Its sole purpose is
control. It changes the church from being a living vital organism into a
business venture; and it enables the “clergy” to manipulate the congregation to
support their own personal objectives. It creates “jobs” for them, allowing the
body of believers to pay for them not to work.
Their “spiritual” work is made to be perceived as worthy of the church’s
financial support. The fact is, we do not need a man to teach us the Scriptures
if we are listening to the Holy Spirit as our Teacher (1 John 2:27); and the
lowliest member of the congregation may thus have keener insights and
revelations into the Scripture than the heavily-schooled pastor. (There are
many seminaries whose doctrinal orientation is wrong from the start; so the
graduates of those seminaries are already founded upon theological and
doctrinal error.)
The doctrine of the Nicolaitanes dumbs down
the congregation and renders believers impotent to do the work of the gospel. Paul
tells us that the ministries of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and
teacher is to train the disciples to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians
4:11-12). It is the congregation that is
supposed to be doing the work of the ministry.
We aren’t supposed to be paying church leadership to do the work of the
ministry; but that is what the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes produces; and the
result is, NO ONE is doing the work of the ministry. We are all just learning and never coming to the
knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7) The truth is that we are supposed to be DOING
the Word of IAUE, not just hearing it only, deceiving ourselves (James 1:22).
Last week we discussed the Holy Spirit as our
Teacher. I want to take a somewhat
different approach to that subject now; and discuss an aspect of our Teacher
that is a very personal.
Deuteronomy
29:29 The secret things belong unto IAUE our Elohom: but those
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we
may do all the words of this law.
Proverbs 25:2 It is the
glory of Elohim to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a
matter.
One of the most wonderful aspects of the Holy
Spirit is His desire for intimacy with us.
By that, I mean, He wants to be very personal with us. He takes delight in revealing to us the
secret things of IAUE and hidden things in the Scripture. IAUE has indeed hidden gems in the
Scriptures; and it is our glory to search for them; and it is the delight of
the Holy Spirit to reveal them to us.
Some of these things you could stand behind a pulpit and preach as the
Truth for everyone to know and understand and to assimilate into their
lives. Other things are just fun
insights that you could not teach to others as “doctrine,” but they are
wonderful things that He shows us to amuse us and cultivate that “personal”
intimacy with us that He desires. Let’s
look at some examples.
Revelation 4:5 And out of the throne proceeded
lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire
burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of IAUE.
Now, we could study this out to greater
detail; but it is a generally accepted idea that the “seven Spirits of IAUE” is
just another way of saying the Holy Spirit; but it suggests that there are
seven distinct attributes or elements to the Holy Spirit. It could just mean
the number 7 is being used as the number of divine perfection, meaning that the
seven Spirits of IAUE is just another way of saying the divinely perfect Holy
Spirit. Having stated that as an option,
we recently have seen this verse in Isaiah.
Isaiah 11:2 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;
This is clearly speaking of the Holy Spirit;
and there are seven distinct elements of the Holy Spirit being presented. Now, let’s move on to a “personal” insight…a
point of intimacy between the Holy Spirit and myself; something I enjoy with
Him; but not something I would teach as a point of doctrine. This is a “secret thing” He uncovered for me
just to enhance our intimacy with each other.
1 John 1:5 This then is the message which we have
heard of him, and declare unto you, that IAUE
is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
When visible light is broken down into its
component colors (as seen through a prism or in a rainbow, for example) we find
it is constructed of seven different colors in this order: red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet. If we contemplate
these colors as representing the attributes of the Holy Spirit in the order in
which they appear in Isaiah 11, we have this:
Red = Spirit of
IAUE
Orange = Spirit of Wisdom
Yellow = Spirit of Understanding
Green = Spirit of Counsel
Blue = Spirit of
Might
Indigo =
Spirit of Knowledge
Violet = Spirit of the fear of IAUE
If we contemplate this further, we can
consider the primary colors (red, yellow, blue) to be the primary aspects of
the Holy Spirit from which all other colors (orange, green, indigo and violet)
are constructed. That would suggest,
then, that the Spirit of IAUE, the Spirit of Understanding and the Spirit of
Might form the basis for all other aspects of the Holy Spirit.
Red and yellow = orange. The Spirit of IAUE and the Spirit of
Understanding produces the Spirit of Wisdom.
Blue and yellow = green. The
Spirit of Might and the Spirit of Understanding produces the Spirit of Counsel.
Blue and green = violet. The
Spirit of Might and the Spirit of Counsel produces the Spirit of the fear of
IAUE.
I don’t want to dwell on this and explain how
I see these color combinations actually working as combinations of the Spirit’s
attributes producing the other attributes; but you can see how interesting a
conversation might ensue between you and the Holy Spirit over this.
Another illustration of a “secret” thing being
revealed might be found in the story of the feeding of the 5,000 in Mark
6:34-44. First, that number 5,000 only
represented the adult males in the group.
It did not include the woman and children. The disciples wanted to send them away into
the nearby villages to buy bread to eat; but Yahushua told THEM to feed
them. They said that they only had five
loaves and two fishes among them. When
the Master blessed the loaves and fishes, they fed the entire multitude. Do you remember how much they collected that
was left over from that event? It was
twelve baskets full of fishes and bread.
Have you ever wondered how they just happened to have twelve baskets?
They were quite possibly the lunch baskets of the twelve apostles. They had already eaten their own pre-packed
meals, and it was probably their leftovers that fed the multitude. Despite
their apparent selfishness, the Master refilled their lunch baskets after
everyone else had been fed.
Now, this isn’t something you preach from a
pulpit; but it is the kind of insight that the Holy Spirit might give just to
make learning under His tutelage more of a delight.
We need to understand that we are in
relationship with IAUE through His Son, our Master, Yahushua Messiah; and that it
was IAUE’s great joy and expectation fulfilled to be able to bestow His Spirit
upon us. We do not have a generic spirit
from IAUE. We have HIS Spirit; and He
wants fellowship with us. It is
personal. It is real. It isn’t an academic concept…unless, of
course, you do all your learning in a Nicolaitane church.
Kingdom
heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the
performance of the will of IAUE.
No comments:
Post a Comment