Because I'm aware of the fact that some
of you have not been with us before
in our studies, please bear with me while
I take a moment or two just to
review the ground that we've covered and to
bring you up to date so that you
won't feel totally at sea as you think
along with us this evening.
I have suggested that in the sessions we
have together we should consider the wonderful, blessed
truths that are revealed in the book of
Ephesians, Paul's letter to the Ephesian assembly.
But we thought we would borrow a picture
which someone has suggested and which I think
is really true, that this portion of Scripture,
this epistle, has been called the Alps of
the New Testament or the Switzerland of the
Scriptures, thus indicating that here perhaps is the
highest level of spiritual truth revealed for Christian
life and experience perhaps anywhere in all the
New Testament.
I reminded you of the fact that there's
nothing of a negative nature in this epistle.
Paul is not trying to solve any problems
that were extant in the Ephesian assembly, not
that it was a perfect church by any
means, but his purpose was not to try
to correct them doctrinally or correct them in
some aberration that they were experiencing at that
time.
He simply wants to unfold, I think, God's
grand and glorious purpose in a redeemed life.
If I were asked to summarize the epistle,
I think I'd have to say that's it.
To me, it is the unfolding of God's
great, grand, glorious purpose in a life of
a person who is redeemed by the blood
of Christ.
Now, I have suggested that we would seek
in each of the chapters that we can
consider, and we'll have to omit one, and
I'll talk about that in a moment, that
we would seek in each of these chapters
to find the highest point of all, calling
it maybe the peak, the mountain peak truth
in that particular chapter.
Not that there aren't fascinating, interesting, vital, important
truths elsewhere in the chapter, but merely we're
seeking to reach the mountaintop of truth, of
revealed truth in each of the chapters.
And, of course, we could pursue this little
imaginative picture by giving each of those peaks
a name.
I haven't tried to do that, but maybe
for just another moment of review, I ought
to say what we said this morning.
What have the peaks revealed to us so
far?
Well, in chapter one, we noted that God
indicates that he has a special hope in
his calling of us out of our darkness
and slavery to sin into his marvelous light
and freedom, and that we are his purchased
possession.
Therefore, we are God's inheritance.
He's made an investment in us.
He expects some return on his investment.
He expects some dividends from what he's invested
in us.
And so, Paul, in his prayer for the
Ephesians, calls upon them to remember this fact
that they are his inheritance in Christ.
And then, furthermore, in that prayer, he revealed
that for the accomplishment of this purpose, in
a practical way, God has provided all that
we need, all the resources they have provided
for us.
The exceeding greatness of his power to us
who believe is revealed as a limitless reservoir
of strength and power so that we may
be able to attain and accomplish what he's
here praying for.
We saw that.
It was a breathtaking view, indeed.
Then we moved into chapter two, and there
we were, for a moment, introduced to our
former wretched and hopeless past.
And then he revealed to us that our
present position is a glorious one.
We are in Christ Jesus, and the benefits
that derive therefrom are wonderful.
We who are far off are now brought
nigh.
We are seated in the heavenlies with Christ.
And furthermore, we are now the objects of
divine work in our lives so that God
is, as it were, making our lives a
poem.
He's writing poetry in our lives.
We are his workmanship, a clumsy word, better
translation, we are his poem, created in Christ
Jesus unto good works.
And then we notice, furthermore, that all of
this assured us of a wonderful and eternal
future in which God was going to pour
out the riches of his kindness and his
love toward us in Christ Jesus.
Throughout all the endless ages of eternity, he
would be pouring out toward us the objects
of his love for us.
And then this morning in our study, from
the peak that we sought to attain in
that particular study, we saw that God reveals,
from that vantage point, his eternal purpose, which
is to bring everything and every creature in
this universe into subjection to our Lord Jesus
Christ.
That's God's eternal purpose.
He's working all things toward it.
And we fit into that purpose individually.
And then he begins to pray that we
might understand this, and that furthermore, as a
result, first of all, we would be strengthened
with spiritual might in our inner man, and
the Lord Jesus Christ would settle down in
our lives and feel at home there, nothing
to hinder his enjoyment of his occupation of
our lives.
And that somehow we would approximate an understanding
of the incomprehensible love of God toward us
in Christ Jesus.
And then he came to what I thought
was the peak in that chapter, so that
we might be filled with all the fullness
of God.
An astounding thought, that your life and mine,
as common as it is, as ordinary as
it might be, your life and mine would
experience this strange thing, this almost indescribable thing,
the fullness of God.
Oh, what a thought that was.
We left that this morning from that point
of view.
Now, we come tonight.
I have to leave out one chapter somewhere.
We only have one more session.
And Paul, unfortunately, wrote six chapters in this
book.
He didn't think that we were going to
just consider the chapters that we have.
So, I have to omit one, and I'm
going to have to omit chapter four.
Now, it's a great chapter.
Don't misunderstand.
There are great peaks in that particular chapter,
wonderful ones.
But tonight, I want us to consider chapter
five, and the mountain peak that's found in
it, for it is one of the highest
points also.
Maybe this mountain is equal in its height
above sea level to the mountain we considered
this morning.
I don't know whether one is higher than
the other, that we might be filled with
all the fullness of God.
We saw from that yonder peak.
This one now talks about this.
Please notice verses 17 onward in chapter five.
Let me read just a couple of verses.
Wherefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the
will of the Lord is.
And be not drunk with wine wherein is
excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart
to the Lord, giving thanks always for all
things unto God and the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves
one to another in the fear of God.
This is a great passage indeed, and it's
one that I think needs some thought, especially
in the days in which we're living.
The apostle says that we're not to be
unwise, but wise, understanding what the will of
the Lord is for us.
Now, when we speak about the will of
God, sometimes it appears to me as I
listen to preachers, teachers, even Christians talking, read
some of the articles and periodicals and so
on, it sometimes seems to me that the
will of God is made to appear to
be some mystic will-of-the-wisp thing,
which is rather difficult to find.
And you must pursue it and hope that
you will somewhere, somehow discover it.
How many times have you heard some Christians
say, you know, it's difficult to know the
will of God.
I've heard that expression a lot of times,
and I've often wondered why that's so.
Now, maybe if they are just saying it's
difficult for me to make a decision as
to whether I should live at Park of
the Palms or in Boca Raton, and I
can't find out which place the Lord wants
me to live in, I could settle that
for you without any difficulty.
You wouldn't have to do much praying.
You don't agree with me, but I think
Boca Raton would do.
Now, if you're simply talking about a choice,
and you cannot quite make up your mind
as to whether that choice would be the
thing God would like you to do, well,
then, indeed, it might be difficult for you
to find God's specific will in those matters,
that type of thing.
And that might depend not even upon merely
prayer, although that's important.
It might just depend upon plain old horse
sense, common sense, measuring things one against the
other.
But if you're talking about what God specifically
wants of us, what God's plan is for
us, what will please God in our Christian
life and experience, it is quite remarkable how
clearly the will of God is delineated in
the Holy Scriptures.
Try it for yourself sometime.
Go through your New Testament and write down
on a piece of paper every place where
the Scriptures speak saying, this is the will
of God, or indicate that this specific thing
is the will of God.
You will be surprised how many areas of
life are clearly indicated, and how the will
of God is also indicated in each of
those areas.
Paul here says we must not be unwise,
but understanding what the will of the Lord
is.
Henry Drummond, a long time ago, said, and
he was a great preacher in his day,
he said, the maximum achievement of any man's
life after it's all over is to have
done the will of God.
No man or woman can have done any
more with a life.
How very true that is.
To have done the will of God, to
have discovered God's plan for your life, and
then to pursue it with all the vigor
of your soul, and to have accomplished that
will, for you, be to have accomplished the
highest possible thing you can do with your
life.
That's desperately important.
I suppose that some of us who sit
in this audience this evening would have to
say, I wish I had discovered that a
long time ago.
It may be a bit late for me
now.
Too much time has slipped under the bridge
of time, and I've missed the road maybe
here or there, and I haven't really pursued
the will of God.
I didn't find it in time.
Maybe I pursued my own plan, my own
will.
Well, Henry Drummond was right.
To which the Holy Scriptures themselves add this
solemn substantiation, the world passeth away and the
lust thereof, as well as its honors and
glories and awards and praise, but he that
doeth the will of God abideth forever.
1 John 2.17. And then Paul himself
adds his own testimony.
He says that when I was converted, among
the earliest instructions that were given to me
were these, and he said, The God of
our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldst
know his will.
That's it.
His will.
To know God's will.
Nothing is more important than that in life,
and to pursue it is the highest pursuit
of life.
Do you remember that parable in the 21st
chapter of Matthew's Gospel about the man who
had two sons, and he gave them instructions,
and he said, Go do this.
And one said, I will, and he didn't.
And the other said, I won't, and he
did.
And the Lord asked the pertinent question, Which
of these two do you think did the
Father's will?
Well, it seems to me that in one
simple statement there in that parable, Son, go
work today in my vineyard.
Those eight words suggest some important aspects of
God's will for each believer.
Let me tick them off for you.
First of all, we learn from these words
that God's will is parental.
Son.
God never reveals his plan, his will, other
than the plan of salvation to a sinner
who wants to hear and to believe.
But God doesn't reveal his plan, his will,
his purpose to one who's not related to
him in a family relationship.
So the first thing that is indicated here
is that the will of God is parental.
And then we also learn that God's will
is personal.
The Father spoke to his sons personally and
individually.
And then the third thing you learn from
those eight words in that parable is that
the will of God is plain.
Go work.
Can't get any plainer than that.
Go and work.
You didn't have to be a university graduate
to understand that.
Simple, plain instructions.
And then God's will is not only parental
and personal and plain, but is particular.
Go work in my vineyard.
See, that's the particular that God revealed.
So we're taught that God has a place,
then, for each of his children.
And then those same words reveal something else,
that God's will is something that's present.
Son, go work today in my vineyard.
How simple, then, this parable is in explaining
what God's will is for us.
But now back to Ephesians.
He says, be not unwise, but understanding what
the will of the Lord is.
Well, what is the will of the Lord
in the context here of Ephesians chapter five?
The will of the Lord is that we
should be filled with the Spirit.
Now, friends, I'm very much aware, and I'm
sure you are, that we're living in a
day of strange phenomenon that are occurring in
the religious world.
I often am perplexed and troubled.
I suppose no one is more rigid than
I in my insistence upon doctrinal correction.
I make no hesitation nor apologies for saying
that I am a dispensationalist.
I am a Scofieldian dispensationalist.
That's seven of them.
I don't even agree with the ones that
find eight.
And I have trouble with those who can
only find five or six.
I am a Scofieldian dispensationalist.
I am a pre-millennialist.
I am a pre-tribulationist.
I often say, I'm not post-anything.
I don't even eat post-toasties anymore, because
I don't want anybody to get my breakfast
food mixed up with my eschatology.
I'm pre-everything.
See, doctrinally, I have all my life insisted
upon truth as I see it and understand
it here in the Word of God, and
if it cannot be supported by Scripture, then
I cannot accept it.
Now, having said all of that, and recognizing
how rigid I am, and also how rigid
some of you are, having said all of
that, I am still very perplexed sometimes about
some of the things that are happening in
our world.
You remember how Jesus, when He was speaking
to Nicodemus, spoke about the Holy Spirit, and
He said, likening Him to the wind, He
said, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou canst
not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it
goeth.
It's that phrase, the wind bloweth where it
listeth, that has been intriguing me for a
long time.
Is God saying that His Holy Spirit is
at liberty to do anything He wants, any
way He wants to do it, at any
time He wants to do it?
I think He's saying something like that.
Obviously, what He does will not be in
violation of what He has taught or what
the Scriptures say, but He may not work
exactly as you think or I think He
ought to.
There are some times when I say, Now
Lord, are you sure you're doing it right?
Really, that's not the way you know it
ought to be done.
You shouldn't be working over there, you should
be working over here.
You shouldn't be giving those people so much
blessing, you should be doing it a little
bit over here too.
And I think things that have happened and
are happening in our day.
But I also have some difficulty accepting some
things that people tell me are so.
Now, we're living in a day when we
hear about the charismatic movements.
And every assembly, every church that I know
of, yes, even many brethren assemblies, have been
invaded by the charismatic phenomenon.
Are you aware of that?
There were some people here this week who
approached me and I found out that they
were attending a charismatic church.
And they were enamored of some things that
were happening.
We didn't get into a heated discussion we
could have because I didn't agree with some
things that they, I'm sure, hoped.
For instance, now, if we're talking about the
filling of the Holy Spirit, as this particular
passage is, is this a phenomenon?
Is this an experience which must be accompanied,
as some are telling us, by other things
like the strange mystic gift of tongues?
And if one does not speak with tongues,
is that an indicator that one is not
or cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Is it so that to be filled with
the Holy Spirit, one will do tremendous things?
One will be able to sway multitudes?
That one will be able to lead many,
many people to Christ in a fresh and
a new and different way?
Or be able to speak with greater unction
and power than ever before?
Are those things indicators of one being filled
with the Holy Spirit?
Because I would argue this, if all of
these things are necessary, then I would say
that this filling of the Spirit must be
reserved then for only a very few Christian
people.
Let me give you a scenario.
It's the plains of Iowa.
For our dear British friends, that's plains, man.
That's out where there's nothing, you know, miles
and miles of nothing but wheat fields and
whatever.
It's the plains of Iowa, and there's a
farmhouse there.
And the family that owns this farm—this is
mythical, by the way.
I'm making this up.
I don't know anybody like this.
But this farm is a 1,500-acre
farm.
That's quite a piece of land.
And the dear lady who is there in
that farmhouse, the wife and mother, she's the
mother of five children.
And she has to bake bread, make the
meals.
She has to use all the materials she
can gather from the farm for subsistence.
She has to even make the children's clothing.
They have a tough time, even though it's
a big farm, they have a tough time
making ends meet.
And she's got to raise five kids.
Her nearest neighbor is five miles that direction,
seven miles this way, four yonder, and six
miles that way.
She lives a pretty lonesome life.
But she reads the Word.
And she reads where it says, Be ye
not unwise, but understanding what the will of
the Lord is.
And then she reads, And don't be drunk
with wine wherein is excess, but now a
commandment.
And that's what this is, a commandment.
But be filled with the Spirit.
And so she says, If that's for everybody,
for all believers, it must be for me
too.
Now, does it mean that if she experiences,
however, the filling of the Spirit, she will
suddenly be eligible to be Billy Graham's substitute
in case he gets a sore throat some
night and she can preach to multiplied thousands
of people?
Does it mean that this woman now suddenly
becomes a great soul winner?
She doesn't have an opportunity to do any
of these things.
Can she go on still living her ordinary
kind of a life, raising her children, living
a Christian woman's life there in that lonesome
place, and still experience the fullness of the
Spirit?
My answer is yes, she can.
And none of these phenomenon that I have
mentioned need accompany that experience.
I think it's a grave doctoral mistake.
I'm not going to argue with people who
tell me I have spoken in tongues and
I have experienced an unusual experience in the
baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I say, God bless you, brother or sister.
I won't argue that with you because to
do so might be to imply that I'm
saying you're fabricating, you're not telling the truth,
and I wouldn't dare do that.
But if you want to debate with me
the scriptural basis on which you're now arguing,
I will lock horns with you any day,
any time, anywhere, name the place.
And I do think that I can hold
my own, that you're wrong, dead wrong, scripturally
speaking, you're wrong.
Now, I think that the reason, I didn't
intend to do this tonight, I really didn't,
and I'm off my outline.
So if you're looking for one, you say,
where did I get off?
Not you, where did I get off?
I just want to say one or two
other things about this.
I think that perhaps what has happened in
our time is, and this is not a
total explanation, but there has been for a
long time an arid condition in the churches,
spiritually, a dryness.
And there has been a hunger and a
thirst on the part of multitudes of people
for more of God's word and more of
God himself.
And they haven't been finding it always in
the churches they've been attending.
Perhaps the fault lies mainly in our pulpits
because we are not feeding the people on
the word of God, but we're filling our
messages in our pulpits with so many other
things.
And so they've reached, people have reached out
by the multiplied thousands for something that would
satisfy their hearts and their hunger.
And somehow the promise of this ecstatic experience
seems to be a promise of something that
will satisfy their needs.
And let me say one more thing at
this point.
My limited experience with people in charismatic assemblies
is this.
Really, you have to say, behold how they
love one another.
There is a demonstration of genuine Christian love
that oft times is lacking in many of
our other assemblies.
It's wonderful to see it.
And I think that a lot of people
are hungering for this and they're finding it.
Furthermore, my dear friends, the more we recognize
how little is our planet in the vastness
of the universe.
And the more we come to the conviction
that we're the only tiny little thing in
this vast universe on which there lives intelligent
creatures who are able to comprehend God.
Do you know the bigger the universe gets,
the lonelier inhabitants on earth become?
And that loneliness is apparent in so many
ways in our culture and our society.
People are lonely.
And so they fill up life with all
kinds of things to dispel that loneliness.
And religiously speaking, they come along and they
say, this is the answer.
It's not quite the answer.
And I fear that we're headed in, many
of them are headed for disaster and heartbrokenness.
More important than all of it, however, is
I think a lack of understanding of what
the Bible teaches about the person and work
of the Holy Spirit.
People are confused about this.
Now, and as much as I detoured there
for a minute, I'll get right at the
heart of something that I must say.
There are some who say, well, you see,
the baptism of the Spirit and the filling
of the Spirit, they're all one and the
same thing.
It's just two different terms for the same
kind of an experience.
Now, that's not acceptable to me.
We are so orthodox on the matter of
atonement, and yet we become so thoroughly heretical
sometimes in the matters of our nomenclature concerning
the Holy Spirit.
Have you noticed that?
If we had a little time of public
testimony, and a fresh new believer should stand
up here tonight and we should say, I
feel that I've been born again many, many
times.
I've been born again, again, again, and again.
You know what would happen?
You brethren would back him in a corner
after the meeting, and you'd straighten him out
in a hurry, let me tell you.
In spite of the fact that you may
understand what he's talking about, you want him
to get it straight and say it right.
Huh?
Why are we so orthodox when it comes
to questions like that, and we're so loose
and flabby in our vocabulary concerning the work
of the Holy Spirit?
I submit to you tonight that there is
a great difference between the baptism of the
Spirit and the filling of the Spirit, a
great difference.
They are not one and the same thing.
It may indeed well be that on the
day of Pentecost, particularly that day, those disciples
may have experienced both of them at the
same time.
They may have indeed experienced the filling of
the Spirit.
I know they experienced the baptism of the
Spirit.
And it might be difficult to explain the
difference between the two.
It's somewhat like my dear black friend who
was up for ordination, and one of those
fellows who queried and questioned the candidate said
to this rather humble black brother, he said,
I want to ask you this question.
He said, which comes first, regeneration or justification?
And the poor black man stood there for
a minute, and he said, well, I don't
rightly know, but it appears to me it's
like a cannonball that's gone through the wall.
I think the ball and the hole go
through together.
Now, along will come some perfectionists who say,
no, the ball makes the hole, and the
hole follows the ball.
Well, you can argue that all you want,
but on the other end, they both come
through about the same time.
So I think on the day of Pentecost,
those disciples, maybe not understanding all that was
happening, they were filled with the Spirit, and
they were baptized with the Spirit.
Now, what do you mean by the baptism
of the Holy Spirit?
I believe that the baptism of the Holy
Spirit is an experience that happens only once,
and it's an experience over which you have
no control at all.
You have nothing to do with it.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
You can't pray for that experience.
You can't carry for it.
You cannot wait for it.
It happens to you the moment you are
born again.
Now, you know, it's interesting.
When you study the term baptism itself, you
know, if you substitute the concept identification, every
time you come to baptism, you will find
light coming when sometimes there's only darkness.
For instance, Paul talks about Israel being baptized
into Moses and the sea.
I had a Presbyterian once who hit me
with that.
He said, kind of dry baptism, wasn't it?
You're a deep water Baptist.
He said, it's kind of dry baptism.
And I almost said, I expect something like
that from a Presbyterian.
You know, you don't understand, sir.
What does that phrase mean?
They were baptized unto Moses and the sea.
It means that in the Red Sea experience,
when God took his people through dry shot,
that experience identified them from then on with
the leadership of Moses.
See?
They were identified.
Leader and people were one via that experience.
All right.
Jesus comes down while John the Baptist is
baptizing.
And you know the story well.
He said, I want to be baptized of
you, John.
John said, no, I can't.
I'm not worth it.
I'm not worthy to loose the thong on
your sandal.
And the Lord Jesus, you remember, said, suffer
it to be so.
Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.
And John baptizing.
What does that baptism mean for Jesus?
Did it mean the washing away of his
sins?
No, of course not.
It meant that in that experience, he was
identifying himself with the sinful nation of Israel.
And he was prophetically declaring when John took
him down into the waters and he came
up out of the waters, he was depicting
his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
Absolutely necessary to the redemption of this sinful
people.
Sinners were coming.
He identified himself with those sinners by the
baptism experience.
Move on a little bit.
Our Lord says a little farther along in
his ministry, certain things that happened and the
disciples brought the news back and he said,
I have a baptism to be baptized with.
And how am I straightened until it shall
be accomplished?
Wait a minute, Lord, you were baptized.
Well, I'm not talking about a water baptism.
I'm talking about that holy moment when I
will be identified at Calvary with a sin
of the whole world.
And I can hardly wait for that moment.
I'm so eager to reach that moment to
fulfill my father's plan and my father's will.
That was his Calvary baptism.
And at Calvary, he became identified with sinners
and the sin of the whole world.
What happens when a believer is baptized?
Does his baptism contribute anything to his salvation?
Not a whit.
Not a thing.
Absolutely nothing.
What he is doing is this.
When he goes down into the waters of
the baptismal pool or stream or lake or
wherever it occurs, he is saying, by this
confession of my faith, I identify myself with
one who was crucified for me, who was
buried for me, and who rose again from
the dead for me.
And this act of my baptism is an
open declaration of my identification with him by
faith.
So now you come to the last expression
of baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
What is it?
It is that moment when a regenerated believer
who has now been brought into life by
the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit is
taken by the Holy Spirit and added to
the living mystical body of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
He is joined to the living Christ, thus
becoming identified with the Savior.
And where he is placed in that body
is the sovereign choice of the Holy Spirit.
And he may gift him particularly to function
in wherever the Holy Spirit places him in
the body.
But the baptism of the Holy Spirit then
is that action of the Spirit of the
living God that joins a regenerated believer to
the living body of Jesus Christ.
And over that, you and I have no
control whatsoever.
That's the sovereign, loving act of our great
God.
The filling of the Spirit is quite another
thing.
One may be baptized by the Spirit believer
without being filled with the Spirit.
But of course, its opposite cannot be true.
One cannot be filled with the Spirit who
is not already baptized by the Spirit believer.
Now, what happens?
Maybe I can best explain it thus.
Paul is here saying, the will of God
for you, my Ephesian believers, is that you
shall be filled with the Spirit.
And have you noticed that that's not the
end of a sentence?
In the Bible, there's a semicolon there.
The thought continues, be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your
heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for
all things unto God and the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting
yourselves one to another in the fear of
God.
What is the inevitable signs of the filling
of the Spirit according to this context?
These things.
Not some ecstatic experience, not some overwhelming demonstration
of power.
No, but in these, if you please, rather
ordinary things that ought to accompany one who
is filled with the Spirit of the living
God.
Now, I must conclude, but I want to
give you some signs, I think, of the
Spirit-filled life.
Here they are.
I'll just list them.
First of all, there's a deep sense of
personal unworthiness.
I think that comes.
A Spirit-filled person is one who has
a deep abiding sense of his own personal
unworthiness.
He's like John the Baptist who knew the
filling of the Spirit when he said, he
must increase, but I must decrease.
Even such a person as John the Baptist,
whom our Lord said was among those born
of women, none is greater than he.
He certainly didn't wear that badge where people
could read it.
He was humbled in the presence of God.
I think the second sign of being filled
with the Spirit is a hunger for the
Word of God, a continuing abiding hunger for
God's Word.
My friend, if that hunger, if that appetite
for God's Word has diminished in your life,
you need to see a spiritual doctor.
Something's wrong.
Something's begun to degenerate in your life.
Third thing, I think those who are filled
with the Spirit have a quickened realization of
the presence of God.
Not that they were not aware of it
before, but there's a quickening of realization of
God's presence in the life.
You see, that's the purpose in the ministry
of the Holy Spirit, is to make Christ
known and Christ real to us.
That's his chief ministry to believers, to take
the things of Christ and to make them
known to us and to reveal the Father
as well.
And another sign of the fullness of the
Spirit is a desire for and a delight
in prayer.
I have noticed in my travels around the
country that if it's announced that on Saturday
evening there's going to be a concert in
our churches, what happens?
You've got to bring your shoehorn along to
get in.
The crowds are there.
And in the next breath they say, we're
going to have an all-night prayer meeting
to pray that the Holy Spirit of God
will shake us and do something.
How many show up?
Same old faithful, creepy brethren that come out
here and pray off in the corner by
themselves.
Just a little handful.
Tragic, isn't it?
We announce a prayer meeting.
What else are you going to do?
Just pray.
You mean only pray?
Yeah.
Not even eat?
No, not going to eat either.
Just going to pray.
Oh, that doesn't seem too exciting.
Why is there so little desire for that?
Maybe because we don't know or have not
experienced or are not experiencing the fullness of
the Holy Spirit.
Many years ago in North Korea, whenever I
tell this story, all the dear ladies get
down on me.
Save it till tomorrow so I can go
home the next day and not have to
face you ladies.
But there was a terrible spiritual dearth in
North Korea.
Only a handful of believers at that time.
I'm talking about maybe 75 to 100 years
ago.
And there was a missionary there who was
about ready to give up, a Presbyterian missionary.
His heart was broken, but he called upon
a Korean pastor and said, let's pray.
Let's pray until we break through and God
does something.
Let's clear the decks of everything.
I'll come to your house and we'll pray.
We'll pray all through the night and tomorrow
and the next night.
And if we have to, we'll just keep
on praying.
My brother, my heart is broken and we
have to get hold of God and we've
got to get God to do something to
shape this country.
The Korean brother said, come in.
It was in the midst of winter and
the winters are bitter in Korea and in
North Japan.
And this was an exceptionally bitter winter.
Snow swirling outside, winds howling.
Well, the pastor had a small family and
had a tiny baby, a little baby.
It's only a few couple of months old,
I guess.
Well, they began to pray.
If you ever have been in an all
night or an extended prayer meeting, you know
there are certain phenomenon you watch for.
In the beginning, you're in the first flush
of the prayer effort.
You can pray easily and a lot of
things come to mind.
But then after a little while, as time
goes on, one by one, the extraneous and
the lesser important things begin to drop by
the wayside.
And you find that you're sorting things out
to pray specifically for because you've determined you're
going to stay here on your knees or
on your face before God until you break
through and feel that God is really on
a move on your behalf.
And then after a little while, you may
come to the place where you can't even
articulate your prayers.
You can't speak.
Then you begin to experience the groanings that
cannot be uttered.
Then there may be long silences when only
the heart is crying out to God.
And then you get the feeling we're reaching
now the outer limits of the mundane and
the ordinary and we're reaching now beyond to
God.
And they'd reach just that point.
And just as they did.
And they felt, Oh Lord, what are you
going to say to us?
They're almost listening as if God would articulate
His feelings to them in words they could
hear.
And they strained to listen and hear lest
they miss any syllable from God.
When right at that moment, the little baby
began to cry.
And you know something?
There are two things that will drive you
to the point of insanity.
A phone, a telephone bell that rings and
won't stop and a baby that cries and
won't quit.
Have you noticed that?
And in that awful moment, that Korean pastor
got up from his knees, went into the
bedroom, took his little infant, wrapped it securely
in a blanket and went to the door
of the house with a howling wind and
the swirling snow and threw the baby out
into a snowbank.
And then came back and got down on
his face before God.
And they prayed on through all through the
night.
All through the night.
At dawn, they felt they had touched God's
heart, as indeed they had, because it is
now an historic fact that the revivals that
swept through North Korea began in that prayer
meeting.
Now, I heard some of you ladies go,
there must be another way.
Or you child psychologists would come forward now
and say what a horrible thing to do.
But that Korean pastor felt that this was
the challenge of Satan against the purposes of
God using a tiny baby.
So when dawn came and they rose from
their knees, of course he went out to
see how the baby was doing.
And it was sleeping like a bug in
a rug.
Just as happy and contented as it could
possibly be.
Nothing wrong with it at all.
Of course.
The point of that story is what will
we do?
What will we allow?
What will we sacrifice?
See, in this prayer battle, in order to
win the victory, it may take something as
drastic as what I've described.
Oh, I'm sinning tonight, but it's near the
end of the year, isn't it?
Why not sin and enjoy it?
So, I'm not through with that list.
Quick.
Desire for and delight in prayer.
A yearning for the salvation of others.
Oh, God help us.
Lord God help us to have more concern
for the souls of men and women.
Question.
How long has it been since souls were
saved in your assembly?