Mark O'Grady - Born of the Spirit - Class 2 - The Spirit Creates

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   Well, the study of the Spirit, one of the wonderful things of the study of the Spirit is it impresses us with the reality of God’s existence and the closeness of his work in our own personal lives. And in our last study, we’re struck by the diversity of ways in which this idea of the Spirit is actually used. And with the young people just now, we did one of those mind maps or spider diagrams where we just have lots of tentacles coming out and listing all the different ways in which this idea of the Spirit is used in Scripture. And we ask the question why?

2. 0:33

   And the answer is it covers all the different facets of the work of God. So it starts with God’s actual power, himself brooding upon the face of the earth, and he starts his creative process as man corrupts the way of God and introduces the concept of an unclean spirit or the mind of man, the things of flesh. Then God’s Spirit word works with us through His Son as well, illustrated by miracles, and he develops a spiritual way of thinking through the Word, which is also described as being the spirit.

3. 1:06

   Christ’s words, my the words I speak, they are spirit in life. It develops a spiritual way of thinking for us ultimately to become spirit beings in the Kingdom age. So it’s the journey of the spirit in terms of how God works with each and every one of us. And God’s spirit is the means by which God achieves his creative work with you and with me.

4. 1:31

   And of course, we can’t separate the spirit from God because it is God. It’s his energy, it’s his work being outworked. And in Scripture, of course, God explains how His spirit interacts with the human race. Now what we’re going to be looking at this morning, and one of the things I just want to start by by making this comment, at different times in history, God has manifested or demonstrated his spirit in different ways with the human race. And I’m going to say that again, at different times in history, God has manifested His spirit power interacting with human beings in different ways.

5. 2:13

   So as we start the journey of the Spirit this morning, going through Scripture, we’ll see the way in which God interacts with people in different ways at different times through the Spirit. So logical place to start. What are the opening words of the Scriptures? In the beginning, God, because it’s all about God.

6. 2:32

   In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without falling, void and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. So the third sentence of the Bible introduces the theme of the ruach or the Spirit for us.

7. 2:53

   The Spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters and the creative Symphony is about to opening, about to open this crash of chords with this enormous work, this explosion of creation. Before that starts, we have this, this image in our minds of of a round sphere with no, no shape apart. Them being in a sphere covered in a mantle of water and wrapped around that we have the Spirit of God which is moving or brooding upon the face of the waters. We’ll look at that a little more later this morning. But look at this passage.

8. 3:30

   Just think through the implications of some of these words. Psalm 33 verse 6 by the word of Yahweh were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath. And it’s our words, Ruach or spirit of His mouth. Now if you think about it literally, the heavens were made by God’s power working through the angels. And yet here in Psalm 33, verse 6, it says the by the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, and the host of them by the breath or the spirit of His mouth. So there’s some connection here between the idea of the spirit of the breath and of the words.

9. 4:17

   And that’s what we want to explore now, this relationship between the spirit and the breath and the words by which all things were actually made. So let’s examine these in order. You may recall the definition of ruach that we looked at yesterday from the theological word book of the Old Testament, and I won’t go through that in detail again, but just look at the first line. The basic idea of ruach is air in motion. We looked at that, the idea of the breathing out or the exhaling of air, the concept of air in motion. And he goes on to say the connotations of breath include power and courage.

10. 4:55

    And he keeps going. He never spoke a truer word. Then he made the comment that it actually gets used in multiple different actual ways. OK, the ruach can exhibit a range of meaning. Well, I think that’s an understatement, actually. But it starts with this idea of being air in motion, Our word ruach.

11. 5:15

    It’s translated most frequently as spirit, but it is also translated in the Old Testament as breath. It’s actually translated something like 90 times as wind and sometimes it’s literally talking about wind and it uses the word ruach. Now we can think of that and think, well, actually that’s that’s quite logical. There are examples of wind being used as a tool like God.

12. 5:40

    Did you think of any really spectacular examples as one that just leaps to mind straight away where God used wind in the examples? Yep, in the plagues. OK, so where do you use wind? In the plagues? Actually, when you as soon as you say plagues, actually the number of passes, they used it to take away the locusts.

13. 6:03

    Yep. It’s also used in the crossing of the Red Sea fairly spectacularly. It was a mighty wind that parts the water, so it’s not surprising the idea of wind. The word ruach is often translated as wind, but the significance of it goes a little deeper than that. God’s spirit power, it breathes out of Him. So it’s like the movement of air. So the analogy of a breath is quite a graphic way, isn’t it, of explaining it.

14. 6:31

    This is something which which emanates from God Himself. And so therefore the word ruach is translated as breath. Well, let’s go back to that passage we just looked at before. By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made and all the host of them by the breath or the ruach of His mouth. So it is translated as breath in a number of places. All right.

15. 6:58

    When we think about it, we say we’re also the Spirit of God, which breathes out of them. It’s also responsible for sustaining life. We looked at that. In fact, it’s used of life itself when someone gives up the ghost, as the phrase is used of the Lord Jesus Christ. He gave up the Spirit. He died Jairus’s daughter whose spirit revived or came back to her again because Christ restored life. So we think actually this idea of spirit sustains life and it starts to be used almost as a synonym for life. So the word spirit starts to be used of this idea of being the life force itself.

16. 7:34

    That’s why then we find in Scripture that those two ideas start getting joined together so that so it starts being translated as the spirit or the breath of life. I’d like you to come back with me to Genesis chapter 6 and verse 17. We’re going to look at 2 examples, one in Genesis 6 and the other in Genesis 17 where this ruach is described as being or translated as being the breath of life. Genesis 6 verse 17 we read and behold, I even I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is in the earth shall die. We turn over the page to Genesis Chapter 7, verse 15. They went in unto Noah into the ark, 2 into two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.

17. 8:25

    And sometimes it’s useful to write in the margin to slide both of those places. The word breath there is the word ruach. So in Genesis 6, verse 17, the word breath is the word ruach. And again, in Chapter 7, verse 15, the breath of life, the word breath is ruach. It probably would have been helpful if the translators had actually used the phrase spirit of life rather than the breath of life there. Why come back with me to Genesis chapter 2? Because there’s a trap here for young players. Because in Genesis chapter 2, there’s a phrase breath of life, which we’re very familiar with.

18. 9:03

    It’s a completely different expression neighbor. So Genesis chapter 2, verse six, sorry, verse 7, Yahweh Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. And that is a completely different expression there. The word breath is neshima, the idea of air.

19. 9:27

    So if I put these two up, just be careful. There’s a little trap here for us in the English. The phrase breath of life in Genesis 6:00 and 7:00 is quite different from this breath of life that we have in Genesis chapter 2. So in Genesis chapter 2, on the right hand side of the screen there, when he sees, he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life.

20. 9:48

    It’s Nishama or Nishamet, the breath, the air of life, as opposed to Genesis 6 and Genesis 7 where the phrase breath of life is actually the ruler claim the spirit of life. So what’s the difference? Well, the air of life is literally the air that we breathe. All living things need air. If we take a living person and we stop them from having air for, I don’t know, make it safe?

21. 10:15

    Safe’s not the right word. Make it permanent. Take air away for an hour, and what have you got? A dead carcass. If you take that dead carcass and you pump it full of air again, will it live? No, because something’s missing life, and that’s the real work. And the best way to actually understand the difference between the two is to see where they’re both used together.

22. 10:40

    And there’s a number of passages. So Job 34, verse 14 to 15. If God set his heart upon man, if he gathered unto himself, his spirit relaxed, that’s life and his breath, that’s the ability to breathe, all flesh would perish together and man would turn again to dust. Isaiah 42 verse five, He that giveth breath, Nishima, the air, the ability to breathe air unto the people upon earth, and spirit ruach life to those that walk therein, or Job 33 verse 4.

23. 11:14

    The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. And the last one there I think will turn up because this is another one of those traps for unweary players where the translators haven’t helped us. Let’s turn up. Genesis Chapter 7 and verse 22. I’ll just read that Genesis 7 verse 22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of life of all that was in the dry land died.

24. 11:44

    So the question is in Genesis 7 verse 22, when we have the word breath, is it ruach or is it neshima? That’s a trick question because the answer is in the Hebrew of the translators haven’t helped us by just putting the one phrase breath in there. But both Ruach and Nishima are both there in the original. So Robert’s translation, all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life?

25. 12:13

    Because actually it was both elements. OK. So actually seeing the way in which it’s used in Scripture makes this reasonably clear for us as we go through because of course, both those elements are required. All right, well, while we’re talking about this idea of of breathing out, and it’s a close, close association with the idea of the Spirit and the mouth, what else is breathed out of the word of God?

26. 12:45

    Sorry, I just gave it away, didn’t I? What else is breathed out of the mouth of God? Is is word. And when you think about it, actually someone that’s speaking, there’s an exhaling from the lungs through the voice box, and it’s very closely associated with the movement of air. If there was no movement of air in and out of your lungs, you would find it very difficult to speak.

27. 13:08

    So there’s this close association between breathing and the mouth. And now the idea of the voice or the words which also breathe out of the mouth of God, There’s something which is being expressed or exhaled out of the mouth of God. So, and we won’t turn it up, but in Paul’s epistle to Timothy, first of Timothy, sorry, second of Timothy, isn’t it? Second of Timothy 3, verse 16, What does he say about Scripture?

28. 13:38

    He said all Scripture is given by and you want to finish that given by inspiration of God. You know what the word inspiration is? I’m not going to get the pronunciation right, but it’s Theo Neustos and the new is the same as a pneuma. So Theo is God. Literally it means God breathed. So all scripture is breathed out of God. It’s God breathed, and that really highlights for us the beauty of this idea here of the Word being associated with God’s spirit power and His Spirit being. All Scripture is breathed out by God and it’s profitable for doctrine, for a proof, for correction, for instruction, righteousness, that the person of God may be perfect or complete, thoroughly instructed to all good works because it’s been breathed out of the mouth of God. So we think about our passage again by the word of Yahweh, where the heavens mark, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

29. 14:43

    So there’s this enormous association, very strong association between God’s Spirit and his words. So the power of God emanating from God that’s contained in his words should never be underestimated. And it’s closely looked with this idea of his power or his ruach. I mean, I love those words of Scripture. How did the creating creation process start? And God said, let there be light and there was light. So when God spake, or as the Psalm 33 goes on to say, he spake in verse 9 and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast.

30. 15:29

    And you see, the Psalm is just emphasizing for us the fact that actually it’s God’s Word which embodies his meaning, His purpose, His intention that created the heavens and the earth. So words from God are not just sound waves traveling through the air. They express His purpose and His intent. There’s that beautiful section which we’ll all be familiar with from the Gospel of John, John chapter 1, where he draws on the whole creation process and then he emphasizes the importance of the Word. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

31. 16:11

    The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him. Without Him was not anything made that was made. So we see the way in which this idea of the words of God and God’s own existence are actually tied together. You know, as an aside, brothers and sisters, it’s value the word of God that we have on our laps, the ability to read it. It is the power of God that is able to transform us and change us to be made after the image of his glorious Son. So always in our mind, just always value the opportunity we have every day of being able to drink, drink deeply from the word of life because it is the embodiment of God’s thinking process.

32. 16:58

    And that’s the way the new creation works. God said let there be light. The entrance of thy word giveth light. And it’s the power of the word that works that creative process with you and with me. And in Scripture, words are always very closely related to the individual. I mean, even in a human sense, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

33. 17:26

    So the words, our incredible revealer of what sits inside our hearts, that’s Matthew 12, verse 34. And so as the Gospel of John says, you can’t separate the Word from God because it’s an expression of his thoughts, of his purpose, of his intent. That’s what the word logos actually means. Well, it’s the same as a spirit because the word expresses its purpose, the spirit accomplishes it. So there’s this very strong Nexus between them. So Brother Thomas puts it rather well. The ideas and the thoughts of the deity are as much spirit as his physical power.

34. 18:09

    God’s thoughts are a moral power breathed forth in His words, and that is spirit. In the same way that the lightning or any energy source is also spirit breathed forth or radiant from His substance. God’s thoughts breathe forth or revealed in any way He may determine constitutes the truth. And therefore Scripture says the spirit is truth or the truth is the Spirit. And that’s why the Lord could say my words are spirit, and the apostle John could say the spirit is the truth because it’s actually an expression of what God wants to have achieved. So to produce physical results, such as raising the dead, he said, a material power or spirit is required. But when purely moral results are the things desired, the truth is the Spirit that operates upon the heart. So now we understand why Christ said in John 6, the words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are life. And it’s this beautiful blending together of God’s purpose with us as it’s expressed in His Word. Now, as you look at what’s there, you start reading it carefully.

35. 19:25

    You’ll find that actually what He’s starting to do is give us the hint that there are two different ways in which this concept of the Spirit is operating here. You could say there are two different operating spheres. So if just read those words carefully and see if you can spot what he’s actually showing us about the two different ways in which the Spirit is operating and he contrasts and together.

36. 19:51

    I’m going to go to the last paragraph. Oops. What have I just done? Actually, you know what I’m. That hasn’t come up there. Actually, I had changed that. I just wonder if I’ve got an old reversion up there. All right, I’m going to do this manually as we go through. Have a look at this little phrase here. For physical results, such as raising the dead, material power or spirit is required.

37. 20:28

    What’s he suggesting there? What he’s saying there is that when the Spirit is given as a Holy Spirit power to someone, they can do things that were otherwise not possible. So raising the dead is not possible. Speaking in tongues without having learned the language is not possible. Healing someone that’s blind is not possible to a natural human being, and so God’s power or energy has to be given to someone to do that.

38. 20:58

    So he refers to that as being material power or spirit. But when moral results are required, well, it’s the truth, or as he says up here, the ideas and thoughts of God. So he said the idea and thoughts of God, this spirit as is, is physical power. God’s thoughts are a moral power and that is spirit. He said in the same way that the lightning breathed forth and energy is spirit.

39. 21:25

    So he’s saying there’s two, there’s two different ways, they’re both spirit, but one is God’s spirit power and the other is a spirit mind. Now why is that important? We’re going to see that increasing. These studies go on because we have the responsibility to develop the mind of the spirit. Now, in that sense, God’s Spirit must dwell in us, but what we haven’t been given is the Holy Spirit power in terms of the ability to do supernatural things. So let’s see how Brother Roberts picks this up. So Brother Roberts writes an article in 1883 in The Christadelphian.

40. 22:04

    He said spirit is firstly the substance, that’s the power, and secondly, the character is the moral power of divine and holy bears of the first. That’s God’s Holy Spirit power. We know little or nothing in that. We don’t possess it. We don’t have that as part of our daily experience. Now we know of it, that the owner of it has eternal life, the power of an endless life.

41. 22:28

    God is a spirit being full of power in this life, but of the seeker, that’s the character of God, the mind of God. Spiritual things we know, and we must know much because it’s upon our manifestation of the character of the Spirit. It’s the mind of the Spirit, the spiritual things. Our eternal future depends on that.

42. 22:52

    If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he’s none of his. He goes on to say. So we conclude that in the question of the Spirit in relation to whether men and women possess it, now it must be either in the character or the power. And these aspects are widely different in themselves and their operation and connection.

43. 23:16

    So in terms of the Holy Spirit power, you said the power is that which is beyond the capability of the flesh to perform of itself. It has to be bestowed upon someone. So the apostles were given the Holy Spirit power. It descended upon them in the New Testament times. That could be passed on by the laying on of the apostles hands. That’s the giving of the power of the Holy Spirit. And that enabled them to do things which were actually not natural for men and women to normally do. And so he says that power, being that which is beyond the capability of the flesh to perform itself, must be bestowed upon the person.

44. 23:57

    He has to be invested with it. He’s utterly capable of bestowing it upon himself or producing it, but the character was never bestowed. God doesn’t come along and say I’m going to come along and make you a godly person.

45. 24:17

    It’s a process, process that comes from the word of God, whereas when it’s the Holy Spirit gift, the power to do miracles that was bestowed. So hopefully, brothers and sisters. You can see the difference between those two things because that becomes fundamentally important in our understanding of the subject of the Spirit. So he says we now have no case where the character was given in such a manner. It’s something which has to be involved by the individual. It is not a gift.

46. 24:46

    It’s not something which is bestowed. The development of a godly mind is be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. It’s a process that takes place over the course of time. Now what that simply means then is that in Scripture this idea of the of the Spirit is used in these two different spheres of operation.

47. 25:12

    On one hand, the Spirit is used of the power of God, which was given to men and sometimes to women on specific occasions to do things they otherwise could not do. It enabled them to do literally supernatural things. On the other side, we have the spiritual character of God which develops inside a transformed mind and that is never spiritually injected into a person to make them a better person. A different brethren have written about this and they all seem to use different phrases to describe it. You will have seen there Brother Roberts talks about the moral character of God versus the substance or the power of God. Brother Fred Pearce in his book on the Holy Spirit talks about God’s supreme power, the ability to do miracles versus the qualities of the divine mind, a way of thinking. Our brother John Thomas talks about physical power. This is a moral power.

48. 26:07

    But they’re only just using different words to explain this concept, this, this, this, this way, in which the spirit works in two different ways. Now why am I laboring this? Because. All all wrong doctrine on the Spirit comes from a muddling together of those two things. That’s a big statement, but it’s. Actually true, when you boil the whole thing down to the essence of it all. Wrong doctrine on the subject of the Spirit comes down to muddling up those two things.

49. 26:42

    So when people talk about. Having the Holy Spirit power of God, and they say, oh, you’ve got to have the Holy Spirit come down into you to help you believe or to enable you to resist sin. They’re merging those two things together. Well, when people talk about the Holy Spirit giving in the New Testament as a power to work miracles and wonders and say, oh, those passages all apply to us to develop the mind of the Spirit, they’re implying that the mind of the Spirit is developed when God just injects it into you and you now have the Holy Spirit and therefore you think in certain ways. And hopefully you can see where that leads in terms of accountability.

50. 27:23

    And the phrase is if you. See someone saying, oh, all we have to do is just surrender to the Holy Spirit and allow it to come into us to make us holy. When you hear phrases like that, you realize that they are merging those two together. And what does that do? It removes accountability.

51. 27:40

    It takes away the emphasis from needing to read the word. It removes responsibility to have our minds renewed or transformed through the power of God’s Word. And it means, frankly, I just let God do it all for me. And it removes the accountability to say, actually, I need to acknowledge my mind needs to change.

52. 28:00

    And God’s given us the ability in the Spirit Word to make that transition. So when you think about it, it underpins the Catholic Church with their whole claim for the hierarchy of the church and the infallibility of the Church. Why? Because we’ve had the Holy Spirit of God come into us to give us knowledge and therefore we can speak with authority. Interesting thing is you read Christian self help books and often brothers and sisters say I found this really good Christian book on bringing up children or on marriage. And it’s fine approach with caution because this is one of the central tenets of all of their books and they write with authority and clarity.

53. 28:43

    That’s great because you read the preface and they think they’ve been guided by the Holy Spirit to be able to say these things. So be very careful with those things because they merge those two together. And it’s a characteristic of basically all false Christianity where it leads to with with the with the Pentecostals, of course, is the Spirit of God comes into me and I’m now saved.

54. 29:03

    Once saved always say because the Spirit of God’s going to make sure fact, it’s really the equal and opposite of the theory of the devil. With the devil if I do. Bad stuff, it’s not my fault, it’s I can blame the devil when it comes to doing good stuff. It’s not my responsibility.

55. 29:20

    The Spirit will come in and will help me believe, help me have faith, help me resist, and help me be a good person. In fact, it saved me. So it’s actually quite interesting. To see the way in which they are equal and opposites when they way that they actually work. In fact, if I put up a diagram. The truth.

56. 29:35

    Talks about us developing the mind of God. We have to have the Spirit of God on us. There is no question, but it’s talking about the mind of God and it’s a response of faith to what God has said in His word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

57. 29:52

    Whereas the churches teach that you have to have the Holy Spirit power come into you and give you the gift of faith. Then on. Occasions in the 1st century was a great example of it. The Holy Spirit power is given to men and women to do certain things and we’ll see why as we go through our studies. The false teaching on it is that all believers are given the Holy Spirit power.

58. 30:14

    It’s an external influence that comes into US. I hear a few people had the ability to do miracles, but that’s pretty minor. No, really. Actually, you’ll have to have the Holy Spirit power that comes in and it helps us to understand. What does that tell you? Well, don’t expect to read the Bible and believe it and understand it.

59. 30:30

    It’s too hard. People with the Holy Spirit will be able to explain it to us. It’s a very dangerous philosophy because it closes the Bible to people’s ability to say, oh, read the Bible, you believe. It’s really simple. Abraham doesn’t say in Genesis, Abraham received the Spirit coming down and it made him believe.

60. 30:50

    It says God spoke. Did Abraham believe them? It’s that simple. And God counted that for righteousness. So the concept of faith comes to us believing what God actually says. OK, let’s move on. I’ll just keep an eye on the time there. What time, brother Danny, do we have to finish on the hour? Is it 11:00?

61. 31:14

    Oh, yes. OK, good. Thank you. Brother Daniel pointed out that there’s a clock sitting on the chair there, which is quite helpful to actually see as opposed to tapping my watch a few times to to see what it was actually telling me. OK, so when we hear confusion on the subject, it’s actually because people merge these two together.

62. 31:34

    Now once we get that right, there’s a whole lot of things start dropping into place, quite simply in Scripture, and we start to realize that there are spheres of operation or time periods when God’s Holy Spirit power was active to do certain things at specific points in time. So there are some aspects of the work of the Spirit which are continuing, which have been working all through history.

63. 31:59

    So, for example, we talk about God’s Spirit that sustains life. Well, thankfully that’s been a continual process. So when we read in Job 34 verse 14, if He set his heart upon man and gathered to himself, his Spirit or ruach, all flesh would perish together. Thankfully, God’s Spirit has continued its work down through history of keeping men and women like us alive. So it’s a continual application of God’s Spirit. Similarly, the obligation to walk after the spirit rather than after the flesh is an obligation that sat there with all the faithful from Adam all the way onwards through till now to be spiritually minded.

64. 32:38

    Romans 8 has has some beautiful passages. We’ve already looked at some of those and we will again in our studies which talk about the being led by the Spirit of God. But in contrast, there’s been other manifestations of God’s Spirit which have been for particular periods of time for particular purposes. Now that should be intuitively self obvious. We don’t have a Tabernacle.

65. 33:04

    Where God’s? Presence and Glory actually dwells in the Most Holy place, and where His power is seen in a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud to lead us in the way. Likewise, we don’t have the Lord Jesus Christ full of the Holy Spirit personally walking between the towns of this country, preaching and doing miracles as a witness to the veracity of His words. For both of those were very powerful manifestations of God’s Spirit at specific times in the past. We’ll take the example of the prophets now. The prophets clearly spoke under inspiration. They had the Holy Spirit power of God, the ability to do things which was not naturally available. And not only did they actually teach in Israel and explain to them the word of God, but they were also used by God to complete the Canon of scripture.

66. 34:01

    Where would be be if the words of Isaiah hadn’t been written down, or Ezekiel, or Daniel, or Jeremiah or any of the prophets. So they were also used by God under inspiration to actually complete the Canon of Scripture. You know, after the prophet Zechariah in Malachi, there was a period of some 400 years.

67. 34:22

    It’s called the inter Testament period between the Old Testament and the New where there were no prophets. Now that shouldn’t come as a surprise to us because Israel had been told that that would be the case. So Micah 3 verse 6 Therefore night shall be unto you, that you shall not have a vision, and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine. And the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.

68. 34:55

    And that’s exactly what happened. So there’s a 400 year period where there were no prophets speaking under inspiration. Yet 400 years later. In the 1st century, suddenly once again there were prophets. Actually the gift of prophecy was one of the specific gifts of the Holy Spirit that was given and as we’ll see probably tomorrow, it was actually the second highest ranking role, if you could use that expression. In the 1st century ecclesias, God hath said over them first apostles, secondarily prophets.

69. 35:32

    That’s in first of Corinthians 12 verse 28. And yet somewhat obviously we don’t have spirit guided prophets today. So you can see the way in which those powers from God were given to people at specific periods of time for certain things. Now the same applies of course to power of miracles. They were seen in the life of Moses. We have prophets like Elisha able to do miracles and Elijah. There were no miracles in the 400 year period between the Old and New Testament.

70. 36:00

    Suddenly in the days of the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles, there was an enormous number of miracles because the power of the Holy Spirit was given to men and women to speak in tongues particularly, but also to men to do these miracles in their preaching of the truth. And it’s powerfully self-evident that the Spirit power to do miracles is not even today.

71. 36:24

    So if we step back it. Simply tells us that there are elements of God’s Spirit which were manifested in different ways in different epochs and time for particular periods. And that’s key to understanding the work of the Spirit through Scripture and through history. And one of our objectives in our next few studies is to understand why the Holy Spirit power was given at particular times in history.

72. 36:50

    Now this is just for. Illustration purposes, but here are some examples of times where there were spectacular outpourings of the work of the Holy Spirit, power, obviously creation and we’ll look at that again shortly. But the birth of the nation was an extremely important time, the time of Moses and the setting up of of Israel as a as a, as a nation. We’ll look at that again in a few minutes. The time of the birth of Christ and the establishment of the new ecclesias was again a time where there was this burst of activity of the Holy Spirit power for particular reasons, obviously, the return of Christ in the Kingdom. We will see that on earth again.

73. 37:30

    That doesn’t mean, by the way, that there weren’t prophets through that time period that had the Holy Spirit by way of inspiration or Elisha and so forth. But these are epochs in history where there were spectacular manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and one of those was in the 1st century, and they were told explicitly that that manifestation of the Holy Spirit was going to be withdrawal.

74. 37:52

    So I just want to try and convey to us, brothers and sisters, the fact that there are the Holy Spirit. Power of God is given selectively to enable supernatural or unnatural things to be done when God has particular purposes in mind. And hopefully as we go through our studies, we’ll see why that was necessary at these these fulcrum points of history, these enormously important turning points in history. All right, let’s start with the first of those, Genesis. Genesis Chapter.

75. 38:23

    One, we talked about the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters and I used the expression yesterday, the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of the waters, the ruler or the Spirit of God. The word movement is the spirit moved upon the face of the waters is the Hebrew word rakaf, RACHAPH rakaf and it means to shake or to flutter like a Boo.

76. 38:55

    It’s. OK, that’s. Interesting. So what’s being conveyed when we think of this, this sphere of, of the round globe with no structure, no shape, it’s just round ball and we think of the water and we think of this, this energy field of God’s Spirit that’s just just brooding or hovering over the face of the waters. Now, I don’t know about you, but in my mind that looks like this, this really incredible latent scene of energy ready to explode into the creative work.

77. 39:25

    And I can just see this in the darkness of the inky blackness of space, the sphere upon which the Spirit of God is just sitting there, hovering, ready to move. But the word rakaath is next used in Deuteronomy 32, and it’s Speaking of God himself. As the eagle. Stirs up her nest and fluttereth Rakaath over her young, spreading abroad her wings, and takes them and bears them on her wings. God says that’s what he does with his people, Israel. So what’s now being?

78. 40:03

    Covered is this idea of a bird that’s protecting its young. That’s the next use of this word rakaf, that’s used of the spirit. And so then we have. A theme that develops in scripture of God as the eagle caring for the young. So we have a series of beautiful passages. Exodus 19. He bare them on eagle’s wings. Or Psalm 91, He covered them with his feathers, and under his wings they came to trust.

79. 40:35

    Or Ruth came to trust under the shelter of his wings in Ruth 2, verse 12, or in Psalm 17. Those who put their trust in God can hide under the shadow of His wings. And when we say they? Actually make that we. Because when we’re talking about the. Spirit of God, which was wrapped around the earth, about to create that creative process and start that process.

80. 41:05

    That’s the way in which God cares for His creative beings. It’s the work that He’s doing with His creation. You know, we looked the other day, brothers. This is the fact that God is everywhere present by His Spirit, Brother Robert said. Oh, as the releasing that comes from that, we say, well, yes there is.

81. 41:23

    He can see every thought. I think he, he’s there all the time. We’re never hidden from God. He, he hears and sees everything. And that’s true. But what else does it say?

82. 41:36

    It says we’re never alone. We’re never alone in times of sadness or loneliness, in times of anxiety or hurt. If God’s everywhere present, why His Spirit? We are never alone. And here in the. Way in which the Spirit is described as hovering like a bird upon the face of the waters. What it conveys to us is the way in which God was going to work through the creation process to create men and women and earth, which would be full of the knowledge of the glory of Yahweh in the same way that the Lord has covered the seas.

83. 42:24

    And as we see, the way in which. These things are developed in Scripture. We start to realize that actually the Spirit of God is not just an abstract force. It’s guided by God. It is him at work. And therefore what we actually. See is the care and the work of the Almighty. All right at that point.

84. 42:46

    It’s worth pausing to consider the character of the Spirit. When we talk about the Spirit hovering like an eagle and and we see that it’s an attribute of God actually caring, it raises a question about the Spirit. Is the spirit a caring thing? Does it have its own independent character? Is it a moral power? Does the spirit itself feel?

85. 43:10

    Look at these couple of passages, Ephesians 4 verse 30, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you sealed redemption, or Acts 5 verse 9 And Peter said unto her, How is it that you’ve agreed together to tempt, which obviously means an necessary idea to test the Holy Spirit. So does that mean that the Spirit.

86. 43:30

    Has feelings that it can actually be grieved. And that’s where it’s really important for us to come back to our fundamentals again. And shortly we’ll see why this is absolutely essential. Remember the instructor question, is God separate and different from the Spirit of God? And the answer is no. God and his spirit cannot be separated.

87. 43:55

    They’re both one. It’s the sun and the light that comes from the sun of 1. So God and the spirit that comes from God are both 1. So what’s that actually telling us? Well, it’s telling us that when we speak of the Spirit hovering like an eagle, when we speak of the Spirit being grieved, we’re actually talking about God himself. It’s not like the Spirit is a separate being running around with its own feelings like some separate creature, which, by the way, is what the Trinity teaches. No, it’s actually an expression of God’s thinking himself. And so Brother Edward Whitaker and Brother Reg Carr in their book on the Spirit, talk about autonomy. You know what autonomy is?

88. 44:36

    It’s when, when? Well, in fact, let me read it. Since the Holy Spirit is not a person, it could not, of course, be grieved in a personal sense by the figure of speech, an autonomy, the phrase the Holy Spirit stands for God. So when the Holy Spirit guides them to do something like the Holy Spirit LED Jesus into the, it’s the work of God.

89. 45:00

    When I talked about don’t grieve the holy, don’t grieve God. So the phrase the Holy Spirit there, it’s talking about God and his energy. You can’t separate the two from them. And so the phrase Holy Spirit stands for God himself, whose spirit power was the medium of miraculous ministry in the ecclesia. So we can’t actually separate between the Spirit and God himself. It is not some sort of material, mysterious, independent spirit which works independent of God, and that’s critical. Because the subject.

90. 45:34

    Of the Spirit. Every few decades it raises its head again in the Brotherhood. And it is again today. In different parts of the ecclesial world we see people starting to write more about how God’s Spirit needs to come into me, to help me understand, to help me believe. In fact, it’s interesting and it’s quite, it’s quite.

91. 45:55

    It slips in very quickly, so we ask for God to bless our meeting. Should we ask for God? To give words of wisdom to the brother giving the exhort, no.

92. 46:10

    Because God’s not going to. Inject words of wisdom. What we’re asking for. Is for God’s blessing to be upon the meeting and for our brother to be speaking to us from the Word and for the Word to open our hearts and mind. But God is not going to put extra words into the brother that he wouldn’t naturally have said because that is the Holy Spirit power. So you can see how we’ve actually got to be quite careful about this the subject and where it starts creeping in us as our community uses more and more Christian songs or Christian song books, you find the stuff is rife. So the Praise the Lord’s Songbook is being used by a number of ecclesias in New Zealand for worship in the Sunday morning meetings.

93. 46:54

    The Praise the Lord’s Songbook is a conglomeration of Christian songs, and some of them are truly terrible. Because they openly. Speak about the Holy Spirit coming in and doing various things in us. They’re being still quiet, but the Holy Spirit’s moving in this place to heal and restore us. The minister is Grace.

94. 47:14

    So actually we. Need to be vigilant on this particular topic. Very, very careful about the origins of our music. And so with our hymn book, which has its origins with the Brotherhood over the last 150 years, our Brotherhood has been extremely careful in. Terms of the hymns. Which they would accept from from society as a whole. In effect, they modified a number of them exactly to remove some of these specific elements.

95. 47:39

    So it’s something we actually need to be careful of. Don’t, don’t take it for granted and just ignore it. It’s something we need to be vigilant on in terms of our meaning and understanding. All right, OK, we’ve got a few minutes left. I’d like to look at this next epoch of the of this outpouring and an extraordinary way of God’s Holy Spirit power. And that was the time when the nation was brought together as a whole.

96. 48:07

    Because if you think. About it. The bringing of Israel out of Egypt was one of those extraordinary turning points in history. It’s when the purpose of God moved from working with a man of faith, Abraham and his immediate family, Isaac and Jacob, Jacob’s twelve sons, to now incorporate a whole multitude and to constitute them as a nation. So, So God’s work with the human race is now working with an entire nation of individuals.

97. 48:35

    It’s the point in time where God’s purpose with the land of Israel began to come to fruition. A place that Yahweh. Thy God has chosen to set his name there, and yet it had been full of the Amalekites and the Amorites full of iniquity. He was going to cleanse that land and establish His covenant people in that land.

98. 48:54

    An incredibly important time period in the history of the world. This was the point when the Mosaic system of things, the whole Law of Moses and all of the worship associated with the Law of Moses was to be instituted. You know, the Law of Moses lasted for more than a millennia in terms of defining worship with Israel, over 1200 years or thereabouts.

99. 49:16

    And so the concept of establishing a whole system of worship also took place in the time of the Exodus. The Mosaic heaven and earth was going to then run until it was replaced by the the new covenant in God’s own Son. So truly this was one of those fulcrum points of history. And so, not surprisingly, it was a time when the spirit power of God was revealed in spectacular ways.

100. 49:46

     Now I. Asked the young people if they could think of different ways in which God’s power was revealed at that time. And of course, they came up with all sorts which I hadn’t thought of in my list. They mentioned the burning Bush that wasn’t conjuged, I think. Well, yeah. Another one of them, one of the young girls mentioned, oh, sandals that never wore out.

101. 50:04

     Think, well, yeah, that’s not normal. I mentioned many parents would be delighted if they could put shoes on their children that were never going to wear out for decades. So these were unusual things where God’s spirit power was involved. We think of of miracles, you know, not too many people can take a stick and throw it on the ground and have it become a serpent and then pick it up again and suddenly it’s a rod again. Or put their hand inside their cloak and pull it out and it’s now full of leprosy and put it back in again and bring it out and now it’s not.

102. 50:34

     But we think of the plagues themselves and then we think of the parting of the Red Sea, that these were enormous outpourings of God’s spirit power in an extraordinary way. But it also happened more. Personally, in terms of the Holy Spirit gifts being given to people, actually just before we go to those, listen to this Exodus 15.

103. 50:58

     Exodus 15, verse 8 is the song of Moses. So this is the song recording the triumph of going through the Red Sea. Exodus 15, verse 8. With the blast of thy nostrils, the waters were gathered together, the flood stood upright as in heap, and the depths were congealed in the hearts of the sea.

104. 51:15

     When it sees with the blast of thy nostrils, the word blast is ruach. With the breath of. Thy nostrils, or again that its blow with thy wind. Ruach and the sea covered them. They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Exodus 15, verse 10. So yes, the Holy Spirit power was revealed in some spectacular ways, but I’d like you to come with me to Numbers 11 because what we find is, is what we think of as more convincingly.

105. 51:43

     The Holy Spirit gifts were also given out to people as well. Numbers Chapter 11. So it’s, it’s very similar to the 1st century in that there’s some, some extraordinary things being established here, a major change in how God worked with his people. And so the Spirit gifts were poured out rather extraordinary as well.

106. 52:03

     So Numbers 11, Moses is complaining about the enormous burden of carrying all of the children of Israel. And God says, that’s fine, I want you to take 70 elders. And then he says, Numbers 11 verse 17, I will come down and I’ll talk with you there. He said, And I’ll take up the Spirit which is upon thee, and we’ll put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it, not thyself alone. Over to verse 25.

107. 52:35

     Yahweh came down in a cloud and spake to Moses and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease. So there is the Holy Spirit power of God which Moses had being shared from Moses to the 70 elders who then had the Spirit of Yahweh in them for the work that they were to do.

108. 53:05

     And it was also illustrated by the fact that they prophesied and did not cease. So we can see there’s a very specific outpouring of the spirit power of God. Later that spirit power was given to Josh, to Joshua, Numbers 27, verse 18. Yahweh said to Moses, Take thee, Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay thy hand upon him. That’s Numbers 27 verse 18.

109. 53:31

     And then by Deuteronomy 34 verse 9, Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him, and the children of Israel hearkened to him. As Yahweh commanded Moses, so the spirit of wisdom, again, that’s one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that’s mentioned in first of Corinthians 12. And so we can see the way in which this the spirit power was specifically given to men to do certain things at those points in time.

110. 54:02

     You know, the work of the Spirit didn’t just end there. Another time period that was extremely important was the building of the Tabernacle, the house for God to be able to dwell or the tent for God to be able to dwell in. And so in Exodus 31, God says, see, I have called by name Bezaleel, the son of you, right, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge and in all manner of workmanship to devise cunning works, to work in gold and silver and brass. You know, it wasn’t just that Bezaleel had done a really clever apprenticeship.

111. 54:46

     And learned to be clever. He was actually given a special gift by God to enable them to do that work. Verse 6 And behold, I’ve given with him the holy of the son of a Heisman. And in the hearts of all that are wise hearted, I have put wisdom that they may make all that I have commanded thee. And so God actually gave Spirit guided abilities specifically to a group of people to build the Tabernacle and the furniture that was in it.

112. 55:19

     It’s not surprising when we think of of the beauty of what was there. I would love to have been able to see the Caribou. We’re just the thought of the of the mercy seat and the Caribou figures all beaten out of one piece of gold. How do you do that just truly extraordinary work. Well that’s because those men were given the gifts by God of wisdom and skill and understanding to be able to actually create those rather extraordinary things, The hearts of all who were wise hearted.

113. 55:53

     We get that confirmed in Exodus 36. Then wrought easily on holy heaven every wise hearted man in whom Yahweh put wisdom and understanding to know how to work or manner of work. Exodus 36 and verse one. And then the presence. The Angel of the Presence dwelt there. It was, it was visible in the in the pillar of fire, in the pillar of cloud that led them there. And also the glory of of this, of the presence of Yahweh filled the holy place.

114. 56:22

     So much so that it was fatal for the high priests to go in there apart from the Day of Atonement. And then there was a special process of ceremony they went through before a high priest was allowed to go into the Most Holy Place. It’s obvious this was an era of a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit in all sorts of ways because of God’s purpose at that particular time. There was of course, themed.

115. 56:53

     To be a further time in history where God’s Holy Spirit was to be visibly and very directly demonstrated on a significant scale. Once again, it was going to involve the ushering in of a new era because the Mosaic system of things was to be removed. The Mosaic heavens and earth were going to be removed. A better covenant, as it’s described in Hebrews 8 verse 6, was going to replace the Mosaic covenant, and this was then going to incorporate the greatest work of salvation of all time as the Holy Spirit was manifested to Israel in the work of His Son.

116. 57:34

     And God willing, that will be the subject that we look at in our study tomorrow.