Episode Transcript
The Aim & Purpose of the Holy Spirit
If you will turn to Exodus, chapter 15.
Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord and spake, saying, "I will sing unto the Lord. For He hath triumphed gloriously the horse and His rider hath He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song and He is become my salvation. This is my God and I will praise Him, my Father's God and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord Jehovah is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea. And his chosen captains are sunk in the Red Sea. The deeps cover them. They went down into the depths like a stone.
Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorious in power. Thy right hand, O Lord, dasheth in pieces the enemy. In the greatness of Thine excellency Thou overthrowest them that rise up against Thee. Thou sendest forth Thy wrath. It consumeth them as stubble. And with the blast of Thy nostrils, the waters were piled up. The flood stood upright as a heap. The deeps were congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, 'I will pursue, I will overtake. I will divide the spoil. My desire shall be satisfied upon them. I will draw my sword. My hand shall destroy them.'
Thou didst blow with Thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? Thou stretchest out Thy right hand. The earth swallowed them.
Thou in Thy loving kindness hast led the people that Thou hast redeemed. Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.
The peoples have heard, they tremble; pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed. The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. Terror and dread falleth upon them; by the greatness of Thine arm, they are as still as a stone. Till Thy people pass over, O Lord, till the people pass over that Thou hast purchased. Thou wilt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance. The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever."
Shall we pray?
Lord, we do very simply ask that Thou wilt take Thy word and make it live to us, Lord. Thou knowest our need as we're found here in Thy presence this morning. Lord, as we stand at the brink of this week of prayer, we want, Lord, to move in with Thee. We want to be delivered, Lord, of all those preconceptions, prejudices or biases which in one way or another can, Lord, render us, those who are not open, Lord, to Thyself. Oh, deliver us, Lord, from that. Make us a people who are pliable in Thy hand that Thou canst speak to, Thou canst reveal Thyself to, Thou canst direct, Thou canst lead forward, O Lord, make us such a people we pray. We thank Thee, Lord, for all Thy goodness and grace toward us. We thank Thee Lord that we're found in Thy presence. We thank Thee that we are the redeemed of the Lord. Oh, we're so conscious, Lord, of much of our failing, of the defeat that is in many of our lives. We're conscious, Lord, of sin and, oh, many other things. But, Lord, Thou hast said, I see no iniquity in Jacob at all.
We marvel, Lord, that that sin we bear it no more. We marvel, Lord, that Thou hast severed the connection between the past and us, cut it off, blotted it out, destroyed the record.
O Lord, how wonderful Thou art. Thou hast given us a new beginning. And, Lord, in a very real sense, Thou hast given us a new history.
Thou hast given us the history of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He came from heaven. He was of heaven. And we thank Thee, Father, that something's come into us that's from heaven and we've been born from above. And we thank Thee, Father, that we belong to the new man. We're in Christ.
O Father, how we thank Thee. His death, His burial, His resurrection, it's ours. His ascension is ours. His coming is our coming. O Lord, we praise Thee for this history Thou hast given us, this wonderful history, not our own, Lord, but Thy Son’s. And Thou hast given it to us. And our history of sin and darkness and defeat and satanic alliance and oppression and possession that has been cancelled out. It was made His. Oh Father, we praise Thee. We worship Thee and we pray, Lord, wilt Thou Thyself come near to us and speak to us, Lord, in this time?
We ask it, Lord, we ask it in Thy name. Amen.
Well, now, really, it's very little in one sense I have this morning. I've debated whether we should turn to prayer in these remaining moments anyway. But there's just a thought that I can't get away from in this Exodus 15 and I would like to underline it. I believe one of the greatest problems with the people of God is that they always think that any great work of God is the beginning and the end. In other words, where they should see how complete the work of God is, they don't. Where they should see how they should move on, they instead stay put.
Really, this psalm, (Well, it is a psalm, really) this song of Moses and the children of Israel is the key to this whole attitude. Shall we put it this way? It is the clue, the key to the right attitude that we should have. For there is one thing that breathes right through this psalm and it is that what happened on that Passover night, when the lamb's blood was put on those doors, on the lintels and doorposts, and when they ate the lamb, what happened that night was all inclusive. All inclusive. Every single thing was included in that tremendous deliverance from the Lord.
And of course, we are told quite clearly in 1 Corinthians 10 that it was not only that, but all these immediately were baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. In other words, there was a real experience, not only of all the results of that deliverance from sin, but a real experience of the Holy Spirit as well. And it all was to come out of that. In other words, everything is based on the sacrifice of the Lamb. There is no deliverance, no salvation, no empowering with the Holy Spirit, no being anointed with the Spirit, no being incorporated into Christ, none apart from the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And this breathes right through this whole song. Moses and the children of Israel, they sang about their enemies being thrown into the sea. The Lord hath triumphed gloriously, not only out of Egypt, but over the Red Sea. So the great barrier, the great gulf, they were over that. It was one thing to get out of Egypt, to be wrested from the authority of Pharaoh. And that happened on the night when the lamb was slain, when the Lord touched the firstborn in every house in Egypt. There was a dead person in every household in Egypt except those that had the blood of the lamb on the outside. But wherever Egyptian, by the way, or Hebrew, wherever there was blood on the outside of the house, the angel of death passed over. Passed right over.
There was deliverance there, but then there was not only deliverance from out of the authority of Pharaoh, they had got to get right out of the land itself. And there was the barrier of the Red Sea. And they got out of that through this wonderful deliverance of God in the Red Sea. That is explained to us in terms of being baptised. They were baptised into the cloud and into the sea (1 Corinthians 10). They were all baptised into Moses. Now, what I find so wonderful, the thing I just want to underline this morning, is that there was a purpose in this whole thing. There was a purpose in this whole thing. It wasn't just to have a wonderful glory session on the wilderness side of the Red Sea, sit down there and sing these wonderful hymns and sort of clap our hands and rejoice in the Lord. Some Christians seem to think that is it, that really, providing you can get to that place where you can just praise God, that's it. There is nothing more. And then we spend our time just trying to get people into it. This is what this wonderful song explodes. For we find the most remarkable thing in this song. A good 200 miles away from the promised land they sing like this: they say in verse 16, "by the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone, till Thy people pass over, O Lord. Till the people pass over that Thou purchased, Thou wilt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance. The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign forever and ever."
In other words, the whole purpose of God was not just to deliver them from out of the authority of Pharaoh, or just to get them out of Egypt, nor just to lead them in the wilderness. It was to get them over the Jordan and right into the fullness of the land. And not only just into the land where they might have their own fig tree and vine tree and olive tree, and everyone had their own little plot of land. But that they might come to the sanctuary of God. Not just that they might enjoy themselves and know security and safety and blessings, but that they might come to the very heart of the purpose of God. And the heart of the purpose of God is summed up in these words. "The place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in, the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established."
Now what is that purpose? What is that purpose? That purpose is that you and I, as living stones, may be built up into Christ. It is, again putting it another way, that you and I may be so built together upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and the apostles and prophets, that we grow into a holy temple in the Lord. The temple of God is not a place in which we meet. The house of the Lord is not bricks and mortar. As I've said before, you can't leave your handbag in the church. You can't leave your umbrella in the church. We're always talking about, oh, I met so and so in church. What do we mean by such phrases? They're not even biblical. Now, the point is this. If people use those phrases, it's a pretty clear indication they have not seen the truth.
Now, people get all upset about this, but it's true. If a person kept on speaking in language about this square earth, this square earth, it would be a pretty sure conclusion after a while that there was something wrong in their understanding of this planet. You'd forgive us if we began to wonder whether they realised that it was a globe. But this is what we have again and again and again. We don't see something and so we fall back on old phraseology and we start talking about, here we are, Lord, in Thy house. We are not in Thy house in the sense of this bricks and mortar. We're in Thy house in the sense that here we are. And if we all moved out in the garden and had the time out on the lawn, we could still rightly say, here we are in Thy house, O Lord. And that would be marvellous because then we would know, everyone would know, well, praise the Lord, they've seen something. Other people might have a problem there. They would say, now what are they talking about? Here we are in the garden. How? We're not in the house of the Lord here. We're in the garden of the Lord.
Are you seeing the point? The point is, you see that God uses human language and human metaphors in a way, figures as it were, to describe a spiritual entity, a spiritual reality. Now, this spiritual reality is really basically union with God. It is that you and I have come into a union with God. We are in Him and He is in us. It is a union. A union. Now, so marvellous is this union between you and your Lord, between me and my Lord, that you and I have also become one. And this is not based on whether we agree. It's based on the fact of whether we're in Christ. Therefore, if I find someone, I don't always agree with them. But can I say, “Well, I'm not going to see you anymore. Goodbye. I don't agree with you. You don't agree with me about the coming of the Lord. You believe we're to go through the tribulation, and I believe we're going to go before the tribulation. And because of that, goodbye or you don't agree with my doctrine of holiness and therefore I don't consider you to be holy.” Or “I've had an experience - it's all of grace, of course. I've had an experience, you haven't. I'll give you a book, read about it.” Or I may disagree on another point, another point which may be just as real to me. And I say you don't quite say exactly the right thing. But that's not the basis. That's the unity of the faith.
Now in Ephesians 4, it speaks of two unities. In Ephesians 4 and verse 2 and 3, it speaks of maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. You can't maintain something you haven't got. You have it, it's given to you. It's Christ, it is the Spirit of God, it is in Him. You have that. Now we maintain that all the time. We're to give diligence to keep it, to maintain it. But in verse 12 and 13 in Ephesians 4 we read of the unity of the faith of the full grown man. Now it is interesting that it speaks there of attaining to that. Verse 13 "Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. [Full knowledge of the Son of God] and unto a full grown man. So whilst we are all in the process of coming to that unity of the faith, we maintain the unity of the Spirit. Got it?
We go on together, we love each other, we care for each other, and we refuse to be divided. And we refuse to enter into controversy. Because we are not going to make anything a means by which we are going to be divided, but we are going to go on with the Lord. But thank God, there is a point, as the Apostle Paul says in Philippians. I think it is chapter three, and I think it's about verse 14 or so where he says, "those of us who are perfect are thus minded." Now what he didn't mean was perfect in that sense, you know, but he meant those who are full grown. When we come to a certain point, there's a sense in which we do see eye to eye.
Understand? Now we mustn't digress from what really I was trying to say. What I'm really basically saying is, what is this sanctuary? Here these people of God are just out of Egypt. They have only just gotten out. The water is hardly dry on their bodies. Oh no, just wait. That's wrong, isn't it? How can we say it? The sand is still on their clubs, their sandals. The fact is, they're only just through the Red Sea. They've gone over on dry ground. And they're just on the other side. And they're no sooner there, they are no sooner there than they sing this wonderful song. Now they talk about, verse 14, "pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia." They had no radio or telephone. How did they know what had happened to the Philistines? The Philistines were 200, well, at least 150 miles away from them - more like 200. Then with “the chiefs of Edom dismayed,” they were even farther away. “The mighty men of Moab,” farther away still. "All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away." That's even farther. It goes right up to Lebanon. Now what are they talking about? We know from the record itself that they had many a fight with these same people.
So look at the tense. "The peoples have heard, they tremble." Verse 14 "pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Then were the chiefs of Edom dismayed. The mighty men of Moab trembling taketh hold upon them. All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away. Terror and dread falleth upon them. By the greatness of Thine arm, they are as still as a stone." So they're not just talking about the Egyptian host, Pharaoh's crack core. They were all at the bottom of the Red Sea when they sang this song. No, they say, thank God it's not only Egypt that's gone under the water. The Philistines, Edomites, Moabites and everyone in Canaan, the whole lot have gone. They've sunk like a stone.
In other words, what we understand by this is that the purpose of God, the work upon which the purpose of God is fulfilled, is all inclusive. What God did through the slain lamb takes these people right through the Red Sea, right through the wilderness, right through Jordan, and right through into the possession of the Lamb. Got it?
Upon that finished work, the Spirit of God falls upon them and anoints them. He anoints Moses. He anoints Aaron. He anoints Joshua and those who build the tabernacle. It says the Spirit of the Lord came upon them and they did wonderful work. They embroidered or they did the gold work or the brass work or the silver work. It was by the Spirit of God coming upon them. But the Spirit of God didn't come upon them because they were nice people, good people, sweet people, not even because they were devoted people. But the Holy Spirit came upon them and filled them and empowered and enabled them because of the lamb slain.
Now what are we saying? We are saying this. There is power sufficient to get us out of the power of Satan and of this world. Power sufficient to deliver us altogether out of the realm of this world - this whole order, this cosmos, this whole arrangement, this whole order - power sufficient to get us right out of it and to cut the links. No more longing for leeks and garlic and onions back in Egypt. It's gone. Power sufficient to do that and power sufficient to keep us in the wilderness just so long as we need. And there is a wilderness experience, everybody, there is a wilderness experience. People forget that there is a wilderness experience which we have to have in order to come into something deeper and greater.
Even if the children of Israel had gone right through the wilderness, they would have still had a 14 day journey, roughly, through the wilderness. And there they would have learned some wonderful things - water out of heaven, bread out of heaven, guidance out of heaven, the dwelling place of God out of heaven. All those wonderful lessons in the wilderness before they went over into the land where everything was more settled. Each one had got his own inheritance and could settle down. Then there was no more pillar of cloud and fire. They had to grow up, had to grow up, had to come more inside, you understand? No more water coming out of the rock. Then it was the water that came down, former and latter rain. And no more bread coming each day that you went out to collect. Now it is bread that comes from the fields that belong to you. You see, there are different stages.
But all I'm trying to say this morning is simply this. So few Christians see what the purpose of God is, what the objective of God is. They stop all the way along the line. Some of them, they've stopped almost on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea, quite honestly. And others seem to have got through the Red Sea without knowing anything of what it is to be baptised in the cloud. But they somehow got through onto the other side where they've got half a salvation and can't understand what's missing. And then of course, there are those who settled down, you know, where the water came out of the rock. It was such a marvellous experience, they’ve built a little town there, settled there, and called it the denomination of so and so. And there they are built around their little spring that comes out of the rock, or the others that have settled down where there's been a great victory over the Amalekites. And so there they have settled down and preached the doctrine of victory over the Amalekites. For them, that's everything. And then you go a little farther and you've got people who've gone further than that and they've got something more. They've got the Word of God thundering out on the top of Mount Sinai. Oh, it was absolutely marvellous. And for them it's the Word of the Lord, the ministry of the Word and everything's in the Word and nothing's outside of the Word. Everything's within it. And they've settled there and that's their experience. There are others who've got down to Jordan and they've kept the Passover on the wilderness bank. And there's been a little more there. There are some who've got over and stopped at Jericho.
But really what we need to do is not stop at any one of these points, even when we get our own inheritance and the Lord blesses us so wonderfully that we're transported into heaven and we think, oh, I've not known such peace and such joy and such fullness of life. Not since I was saved have I known anything like this. Don't settle down. If you do, you'll miss the mark. It's that you might come to this Jerusalem, this Zion, this sanctuary, that you might understand that you and I are called to be the bride of Christ. And really that's all the work that's going on in our midst. And I believe that's one of the great meanings of what God is doing now in our generation. This tremendous moving of God all over the globe is not just to get people into experience and it's not just to get people into fullness. It is far, far more. The interesting thing is the growing understanding of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and the growing disregard for organisationalism, all that institutionalism, organisationalism and all that, it belongs to Egypt, really, basically. It doesn't belong to the Promised Land. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying, of course, that you mustn't have organisation. Of course, you must have organisation. But it's the origin of the organisation. When people put it together like a car, they get a chart and they say, now it's here, and this, this, this and this. We put it together and what happens? It sits on top of us. It just sits like some great heavy New Testament pattern squashing the life out.
But when it comes from within, it's organic. My body is the most highly organised bit of equipment. Well, I suppose we could say that in this whole house, the most organised bit of equipment here are your bodies. You've got built in thermostat control, built in heating system, a built in telephone exchange, a built in intelligence system. Amazing. You've got all these things built into you. You never read a book. You never read a book about how your body should adjust up and down. When you were a child, do you ever remember shivering so that your teeth chattered? Oh, I do. I never understood what was happening, did you? I never understood at all what was happening. It was my thermostat. It said, now, if you shake a bit, you'll generate warmth. And that's what happens. When you shiver, you've gotten cold. And the thermostat inside of you says, now, come on, a good little shake and you'll get warm again.
It's all part of it. You see, we don't understand it. It's all natural to us. It's inside. We've got the most marvellous system inside. You can have a little tiny pin prick in your toe. And something up here says something's wrong with your toe. Think of that. It's built in. It's so delicate, so sensitive, so highly organised and so harmonious, unless there's disease. The whole thing is a harmony, a cohesion. Now, all that organisation came out of life. It came out of life.
You didn't have a doctor who, when you were born, said, now we must put this boy together. You know, we must do this and we do this and we do this and we do this. No, no, no. All he said to my mother and to your mother was, now feed the boy or girl. Just take a bit of care, you know, look after them normally, feed them. Let them have air, food and love, and the life in them will do the rest. They'll grow. The whole thing will develop inside. And that, if only we could see it, that is the meaning of Pentecost.
Just before Pentecost, they went back to the old thing. They couldn't think how they could get someone to be the other apostle. And so they had this little sort of ado together and they cast lots. And it fell on Matthias. Really, it's been a great argument amongst theologians ever since. Should they have done it? They were Christians, they were saved. They knew there was a risen Christ. So they chose this man to take the place of Judas who had hanged himself. Many theologians, men of repute, have felt that, really, the one who should have taken the twelfth was the Apostle Paul.
Of course, when the spirit of God came, they never cast lots again. Never again. Isn't that interesting? See, so much of our church organisation is just casting lots, just like anything else. We get together and we discuss and we have our votes and we nominate and we elect and we do, just like the world. But you don't read that in the Book of Acts. Even when they were to seek out people, there was prayer. The Holy Spirit said, separate me so and so and so and so and it was all organic. And so it moved on and on. The Holy Spirit raising up the ministries, the Holy Spirit raising up those who should have position or so on, creating the functions in the body. And so it happens.
It seems to me, therefore, that in this song of Moses we have a wonderful key. We've got many enemies. We have these things that are referred to here as Philistines and Edomites and Moabites and Canaanites and everything else that's all along the way in serried ranks to stop us from getting to the final goal of God. But what a wonderful thing if we could say in faith, "They are as still as a stone."
When we take that position of faith and declare it, they are paralysed. Because it's all based on the Lamb slain. The moment we declare that fact, there is a paralysis and we go through. That's exactly what happened, isn't it? It's how they got over the Jordan. It's how the walls of Jericho fell. It's how they took AI finally, when that matter of sin was dealt with and how they went all the way through. They just put their feet upon it and the Lord did the rest. So may the Lord help us this morning.
Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we do pray that Thou wilt help us in our understanding, that Thou wilt unveil to us something, Lord, of that purpose of Thine. And that Thou wilt, Lord, move us on that we may, Lord, walk together step by step with Thee. O Lord, show to us how complete Thy work is, how sufficient Thy work is. Reveal to us how the Holy Spirit, with all His power and fullness and gift is given to us on the basis of that finished work. And, oh Lord, may we enter in definitely appropriating what is ours in the Lord Jesus Christ. So work, Lord, mightily in us all. Bless each one of us. Meet with each one of us. And in this week, Lord, meet with us as a people and take us on with Thyself, we pray. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
