James Fraser on the Holy Spirit

"In earlier years, he had emphasised that regeneration was the work of God alone. This proved true in the new situation. No challenge, rebuke, persuasion, or comforting on his part alone made any difference to anyone, even if it seemed to at first. Only God's direct work would produce lasting fruit."

p158

"Although he had been in China ten years and had considerable experience with both the Chinese and the Lisu, he realised he could do little or nothing apart from God's going before and working among them."

p159

"James had a strong sense, borne out by events, that he was merely assisting in a work done wholly by God Himself."

p199

From Mountain Rain, The Biography of James O. Fraser

Earlier loves eclipsed

A description of James Fraser's desires being turned upside down by the Holy Spirit as a young man:

"There is no record that he felt he had renounced anything. He had quite simply found earlier loves eclipsed by a new passion. 'If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him' (1 John 2:15)"

p7, Mountain Rain, The Biography of James O. Fraser

Authentic Talk: Inch By Inch Growth

My second talk at 'Authentic' students and 20s group at Kings Church Eastbourne. Not especially eloquent, but gets the job done!

Inch_By_Inch_Growth.pdf

Authentic: Inch By Inch Growth from Sam Arnold on Vimeo.

Clinton E. Arnold On Prayer

From 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare:

"The very act of prayer is an admission that "there is someone greater than I" and that "I am not able"."
(Ephesians 3:14 – For this reason I kneel before the Father)
p43

"Prayer is communication with the commander-in-chief during the battle. Our awareness of the battle heightens our sense of need to stay in constant touch with our superior officer, who can resupply us and provide us with our orders."
p46

"Prayer is more than just vocalizing a list of needs to God. Prayer involves asking God how we should pray and then acting on the promptings and impressions the Spirit places on our minds."
p46

"God is near. We have the privilege of entering his presence regularly as children."
p46

"The heart and essence of spiritual warfare at any level is prayer."
p187

"Part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is in providing direction an guidance in how we pray (Eph. 6:18)"
p188

The Hiddenness of God (Part 3)

I watched 'The Finger of God' DVD by Darren Wilson yesterday and showed it at Life Group. Absolutely amazing. It's a film documenting the physical works of God around the world. From people mysteriously receiving gold teeth in church services, to street evangelism and healings, to the dead being raised (some dead as long as four days).

It seems God is prepared to revealed himself in quite remarkable ways. In many of these places – Mozambique, California, China – healing miracles are performed to show people God is real, and then the gospel is preached. Often it seems the whole purpose of the healings is to open people up to the gospel message and pave the way for salvation.

What really strikes you when you watch this is that God doesn't seem hidden at all. He provides real, tangible proof of his existence when asked, and is more than happy to demonstrate his power to a people that have no knowledge of him.

It makes you think – perhaps healings and miracles are inextricably linked to evangelism and the gospel message. Maybe they're not just meant for church on a Sunday, but out on the streets, in everyday life.

Another interesting point was that these healings, miracles, signs and wonders seem just as available to the church in the West as to the poorer, persecuted Christians around the world.

As an old 'No Fear' poster once read, "You miss 100% of the shots you never take". Maybe we just need to actually pray for some people.

Being Filled With The Spirit

Below is a story regarding the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the life of a young missionary (name unknown) in the China interior in the 1890s. I've been studying bible verses and listening to loads of sermons on the baptism of the Spirit in preparation for a Holy Spirit evening at Life Group. This account is absolute spot on with my present understanding that 1, the Spirit is a person to be personally welcomed and accepted into one's life (we don't need to plead, but simply ask and believe); 2, the purpose of being filled is to be clothed with power to continue the work of Jesus Christ; 3, the evidence of being filled is a supernatural effectiveness in ministry and witness; 4, the filling is not a condition of salvation, but a gift; and 5, manifestations may well occur at the point of receiving, but this is not always the case and is neither the main goal, purpose or evidence of being filled.

Here's the excerpt... it's quite long but very good!

Four years in China had taught her something of the joy and blessing to be found in the deeper fellowship with the Master, but something also of the deadening influences of heathenism, the power of evil within as well as around her, and the blank despair of seeking to help others when her own soul was out of living touch with Christ. How she longed for 'the exchanged life', the life she saw in others, but knew not how to attain. Praying in an anguish no one suspected for light and for help, it was the last Sunday before Christmas when a word was spoken that, under God, brought the deliverance and made all things new. After the evangelistic service in the C.I.M. hall, an entire stranger – a Christian seaman – came up to her and said earnestly:

'Are you filled with the Holy Ghost?'

Filled with the Holy Ghost? She remembered no more of the conversation, but that question burned deeper and deeper into her heart. This, then, was the explanation of all the inward failure, the sorrow that seemed unavailing, the purposes that came to nothing. God had made a provision, given a Gift that she had never definitely accepted. She knew that the Holy Spirit must be in her life in a certain sense, for 'if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his'. And yet, just as certainly, she knew that she was not 'filled with the Spirit', and was experiencing little of His power.

But how afraid she was of being misled, of running into error and mistaking emotion for reality! The Word of God was full, now she came to study the subject, of the personality and power of the Holy Spirit. The Acts of the Apostles - what was it but the acts of the Holy Ghost, transforming and quickening lives just as she knew she needed to be quicken and transformed? O yes, why had she never seen it? It was indeed the Holy Spirit, to make unseen things real to her and impossible things possible. And there stood out in Gal. 3. 13, 14 the words:

'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us ... that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.'

What was she doing with the infinite Gift purchased at such a cost? She saw that just as Christ is ours by the gift of God, and yet we have each one personally to receive Him, so with the Holy Spirit. She saw that He too was a Person, just as real as the Lord Jesus, and to be just as truly welcomed by faith into the heart that cannot do without Him as a living link with the risen, glorious Lord. All the rest that can be told is that she took the step, though with fear and trembling - scarce knowing what it meant - and trusted the Holy Spirit to come in and possess her fully, just as she had trusted the Lord Jesus to be her Saviour. Feeling nothing, realising nothing, she just took God at His word, and then and there asked that the promise might be fulfilled, 'When he is come (to you) he will reprove (or convict) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment'. Her chief sorrow for many months had been that she seemed to have little power for soul-winning, and hardly knew of any who had been brought to Christ through her instrumentality. It was Christmas week, and believing that a real, a definite transaction had taken place alone in that quiet room, she asked in faith that God would give her to see the proof of it in actual conversations every day that week, in connection with meetings that were being held.

And every day that week the prayer was answered. More than twenty people, young and old, sailors, visitors, and residents in Shanghai, it was given her to help a definite decision for Christ, while the joy and liberty of her own heart were so manifest that others could not but long for and seek the same blessing.

Biography of James Hudson Taylor, 1973 edition, p456-8

"if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ."
Romans 8:9

"He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."
Galatians 3:14

Hudson Taylor and the Holy Spirit

Hudson Taylor had an interesting perspective about the possibility of a gradual filling of the Holy Spirit. It's the first time I've come across that perspective and I'm not yet sure how fully I agree. I'm still working it out.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is mentioned frequently in the book of Acts, and the terms does suggest a sudden, total and full immersion. Jesus specifically tells his disciples to "stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49), which again suggests a sudden and complete equipping of the saints for tasks to come.

In any case, here's the excerpt. I guess God is by no means constrained in the method he chooses to fill us with the Spirit. We may all experience it differently.

"Now the heart can no more be filled with two things at the same time than a tumbler can be filled with both air and water at the same time. If you want a tumbler full of water to be filled with air, it has first to be emptied of the water. This shows us why prayer to be filled with the Spirit is often gradually answered. We have to be shown our sins, our faults, our pre-possessions, and to be delivered from them. Faith is the channel be which all grace and blessing are received; and that which is accepted by faith, God bestows in fact. Being filled does not always lead to exalted feeling or uniform manifestation, but God always keeps his word. We have to look to His promises or rest in them, expecting their literal fulfillment. Some put asking in the place of accepting; some wish it were so, instead of believing that it is so. We have never to wait for God's giving, for God has already 'blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ'. We may reverently say, He has nothing more to give; for He has given His all. Yet, just as the room is full of air, but none can get into the tumbler save as far as the water is emptied out, so we may be unable to receive all He has given, if the self-life is filling to some extent our hearts and lives."
Biography of James Hudson Taylor, 1973 edition, p349

On William Burns...

Below are a few quotes describing William Burns, an awesome man of God and an early companion and mentor to Hudson Taylor:

"He did not consider that he had a warrant to proceed in any sacred duty without a consciousness of that Divine presence. Without it, he could not speak even to a handful of little children in a Sunday School; with it he could stand unabashed before the mightiest and wisest in the land."

"Prayer was a natural to him as breathing, and the word of God as necessary as daily food."

"He enjoyed quietness and the luxury of having few things to take care of, and thought the happiest state on earth for a Christian was that he should have few wants."

"'If a man have Christ in his heart' he used to say, 'Heaven before his eyes, and only as much of temporal blessing as is just needful to carry him safely through life, then pain and sorrow have little to shoot at'."

Biography of James Hudson Taylor, p160.

The Holy Spirit and John Wesley

"James Harvey, the friend of Wesley at Oxford, described the change in Welsey through his anointing by the Spirit: 'His preaching was once like the firing of an arrow, all the speed and force depending on the strength of his arm in bending the bow. Thereafter it was like the firing of a rifle ball, the whole force depending on the powder and needing only a finger touch to let it off".

Great Revivals, Colin Whittaker, p47

The Unforgivable Sin

"Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven."
Matthew 12:31

On a very interesting note, my ESV commentary defines this sin: "this sin is committed today only by unbelievers who deliberately and unchangeably reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit in calling them to salvation."

I think what's interesting is that the commentary defines what the sin against the Holy Spirit actually is. That verse always scared the life out of me previously, because I simply didn't know what it meant, and whether or not I was guilty of it.

All very interesting stuff. Obviously the commentary is just one man's perspective on the verse and could well be wrong to some degree. But it does spark a lot of thought. Does the Holy Spirit work in all people everywhere, calling them to Him? Has everyone on earth been ministered to in some way by the Holy Spirit? And everyone who remains unsaved – have they all rejected the work of the Spirit in their lives?

I'm not sure you can definitely back those statements up with scripture (maybe I'm wrong!). But the following verses do hint at it. They state that God desires all people to be saved, and that it can only happen by the Holy Spirit.

"The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."
2 Peter 3:9

"No one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit."
1 Corinthians 12:3b