In the book of acts, when Paul was in Philipi preaching the word a woman Lydia heard what he said and believed the word of the Lord. The action of believing was hers—she believed.

But look what the text says. Acts 16:14:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

Although her actions were her own—she listened—God had distinct responsibility in her believing. That can’t be ignored.

In circles of people with extremely charismatic language, I often hear people say things things like, “The Lord is telling me…” or “I feel like the Lord is saying…”. Whether I agree with that or not is not so much in discussion right now. But what is actually said is.

Before Jesus’ death, he told his disciples that his death was necessary that the Holy Spirit would come. He explained the Spirit’s function in John 16:14:

“When the Spirit of truth comes…[v14] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

When the Spirit of God speaks to us, it is about Jesus; of Jesus. It is about God’s Word. The Spirit will not speak to us about things that aren’t taught to us from God’s word. This is why the Puritans understood that the modern gift of prophecy is when a person, usually a teacher, is given insight and understanding of God’s word.

You might not agree with that last paragraph, and that’s alright.

What bothers me is when people use the concept of the Spirit’s speaking to a believer as a means to make a point, or convince hearers of their opinions or personal beliefs.

For example, If you’ve dated within the Church, you’ve probably heard something like, “God is telling me I need to be single.” Or maybe you’ve just heard of people saying that kind of thing. In charismatic worship settings (which I tend to enjoy, by the way), you might’ve heard someone say something like, “The Spirit is telling us we need to lift our hands,” or “The Spirit wants us repent of [fill in the blank].”

I strongly believe this language is an abuse of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Well, at least about 90% of the time anyway.

When the Spirit speaks, it is to glorify Jesus—namely in the Word of God. It is more sound to say, “God’s Word says [fill in the blank]—I believe we are guilty of this, and should repent.” If this message is truly from the Spirit, this language will still cut people’s conscience and lead to repentance. And if it doesn’t, either people’s hearts are hard or else the Spirit wasn’t highlighting that issue in specific.

Or, perhaps, “I have been reading the word of God and praying and I feel that I need to be single for some time.”

When the Spirit speaks, it is from God’s word, which is about Jesus, of Jesus. And the language chosen is important. There are at least two major dangers in speaking with this kind of hyper-spiritual language.

1. Human beings are a complicated mess of flesh and emotion and ideas. Unless the the word being spoken can be thoroughly confirmed by God’s written word, it can only truly be spoken with some marginal level of confidence. Anything more than that is probably a confidence conjured from elsewhere inside us. Speaking with such presumption is clearly dangerous. Prophets of the old testament who prophesy falsely were to be put to death. That’s not the case today, but the principal stands. Speaking for God when God may not be speaking is big deal.

2. Human beings are also rational, intellectual creatures. These are gifts given to us by God. And, we have a thorough and complete written Word from God. When language such as “God is saying…” is used, it effectively closes the door to disagreement and rational discussion. It makes it impossible for “iron to sharpen iron”.

It is wisdom that we would use our language carefully when talking about the Spirit’s speaking to us and to our congregation. When the Spirit speaks, he is teaching what he has already said in God’s Word to the church.

We should be so hasty as to assume the Spirit is saying what we might think he’s saying but be confident that if he is speaking, it will be heard even if we don’t use such confident language.

After a long weekend of shooting weddings, I came to the end of the day, exhausted, and realized that I hadn’t written a post yet, nor did I have too much inspiration to do so. So, I cracked open my copy of A Puritan Golden Treasury. A collection of brief quotations from famous puritan authors on all sorts of topics.

I read through a few of them before I stumbled on one that I really very much liked. Thomas Watson writes this:

“That which the saints scarce take notice of in themselves, God in a special manner observes. "I was hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink. Then shall the righteous say, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered and fed thee?” (Matt 25:35). They as it were overlooked and disclaimed their own works of charity, but Christ takes notice of them.”

I thought this was an interesting perspective.

Christians are well accustomed to debasing themselves. After all, we are sinners, and indeed there isn’t a drop of blood in our veins deserving of God’s love, although he gives it anyway.

But, I think this often bleeds beyond its limits and we forget that God’s Holy Spirit dwells in us. A fact that implies that we will do good things. And, although we may fail to see that good God is working in us, we can be sure that Jesus is taking very particular note of it.

I find that to be encouraging.

Charles Spurgeon says in All of Grace":

“It would be a very wonderful thing if one could stand at the foot of the Niagara Falls, and could speak a word which should make the river Niagara begin to run up stream, and leap up that great precipice over which it now rolls in stupendous force. Nothing but the power of God could achieve that marvel; but that would be more than a fit parallel to what would take place if the course of your nature were altogether reversed.”

We easily and often forget that sanctification is not our duty. In fact, we don’t really have the capacity to change our hearts at all—the necessary condition of real sanctification. Rather, it’s God’s work in the Holy Spirit.

No more could someone stand at the foot of the Niagara Falls and will the water to go back up, could a man stand in a mirror and will himself into a sanctified state.

I suppose in most ways, that’s a pretty encouraging reminder.

Isaiah 55:10-11:

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
   and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

What more encouraging call to faithful evangelism is there than that? When the word of God goes out from us, it will have God’s intended affect on whomever it falls on. That should inspire confidence and humility in our speaking.

God is the revealer, Jesus is the savior, the Holy Spirit is the agent and we are the vessels. His purpose is never thwarted. Fantastic.

I can’t remember where I first saw this video. I imagine I was probably directed to it by a friend. I don’t expect most of you will make all the way it through this video, it’s about 30 minutes long. But, if you will, I think you’ll be moved—probably to emotion, but hopefully to prayer.

Admittedly, this video is not so much contemporary as much as it is kind of cheesy in its production. But, the preachers are speaking of true, God breathed, prayer charged, revival. Something we should all be hoping and praying for.

It’s worth watching.

Consider the lyrics to this Shane & Shane song from their recent album Pages. The song is entitled Embracing Accusation:

Father of lies, coming to steal kill and destroy
All my hopes of being good enough
I hear him saying, cursed are the ones who can´t abide
He´s right, hallelujah, he’s right

The devil is preaching the song of the redeemed
That I am cursed and gone astray
I cannot gain salvation
Embracing accusation

Could the father of lies be telling the truth of
God to me tonight?
That if the penalty of sin is death, then death is mine
I hear him saying, cursed are the ones who can´t abide

The devil´s singing over me an age old song
That I am cursed and gone astray
Singing the first verse so conveniently over me
He´s forgotten the refrain:

Jesus saves.

This song has been a deep encouragement to me and many that I know. I recommend that you listen to the song and ponder it’s meaning. Then, praise God for grace that cannot be shaken so easily as our trust in him is. Praise God that we do not save ourselves, that we were not merely given the tools to do the job, but that Jesus actually saves. This is incredible beyond reason.

Praise Jesus for loving me even when I couldn’t love him back. Praise Jesus for loving me when, even if I could, I would not have loved him back. Praise Jesus for coming at just the right time, while I was still a sinner, and dying for me in order to bring me back, perfect, to the father. Besides all of the devils schemes and attempts to accuse me into death, Jesus actually saves. Jesus actually saved me, and in doing so there isn’t anything that the devil, men, angels, me or even God can do to change that. Praise God, praise Jesus, praise the Holy Spirit.