trojan horse

      Most of us are familiar with the story of ancient Greece, when the army of Greece besieged the city of Troy.   Failing to win the war by typical methods, the Greeks constructed a giant wooden horse and hid a large group of soldiers within it.  The rest of the Greek army sailed away and seemingly left the horse as a departing gift to the resilient Trojans.  However, when the Trojans brought the horse inside the gates, the Greek soldiers were able to come out under cover of darkness and defeat the army of Troy from within their walls.

     Today I believe that a similar strategy is being used to deceive the church by what is being presented as the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but is in fact a tactic used by the enemy to usher in a whole array of false doctrines.   What is purported to be a gift, is actually a Trojan horse by which a whole host of false doctrines are destroying the church.

     So what exactly is the ministry of the Holy Spirit?  Well, to start with we must understand that He is God. Deuteronomy 6:4 says, "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!”  Yet we also believe in the doctrine of the trinity.  And the trinity is a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend with our natural minds.  But maybe the trinity can be explained somewhat by realizing that Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of God in the spirit.  The flesh is visible, and the spirit is invisible.  So Jesus is the manifestation of God in the flesh, visible to man.  And the Spirit is the manifestation of God in the Spirit, invisible to man.  Yet there is one God.  The Bible is filled with the attributes  and characteristics of God.  However there are three manifestations of God; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

     Phillip said, “Lord, show us the Father.”  And Jesus  said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. (John 14:9,10)  That unity is how Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)  So Jesus is the physical manifestation of God.

     And God in the flesh is the same God that is in the Spirit, though His manifestation is different – invisible as opposed to visible.  The ministry of Jesus was so that we might know God, so is the ministry of the Spirit is that we may know God.  Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will testify of Him. "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.  He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  (John 16:13,14)

     So if Jesus is not speaking of His own initiative but speaking the words of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not speaking on His own initiative but disclosing the words of Jesus, and everything Jesus does is glorifying the Father and everything that the Spirit does is glorifying Jesus, then you have one God, with one message, and one Word, presented in three dimensions, but all unified in delivery.  There will not be some variant, weird thing over here that is contrary to the nature of Jesus.  Just because something is bizarre and freaky is no indication that it is of the Spirit.  He has the same nature as Jesus.  What we saw lived out in the life of Christ is what we should expect to see the Spirit living out in our life.

      See, that is it in a nutshell.  As God lived in Jesus as God in the flesh, so the Spirit lives in us as God in the flesh.  As Jesus lived to do the will of the Father, so we have the Spirit living in us that we might do the will of the Father.  This is called sanctification.  And this is where the rubber meets the road in the Christian life. 

     But the devil would love to substitute a fleshly experience for a true spiritual experience.  However if you understand what constitutes matters of the flesh and what constitutes matters of the Spirit, then you should be able to start to recognize the difference. And if you want to know what the ministry of the Holy Spirit looks like, then simply ask yourself what was Jesus doing?  And if you can’t find any record of Jesus doing it in all four gospels then you can probably bet it’s not of God. 

     1Tim. 4:1 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.”

                                           ******SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT******

Every night this week, Monday May 28 through Saturday June 2, we are doing the Jericho March around Bethany Beach, praying for the destruction of fortresses.  I encourage you to join us at 7pm in the Ocean View Parkway parking lot (Wednesday it will follow Bible study). 2Cr 10:3,4  “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

worship at the beach

      Imagine a crowded seashore in the heat of the summer and Jesus walking down across the sand dunes to the multitude gathered on the beach.  And as the crowd turns expectantly to see Jesus, He announces that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand and that He is here to declare the way to enter into the Kingdom.
     The expectant crowd draws closer in anticipation.  Jesus then announces in a loud voice that He wants all the good people to gather together on the north end of the beach, and all the sinners to go down to the south end.  Immediately, there is a great commotion as people start moving, and jockeying for position, hurrying to take their  place on the north end.  Some stand uncertainly, watching to see which way their friends go.  But when they notice that their friends are moving to the “good” end of the beach, they feel that certainly, they must be as good as their friends are, and so they move off to the north end as well.  The “good” side quickly becomes packed.
     Meanwhile, only a few downcast, sorry looking individuals move slowly down to the south end.  They huddle together with their heads down in a small group, embarrassed and ashamed, but knowing that there is no way that they can claim to be good enough to go to the good side.
     Once the crowd has separated, Jesus walks over to the good end of the beach and dismisses all the multitude on the north end.  He says they are not able to enter the Kingdom because of their self righteousness.  Surprised and indignant, the multitude begins to move away, grumbling and complaining.
     Jesus then turns His attention to the few despondent people on the south end - the sinner’s beach.  And He says to them, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:32)   “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.” (Isa.61:1)
     Jesus said, “I came to live the perfect life that you could never live, and pay the ultimate sacrifice that you could never pay so that you might be reconciled to God, that sinners might be made holy and righteous by God as a gift of His grace.  ‘If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.’” (Rom. 10:9,10)  And having been justified by faith in Christ’s atonement,  “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  (Rom. 8:1)   Furthermore, He said, whereas before you were powerless in your captivity to sin,  now that you have been made holy by Christ’s sacrifice, God will give you His Spirit to live in you, that you might have power over sin, to live in sin no more.
      Now that “Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom. 8:10,11)
     The Savior then announces to this small group, whose faces are  now shining in hope, their consciences washed clean by faith in God’s forgiveness,  that “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own. For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  (1 Cor. 6:19,20)
     Before leaving them, Jesus gives them this final word. “Now that you have been delivered from sin, justified, made righteous and holy before God by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for your sins,  ‘I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.’” (Rom. 12:1,2)

                              ***SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT***

This Wednesday, 5/16/12, we will be having a cookout at the Savages house.  Dinner is at 6pm followed by a short Bible study.  Please plan on joining us for a fun night of fellowship.  The Savages live on Central Ave., just past Bear Trap on the right side, about 4 houses past Burbage Road.  33476 Central Ave.  Frankford, DE 19945.