The Holy Spirit in Our House II - Anointed For the Kingdom

Outlines. Today, as you're receiving these, as in anything you get handed while you're sitting in fellowship, the temptation is to read that for the rest of the time. Now, I can ask this nicely once, and then I'll ask you as firmly as I can. The outlines are given for you to take home with you and to enlarge upon the teaching. You'll find as you read through them, that the teaching follows them, but not word for word and letter for letter. And there's a lot more on this sheet than you're going to hear this morning, or we'd be here till 3 instead of 2. Not many people are smiling. A week ago, let me say, two weeks ago, We began the series. Now, let me just jump in here and say that if you have a. There should be. How many did we make, John? Approximately. Okay. There may be need for some of you to double up. If you're with your husband or wife, just take one per family. And if there's someone around you who doesn't have one, otherwise you may all take what you need there. Okay, we are ready on the tape, Gene. Okay. Two weeks ago, I started a series of teachings on the Holy Spirit. And I won't preface all that over again. If you need that tape. By the way, if you're visiting, we have tape ministry that is available on a library basis. Or if you'd like to buy tapes, we can arrange that as well. And then last week we were away, my wife and I and about 20 some folks from Northway went down to the second theotherapy conference in our area, second or third. And I'll tell you, I. I felt exactly as Ray did. It was traumatic to miss a week. And not because I was afraid that things weren't getting done. It was because I just wanted to be there just so I wouldn't miss out on anything. And from what I understand, Brother Barry made sure that you didn't miss out on much, right? Hallelujah. He's a man of God. And I know that you appreciated his teaching. And. It's wonderful for me to know that the Holy Spirit moves here regardless of who God sends to bring the Word and so forth. And I just appreciate it. And by the way, don't you appreciate just how our music ministry is growing and the gifts there? Let's just thank the Lord for that, too. Just keep praying that we hear the Lord and go his directions and his speed. We went to this theotherapy ministry conference down in West Virginia. And the essence of that ministry, really of theotherapy, is to address What I think is probably one of the most characteristic strategies of Satan that's afoot today. And that is the whole idea of Satan coming in and fracturing. Theotherapy speaks to the fracturing of the human personality. And anybody who spends much time dealing with people realize how deeply fractured so many people are. But it's not just in the matter of things as precious as the human soul. We see this fracturing taking place everywhere we look. Look at our homes, for example. Young people get fractured from their parents, don't communicate, and you have the seeds of agony through the teenage years. Husbands and wives are fractured, don't spend time together because of work and differing senses of what priorities are and so on. Even sexual activity gets separated from the marriage bed. And that creates a fracturing further of the personality. Men fracture themselves in their jobs and end up doing something. It doesn't really express them. It's something they have to do and spend 40 years doing what they have to do and not really what they want to do. And then women who are thrust out, and so Satan then builds on that, you see all that fracturing goes on, and you all see it in all parts of our lives. And I want to tell you, when it comes to the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, fracturing has been Satan's favorite and most used weapon. I'll never forget some of the first meetings that I went to where people were opening to the flow of the Holy Spirit's life. And I remember my impression, I think we were out in the west coast at that time, going to school. And we sat in this meeting room, it was actually a living room, and There was probably 25 or 30 people there. And a message came forth in tongues. And these people were just beginning to know what that meant. And it was almost as if somebody had plugged this all into a wall socket. There's this electricity and there's this chill. You know, your fingertips get a little cold, and you wonder what. Then you wait for the silence at who's going to interpret? And you hear the pages of the Bible. It says, hear interpretation, and there's this hush and it's electric and it's almost frightening in a way. And you wonder, am I going to be abducted tonight? Taken off with these? All these things go through your mind and it gets to be strange. But then I realized, the more I moved around in these circles where these things took place, that integration was the key to understanding. And if Satan can take the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and separate them from the flow of the life in the kingdom of God, then he will have his foot in the door to plant fear and doubt in you and to prevent you and me from rising into the fullness of the walk that the Lord calls us into. God never intended for the baptism of the Holy Spirit to be something that we examined off to the side on its own merits. He never intended for it to be something that only a few people were aware of and moved in. The gospels are absolutely firm on the truth that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. If you've got to throw that out of the Bible, then you've got to throw out everything else that you don't like. You might as well. It's there. It's clear. You have to distort the true, simple meaning of the word to come up with anything else. And, you know, another illustration that came to my mind was when I was growing up, cars were always, and I guess still are, a big part of the growth process. And round about the time that I was coming out of high school, engines were the big thing. It was horsepower that counted. And when a guy pulled up in a car, it didn't matter a whole lot what the body looked like as long as the engine was really running right. And if there was a scoop on the top and you heard the purr and you sense the power, it could be a bum and every other facet. But if the engine was good, that baby was right. And people that I knew at that time spent a lot of time playing around with engines and focused a lot of their attention on the engines and just making sure that that horsepower got to the ground and the car took off. But you see, the purpose of a car isn't just to have an engine. And we realize that we are to evaluate how functional and how valuable a car is on the total package. Right? It was just immaturity that made me focus on the engines. And it's so much the same way with the Holy Spirit. If we come and evaluate everything based on just how that engine is, and the Holy Spirit is the power source, some of us are really praying that we're going to have a 454 Holy Spirit in us. We don't really care a whole lot about the rest of the car, But God wants to integrate. Now, I realize it's sort of a tacky illustration, but it gets the point across, is that God cares about the whole car, the body of the car and the body of his church, and he cares that the power is carrying the whole car along. And I want to tell you something, beloved. I'm not into spending a lot of time getting this engine revved up here today. I just want the body, the whole body to move along with power. Are you in agreement with that? And that's what the Lord wants us to be after. Now, the key to beginning to understand the integration of this thing is to see the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And in forthcoming weeks I'm going to talk about the technicalities of the Greek language on this, is to see it in the context of the kingdom of God. Essentially all of the Christian life is discovering what it means to live in the kingdom of God. On your sheets. I make a lot of references to that. I want you to turn with me in your Bible just to get a beginning point. Turn to Matthew, chapter three. John in chapter three, beginning in verse one says this. Yeah, John said it though it's in Matthew. There's a good illustration where we're both right, huh? Hallelujah. Remember that next time you're about to land on somebody. Matthew, chapter three. John said, okay. In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, or kingdom of God, where it appears many other times. And those references there I mentioned, the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same term. One was the Jewish expression because they never wanted to say God. And if you look in the other gospels, like in Luke, it always says kingdom of God instead of kingdom of heaven. Alright? And Jesus talks freely. This the central message. Get this. The central message of the New Testament is the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is at hand. And that's what Jesus came to tell us. That's what he came to enforce by his life and his death and his resurrection. Now, where darkness had once ruled the darkness of Satanic power, the kingdom of heaven came. Now, I made a rough overhead here that Paul put up for us. The kingdom of darkness refers to the rule of Satan and the fallen angels over this earth. Now, if you study the New Testament carefully, God is in control of everything. But Satan has taken or been allowed to have taken control of this realm. And he operates his power in this realm. I'll tell you something. The more you study, the more you realize that Satan has control over the wealth of the world. He has control over who gets the praise and who gets the glory and all this kind of stuff. And he uses it against people. But Jesus Christ invaded that darkness with his kingdom, the kingdom of God. And I made purposely an overlap here, because you see where the battle is being worked out, beloved, is right in here. This is where the darkness is still fighting against the light. This is where the victory that Jesus won by his death and resurrection has yet to be worked out. This is where you and I find our struggles. We're in here, beloved. We are still encircled by the kingdom, but we're battling. This is the old nature and the new nature, whatever you want to refer to in terms of the analogies in the scripture, it's all encompassed by that. Now, this kingdom that Jesus brought is a glorious kingdom. And we know that it's an eternal kingdom. We know it's a kingdom of light and power. We know that it's his rule and his reign in our lives. And it's because we're in that kingdom that we're going to live eternally. But we also know from studying the Scriptures that that kingdom has not been fully manifested. When will it be fully manifested? The Second Coming, When Jesus comes back again, Then what we know in the Spirit, we will see in the flesh. Most of us are following the Falkland crisis these days. I thought that was a pretty apt analogy of what the kingdom of God is like. You see, the British controlled the islands and they let the Argentines wrench control from them. And so now the kingdom of darkness, to use the analogy, controls the Falklands. But Britain has sent forth their redeeming armada, who now stands at the perimeter of the islands. And the kingdom, the United Kingdom, stands there and in fact, has begun to infiltrate. You see, they are about to exercise the rule that they have claimed that they've always had. And the people around the islands, if they weren't sure a while ago, they're going to be sure that they have the rule, and however that works itself out. You see the analogy. People say, I don't see the kingdom of God. I don't know what you're talking about. But you see, the kingdom of God is at hand. It's a spiritual kingdom. All of this is taking place in the top circle that Grant referred to a few weeks back, the realm of the Spirit, okay? And so it's into this realm that we begin to deal with what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is about. Now turn over to Acts one, where we'll be spending our time. Acts 1. Now, just to show you that Jesus understood the questions of the disciples I referred to this last time, I want you to see with me, pick up in verse Four. And while staying with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Did you say that last phrase? Baptized with the Holy Spirit. Say it again. Baptized with the Holy Spirit. So when they had come together, they asked him, lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? What were they thinking about? Were they thinking about the spiritual kingdom? No, they were speaking about the physical. I don't need to wave this thing around. The physical kingdom. They were thinking about the fact that the Romans ruled their lives and they wanted the kingdom rule of God to be physical and manifested. Political. That's what they wanted. And Jesus understands what they're asking, and he answers them this. You think Jesus understood their question? Jesus never said. Would you repeat the question? He never had that problem. He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses. And in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Jesus responded to their question about rulership by talking to them about what the giving of the Holy Spirit and power. You see, Jesus knew that to reign meant to reign in the kingdom of God. And to do that you needed to be enabled. And the enablement was the Holy Spirit. Now I'll reign in the kingdom. I said this two weeks ago, and I don't think everyone really fully received it. But in this kingdom of God, how many kings are there? Right? There's a king of kings. So what's that make us? We're all kings. Beloved. You didn't get it last time. In the kingdom of God, we're all kings. And Jesus is called what? The King of kings. Now you need to grab a hold of that, because if you don't believe that you're a king, then you won't believe that you have authority. And if you don't believe that you have authority, then you're not going to be able to function as Jesus desires you to function. Revelation 1:5. It's all in your outline. You can study it on your own. We're called a kingdom. Priests. And I said to you to tell someone that you were king somewhat. One person said, I'm Bob King. It's an unfair advantage. But actually we're talking about a higher king than any earthly king and a higher power than Any earthly king manifests, you know, 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are, what, Ambassadors. What's an ambassador? A person in another country who's been given the authority of the country he represents. We're ambassadors in this kingdom of darkness right here. This is where we dwell with our authority. And so we're affecting darkness with our authority as ambassadors, as kings that Jesus has placed there. And I want to say that. That somehow that isn't happening. Is it somehow when we go to exercise the authority, we lack the confidence? What's one of the symbols that there is authority being exercised? What's one of the things that happened all through Jesus ministry that proved that this kingdom was greater than this one? Miracles. Dunamis. Power. Evidence. Evidence that the kingdom that Jesus Christ established was greater than the kingdom of darkness. And you read in Colossians 1:13 that he has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son. That's what redemption is, beloved. Being transferred. How do you get into this kingdom? You're born into it. John 3. You're born into it. That's the born again experience. You're not born into this kingdom and then somehow get a ticket. You're born into this one. It's the only way in born again. The Scriptures are just so consistent. If you know how to study through a theme, it's all there. It's so consistent. Now, here's the question I have for you. Why then are there many of us living in this kingdom who are not seeing the rule or the exercise of this power? Because, beloved, and this is beautiful, God in his Scriptures, always anointed his kings. Keep your spot there in Acts and Turn back to First Samuel, chapter 10. All the way back in the Old Testament, First Samuel, chapter 10. Here is the first king of Israel, which the people insisted on having. And I want you to see this. Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head, that's the head of Saul, and kissed him and said, has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people, Israel? In the Old Testament, anointing, anointing with oil was always the symbol of God transferring his authority to that specific person. And how many of you know that that anointing stayed with that person despite whatever they did? What happened to Saul in his later years? He disobeyed God and he brought just great havoc upon the people of God. And yet David, when he had chanced to kill Saul, said, what? How dare I raise my sword against the Lord's Anointed. The anointing was sacred. To anoint means to be set aside for sacred use, to be holy, to be specially given to the purposes of God. Prophets were anointed. And what other group of people in the Old Testament? Priests. Prophets, Priests and kings always were anointed. What does Jesus Christ say? That we are in the New Testament, Prophets, priests and kings. Who is the King of kings? Who was, according to Hebrews Chapter one, the ultimate prophet? And who is our high priest? Jesus. Now, beloved, there's something beautiful here in the Hebrew. I don't have it on the overhead, but the Hebrew word for anointing is the word Mashach M A S H A C H. That is on your outline. Look at it right in the middle, if you have your outline there. And that word in Hebrew is transliterated into English. Messiah. Messiah. And the Greek word for anointing is. Chrisma C H R I S M A From which we get the word Christos. Which is who? Christ. So you see, when you say Jesus Christ, you are saying Jesus, the anointed one. Jesus the anointed one. And so God is consistent. You see, in the Old Testament, he anointed his kings. He follows it through. And there's other illustrations in your outline. And in the New Testament, Jesus came as the King of Kings. And so he received the anointing of the King of Kings. Now, put a mark or something in that Samuel, chapter 10, so we can come back to it in a moment and look at this. I want you to see this in the Scriptures in Acts chapter 10, because it is a scripture that's sort of obscure and you may miss it. Acts, Chapter 10. Here's what the Word says. This is Peter speaking about Jesus to Cornelius. You know, verse 36, the word which he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. The Word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached. That's important. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. And how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. When did the anointing come on? Jesus at the baptism of John that you'll read about in Matthew chapter three. Beloved, it's so clear in the Scriptures, you've got to distort it to find anything else. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit from when? Right from conception. But he was anointed by the Holy Spirit when he walked into those waters in obedience. And you need to see. Those who think that there's only one thing that happens to you in your Christian life are absolutely denying the entire flow of the Scriptures. They may have their theology all worked out, but their life isn't going to evidence the power that Jesus has demonstrated for us. He was anointed. You read about it later in Matthew, chapter three. And so Jesus fulfilled the kingship that the Father had given to him under the anointing that the Father had given to him. Now, beloved, do you think it's any mistake that in Acts, the 11th chapter, Christians are. Believers are called by their. Their name, which is Christians, and Christians in the Greek, then is what? Little Christs. Which is another way of saying little anointed ones. Not little Jesuses. No, little anointed ones, Little Christs. See, Jesus means savior. We're not little saviors. It's important you don't confuse those two. Right? That's a complex, folks. But we are little Christs. Hallelujah. Little anointed ones under the King of Kings. You see how it's all there? It's just never been unfolded. God was consistent in showing his way. And beloved, no matter how sincere you are, and you study the Word and you do the faithful things, you're diligent in your quiet times. No matter how much you try to love people and serve them and do all these things, if you don't have the anointing of God for your ministry, you'll never walk in the fullness. You'll never walk in the flow of life. You'll never see the miracles. You'll never come into power to be witnesses that God has called you to be until you move in the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now, who is it that baptizes us in the Holy Spirit? It's Jesus. Jesus is the baptizer in the Holy Spirit. And it's as if, beloved, if you can picture it, just as God reached down and anointed Jesus, and just as Samuel reached and anointed Saul with the oil, by the way, which is symbolic of the Holy Spirit, right? So Jesus from his throne of exaltation at the right hand of the Father, because of that exaltation, the Bible teaches, reaches out and pours the Holy Spirit over us. And you just might want to say hallelujah there. It's true. And you can labor any way you want to get around that. But that is the consistent word all through the Scripture, the anointing of Jesus to live the life that he calls us to. Now, beloved, there's no guarantee that this anointing is going to make you a perfect saint. What happened to Saul? He really fell into sin. He made a mess of his rulership and of his life. And beloved, I know that people say, well, I know people who speak in tongues whose life really isn't very consistent. They're not very loving, they're not very nice. They're not the kind of Christian I really would like to be. And I want to ask you, does that invalidate what the Bible says about the absolute, essential nature of this anointing? No, it doesn't. The baptism in the Holy Spirit does not lift you out of the capacity to sin, but it does empower you to be able to resist it. And though we may fail as those who are anointed by Jesus to live this ministry, beloved, the power is there to rise up and move again. And don't disqualify this anointing because you feel like, you know, people have blown it. If you take that as the basis, you might as well be consistent and say, I won't be a Christian either, because I have no Christians at the born again level who don't really act like Christians. It's the same old hypocrisy story. Listen, counterfeits don't disqualify the real thing, right? Just because there's counterfeit money out there doesn't mean I'm going to stop spending mine. And just because there's people who haven't been able to live in the full life of the anointing, don't turn your back on it because you don't understand that. Now, what does this anointing enable us to do in the kingdom? Praise the Lord. The first thing that it gives us. And this is a broad thing, and it's hard for me to say it in a sentence, but it vitalizes your whole relationship with God. It puts you into a new dynamic of love with the Lord Jesus. Many people have called it the baptism of love. I want you to see something now. Ready? If you put your finger in Samuel, you'll probably need a transfusion by now, but turn back there first. Samuel 10. I want you to see what happened again, to see the consistency of God. We're going to cut out a little bit of this and I want you to look down with me in verse nine. When he, I.e. saul, turned his back to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart. And all these signs came to pass that day. Beloved, the baptism of the Holy Spirit breathes life into your heart toward the Lord. It's what Caused those early disciples in Acts chapter two to do what? To glorify the Lord. Remember that. That's what they spoke in those tongues. They didn't speak prayers and petitions. They spoke what? Praise unto the Lord and people. There are people here today would stand and tell you that when they received the fullness of the Holy Spirit in their life, their praise began to flow and their love for God began to be unbounded. And this part of the anointing. Now let's get down to something that's maybe a little more. No one would disagree. No, I don't want to love God more. Alright, but let's go on a little bit and see something else here in Samuel's life. Now look at this. Verse 10. And when they came to Gibeah, behold, a band of prophets met him. And the Spirit of God came mightily upon him. Here's the God unctioning what had been anointed. And then he what say the word? Prophesied among them. Isn't it interesting? Now turn over to Acts, chapter two. I hope you don't mind jumping around, but I want you to see it because sometimes you hear it and it doesn't register. Chapter 2, verse 1. And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind. And it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributed and resting on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And then he goes through and describes what that is. And look at verse 11. Cretans and Arabians were hearing them, telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? That's a question that's been asked so many times in this day. What does this mean? You see, when the Holy Spirit came upon him, even Saul and his. And this is typology, this is the Old Testament, foreshadowing the New and the Old Testament type. What did Saul do? He prophesied. Now I looked up that word in the Hebrew, and it means to speak forth the things of God and even speak them ecstatically. So it's talking about, I believe Saul did the exact same things that these early disciples did. He spoke forth the Word and he received by virtue of his special call as king, the same anointing that we received by virtue of our special Call as kings under the Lord Jesus. It's consistent. First Corinthians 14 enlarges this. And you read that carefully in your notes. You see, God gives us this language of prayer, this language of praise that we can utter mysteries to Him. And I ought to really do a whole morning or evening teaching, perhaps on the value of your prayer language and why it's an important part. You see, beloved, in this kingdom you leave the things that comprise the old kingdom. The lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, the things that drive you. And you take on a new set of values, a new power, a new language. Speaking in tongues. Beloved is simply the language that God gives for communication in the kingdom. Do you see that? It's integrated. When you stick it off on its own, it sounds strange and it makes everyone uncomfortable. But when you see it as part of the way that God's enabled you to speak to him, it becomes desirable, doesn't it? There's a new economic in the kingdom of heaven and all these other things which we can look at. But do you see what I'm saying? We're integrating. We're seeing that God has prepared and equipped his people to live in this realm. The baptism of the Holy Spirit and the evidences of the Holy Spirit are all part of that. Now I've mentioned a couple other in your outline. I'll just highlight them. There's the release in the prayer language that I just mentioned. There's the enduement for power in Acts chapter one. I remember I said, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. Let me say it again. You shall receive power. And that word was what? Dunamis, which is the word for what? No, that's the word we've taken from it. Miracles. Dynamites just are a cute way of thinking of about the power. It's a carryover, miracles. This is what happens. And then you receive an openness to the flow of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. People will say, well, I know that my gift is serving. And somehow they seem to think that that's all that God wants for them. And they just close themselves off to the possibility that God wants them to prophesy, that God wants them to speak a word of knowledge, that God wants them to have a healing ministry. And it's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's the fullness of the Holy Spirit that opens that channel. It doesn't end it, it opens it. Mark this down somewhere. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not an end, it's a beginning. It's not a goal, it's a gateway. Alright, the other day I was with a brother. I won't name him today, but he's here. And God opened his life to this anointing over the past weekend. And he came and he shared at the prayer meeting on Tuesday morning how great his Monday had been. Because for the first time in his life he was able to look at other people and to love them for being other people and to pray for them as people who had needs and not to judge them and to evaluate them, to criticize them. And it was this fullness, you see, it was this anointing of love that enabled him to do that. And I might want to say in conclusion this morning then, but the other reason why the Holy Spirit is given is something that people overlook and that is rather than, you see in the mind of God. This baptism was never meant to divide us. It was never meant to say, you're a have bill and you're a have not. Joanne. It was never meant to say that. Well, we've got the Pentecostals who believe in that and we've got some other group that doesn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. What does the Bible always seem to link with unity in the New Testament? Unity of the word, of the Spirit. Because beloved, the only way we'll ever really know unity is in this realm. We'll never know it up here. Some of you are too smart, some of us are too slow. But beloved, regardless of our intellect, we can be one in spirit. Ephesians 4, 3, preserving the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. You see the baptism of the Spirit. Well look at the end of Acts chapter two. Would you turn there in conclusion, Verse 43. This is Pentecost, right after it. And fear came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. You don't do that by legislation, beloved, or because you can quote the same verse. They sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all as any had need. And then turn over two pages to Acts chapter four. And this is right after the Holy Spirit had refilled. And you see the baptism. We'll talk about this in our third or fourth week is an ongoing flow of life. Look at this verse 32. And now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul. And there is no way that you can legislate that. I've been in enough ministeriums to know that the Pastors can't do it. You can't legislate unity. And there's no way, if the pastors can't, that the people will. But why was the charismatic movement that rushed across the scene in the early 70s so powerful and uniting Lutherans and Methodists and Catholics and Pentecostals and everyone else? Why? Bec