I do wonder whether any of you have difficulty hearing at the back. Is it clear enough? Last Sunday, in Hong Kong, I was speaking about the whole matter of the man of God. We were considering the question: why is it that there are so few men of God? How many people do you know, in fact, if you know any, that you would say, here is a man of God?
Now, if you find it hard to think of anyone whom you could properly call a man of God, that's no great problem, because in the Bible there are very few who are rightly called men of God too. Very, very few. When I look through the list in the scriptures, the Bible explicitly speaks of very few people by this title. I see, for example, in Deuteronomy chapter 3 and verse 1, that Moses is called a man of God. In 1 Chronicles 2, Elijah and Elisha are frequently called men of God, in 2 Kings especially. David is also called a man of God in 2 Chronicles 8:14. But there are very few. If you go through, we have pretty close, nearly exhausted the list.
But to our comfort, as I mentioned also in Hong Kong, at least there are one or two men of God who are not as famous as people like Moses and David. And it's a comfort that you don't have to be that famous in order to be a man of God. There is, in 1 Kings chapter 12, verse 22, somebody called Shemaiah, who is also called a man of God. And in Jeremiah 35, verse 4, there is someone called Igdaliah. And I'm sure neither of them, if we had a Bible quiz, you would have known their names, who they were. They are only mentioned once, very briefly, in this connection as a man of God.
In the New Testament, Paul addresses Timothy as a man of God. "And you, man of God," he says, "shun these things," in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 11. Shun the world, its riches, its attractions, and so forth. And we will look into this more fully. In another passage, in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 17, he says that the word of God equips the man of God fully.
Now, what is a man of God? This rare person that from time to time occurs in the pages of the Bible. Very rare in the history of men. I wonder why they should be so rare. What do you think? Why should a man of God be so rare? Is it that difficult to be a man of God? I suppose the answer would be yes, if only because of its rarity. But why is it so difficult?
Now, man, as the Bible speaks of the constitution of man, is composed of a body and of a spirit, basically. Sometimes also spoken of as a soul, if you like. That you have a body is quite obvious to you. That you have a spirit is not entirely obvious to a lot of people. That you have a mind is clear. Whether it's connected to the body or to the spirit is also not very clear to many people. Now, most people know something about functioning with the body, and to some extent also with the mind. But how many of you would know how to function with the spirit? I fear probably very few.
I was also sharing in Hong Kong that on the way over to the east, on the flight from Honolulu to Manila, I got off at Manila to change for a flight to Hong Kong. And because I booked that flight very late, just before leaving Honolulu, in fact — because originally I thought of spending a few days in Manila, but then, as I waited on the Lord's leading, I scrapped that plan and decided to go straight on to Hong Kong, in order to get to Hong Kong before the weekend and have fellowship with the brothers and sisters there. And I didn't see I could accomplish very much for the Lord in two or three days in Manila.
So our flight arrived at six o'clock in the morning in Manila. And I could not get on to the morning flight, the connecting flight to Hong Kong. So I would have to wait till four o'clock in the afternoon. That meant I would have about ten hours in Manila. Well, virtually all the other passengers got on to the connecting flight to Hong Kong, except two of us: myself and an American lady from California, of about 65 years of age. And so the two of us were asked to stay together, because Philippine Airlines very kindly provided a hotel for us, even though only for ten hours. They sent us to a first-class hotel in Manila where we could rest and have some meals and then catch the flight at four o'clock.
And so the Lord works everything out in His wisdom. And in my walking with the Lord, I'm amazed how He always works things out according to His wisdom and His plan. People are always saying, things seem to always happen to you. When we go around, nothing happens. Well, you try walking with the Lord, and you find amazing things happening.
So you say, what's so amazing about an American lady of 65 from California? Well, this was one of the few people I have met in this generation who knew how to function with a spirit. I mean, with her own human spirit. Now, her background was that she went to a church as a teenager, some evangelical church in the United States. And she wanted to know the things of God, but when she went to church, she didn't get the things of God. She got the things of men, as so often happens. And she said to me, when I went to Sunday school, the Sunday school teacher was more interested to talk about cars than about the Lord. And after a time she got fed up of this, because I guess girls are not that interested in cars anyway. If it was a boy, he might have gotten a bit more fascinated with cars and forgot what the purpose of the Sunday school was for anyway. But she was not interested in these things, and she wanted to have something spiritual.
So she tried another church, and she got more of the same thing — not cars, but anyway, not spiritual things. So started a long search for the things that are eternal. I'm sad to say, she couldn't find the church in which she could get it. Isn't that a sad thing? Now, if you are not interested in spiritual things, if all you want is a church in which you have a social gathering and you can meet some friends and get to know some people, and you just have a short talk that hopefully will not wear you down too much — after all, you endured enough from five or six days of the working week, you don't go to church to be worn down with some heavy-going message. So let's keep it light, tell a few stories, let's get the Sunday service over with. And if that's the kind of church, of course, there are many churches that could meet your need in this way. But not for her. She wanted spiritual things which she couldn't find.
And so what she did was, she eventually went elsewhere, to people who talked about the spirit in terms of transcendental meditation, in terms of Eastern mysticism, which, as you know, became very popular in the West at one time. We had all these Indian holy men and teachers wandering around the world, teaching this and that, and attracting a lot of people who were fed up with churches who would not tell them about spiritual things, and they wanted spiritual things. Now it's fine for Christians to condemn all these Eastern religions and holy men, but what have we given the people that could meet the spiritual need of people? Now if people's spiritual needs are not being met, I don't blame them if they go to Eastern religions in the hope of finding something deeper than what they could get in the superficial teachings of some of our churches.
So this lady went to a kind of a church, a kind of a temple or whatever it's called, with all kinds of mixed religions in there. And what was she doing in Manila? Well, she was on her way via Hong Kong to Northern India, to Kashmir. And so I asked her, what are you doing in Northern India in Kashmir? She said, well, I'm looking for the great ones. The great ones? The great ones who can teach her about the life to come, about the spiritual world. For 25 years she had been pursuing along this path, trying to meet the emptiness of her spirit. And to some extent it was helping. It was helping. Now she had learned to some extent about how to function in the spirit.
And in my time with her in those few hours — we didn't spend all 10 hours together because I went for a tour around Manila to have a look at the place and she was too tired and she went to sleep — but while we were having meals and on the way to the plane, we had occasion to talk. And do you know that throughout that entire time we spent together, she never asked me a single question about who I am, what do I do. Not once. It seemed that she had learned to function in the spirit enough to know already without asking me. She already knew who I am and what I do.
By contrast, I asked her a lot of questions to see whether I could get her to understand her own motives and what direction she was going and whether she was really going in the right direction. One of the things she said to me as we went along, and she said, "You know, ever since I met you this morning, I have been under the guidance of God." I told you, she never asked me what I do. She doesn't know. She never even asked me whether I'm a Christian or not. She knew absolutely nothing about me. And yet she perceived that from the moment she met me, she was under the guidance of God.
Now, this sentence is very interesting, and I put her exact words: "I have been under the guidance of God ever since I met you this morning." This is the exact words she repeated to me twice on two occasions during that day. She did not simply say, "You are under the guidance of God." That would have been another perception. But that she herself was under the guidance of God since meeting me. In other words, the power of the Lord — not my power, His power — as working through me, which His power should be working through every Christian, had placed her under the power of God ever since that morning. Remarkable, isn't it?
Then she tried to exercise in her spirit, and she said, "Can I tell you something about yourself?" I said, go ahead. So she began to try to tell me something about myself. She could even tell me something about my wife. She could tell me that I had a daughter, a child, and all these things. That's why she didn't ask me any questions. She had already learned to function in the spirit enough to know a lot of things. Very interesting.
So I told her, "Why are you going to Kashmir once a year?" Because she goes every year, spending one month in Kashmir. I said, "What is your goal? What do you want to achieve from all of this? Okay, you want to learn something about spiritual things, but what is the overall purpose of all this?" Well, she said, "I know that this life is fast passing by. We live in this world for a few years and all will be finished. If you put your whole emphasis in this life alone, you've got nothing in the end. I mean, most of us spend years and years collecting knowledge and collecting degrees, and then we collect a job and we collect some money and we collect this and that and the other thing, and in the end, we leave this world empty-handed. Absolutely nothing."
As the Bible says, naked you came into this world, naked you will go out of this world. All the degrees you collect, all the money you collect, all the possessions you collect, even the children — everything. Nothing you can take with you. Nothing. Not one little coin as a souvenir. Now she had perceived this already, what life is about. If you live for the matter, for material things, for the flesh, you're going to end up with absolutely nothing. She perceived these things very clearly. So she said, "I want to prepare for the life to come. I want to understand what is that life to come." And she had come a long way in searching out spiritual things.
My heart went out to her. She was on the wrong track. But whose fault was it? It seemed to me it was our fault. It seemed to me that we as the Church of Christ were at fault. She did, after all, go to a church, but she didn't get what she was looking for. And most tragic of all, in spite of the fact that she knew a lot about spiritual things, and she could tell me a lot about spiritual things, she had already experienced the spiritual world. She told me, "There are three gates, three gates to the life to come, and I have gone through two of them. You can't go through the third. If you go through the third, you don't come back again." And she had visions in broad daylight of the spiritual world. She could somehow just sit there in broad daylight — she doesn't have to be in a trance or asleep or in a dream — and she could at once see spiritual things. How many Christians can do that?
Now, I have to say, none of this particularly interests me, because I'm not interested in gates that lead to the next life. I'm also not interested in trances and visions and the like. The difference between her and me, as I explained to the brothers and sisters in Hong Kong, lies in this: that I am interested in God. She too, I think, but she couldn't get through. So she had to settle for spiritual things other than God. You see, you cannot come to know the living God except through Christ. The Lord Jesus said so. And nobody has ever been able to prove that the Lord was wrong. In fact, everyone proved he was right.
You see, she spent 25 years in spiritual things, but not once could she tell me that she had ever come to know God. She could never come to know Jesus. She knows about Jesus. She even said that we are saved only on the basis of the death of Christ. And she is right. And when she said that, I said to her, "You sound to me like a very orthodox Christian." We are saved only through the death of Christ. But she doesn't know Jesus. That's the tragedy. To know that we are saved through the death of Christ, as every devil knows that. Even Satan knows that. But to know it is not to be saved. That's what I'm trying to share with you. You know that, but that doesn't make you a Christian. You believe it to be true. And many Christians think that because they believe that to be true, they are saved.
Now the Apostle James warned us that the devil believes that to be true. That's not going to save the devil. He knows it to be true. That's not going to save. So that's why it's so urgent to come to know: if I believe all this to be true, as this lady does too, yet I don't know Christ personally, can that save you? The answer is no. That is why I said there is the difference between her and me. She is left with trying to understand a lot of interesting things about the spiritual world. And they are very interesting and very fascinating. But interesting as they may be, I don't have time for that. I am interested in Christ.
Now she told me that she knows that Christ is the highest in the spiritual world. And when I asked her about these so-called great ones, she said, "Yes, and Jesus is the greatest of them all." She knows that too. And Satan knows that too. She doesn't know him. This is the problem. That's why Paul says, "To know him," in Philippians chapter 3. And the Apostle John says, "To know him is life eternal," as he says in 1 John chapter 5 and verse 20.
Now, that is why I say by way of introduction, there are very few men and very few women of God. And the reason — I gave the first reason — is that there are very few people who know how to function spiritually. Do you? As a Christian, you ought to know. As I'm going to show you in a few moments, that should have been lesson number one. But for most Christians, it never even arrives in their Christian life, if you can call it the Christian life. It never arrives. In the Bible, it is lesson number one. To be able to function by the Spirit, in the Spirit, is elementary. Like Sherlock Holmes: "Elementary, my dear Watson." Unfortunately, most Christians never got to the elementary.
And this is the reason why I say, even though the co-workers said, "Why not you preach next week only? Time is urgent." It is essential that we know how to become a child of God. Now, I spoke first of a man of God, being rare, because I would like to set a goal in front of you. I wish that we all could become men of God. And the reason I talk about men of God is because when I look in the Bible, I see that God's plan is that for every one of us, we can and ought to become a man and a woman of God. It is not an unattainable ideal. It is God's plan for each one of us. And it bothers me that even today, we have very few that we can call men of God. When I look through all the people I know, I would have trouble, even in all these years that I've been a Christian, to be able to say, "Now that is a man of God." I would have trouble finding someone I could dare to put that title "man of God" to.
Now we are all familiar with children of God. There are a lot of children of God around. In the Bible, there are sons of God and children of God. They seem to be quite common. In fact, so common that a lot of people are called by this name. For example, Adam is called the son of God in the New Testament. The angels are called sons of God. Israel is called the son of God. And virtually every Christian, if he is truly regenerate, is a son of God.
I guess, in order before we can become a man of God or a woman of God, we first have to start as a child of God. When I checked through the Bible concerning children of God, I was struck by the fact that the spiritual failure rate of the children of God is enough to make you perspire. It is terrifying. It seems that it comes to the point where I hardly dare to use the title "son of God" or "child of God." Everyone failed. Adam failed. The angels fell. Israel failed. And Christians failed. So that the only Son of God that I know of in the Bible that didn't fail is Jesus alone. He is the only one that didn't fail. All is a record of failure. Nothing but failure.
By contrast, when you look at the title "man of God," the failure rate is so low, which shows that child of God and man of God are in two spiritual classes. They are not in the same class, obviously. In fact, in the whole Bible I could find only one instance of a man of God who failed. That man of God — we don't even have his name. It's mentioned in Kings. And that man of God paid with his life for his failure. If every child of God paid with their life for their failure, I think as a group, most Christians would be wiped out.
The requirements of a man of God were so high, that this man of God — I think maybe some of you know the story of this man of God in Kings. But anyway, we won't spend a lot of time on it. 1 Kings chapter 13, verse 11 onwards, you can read it for yourself. 1 Kings chapter 13:11 onwards tells us about a man of God who went out to accomplish a certain mission for the Lord. And he was told that he must not eat and he must not drink in that place until he gets home. But he was put to the test along the way home, after finishing his job, by the way, so in terms of accomplishing his mission he was successful. And then another man of God, another prophet, met him and told him, "Oh, come to my house and have some food and have some drink." And the man of God said, "No, I cannot, because the Lord said to me that I may not stop to eat or to drink." And the other man said, "Hey, look here, my friend, you're a man of God, so am I. I'm also a man of God, and I am telling you that God spoke to me by an angel to say that you should come to my home to eat and to drink." So the man of God thought, "Well, if what he says is right, then I'll go with him."
So he did not attend to the word of the Lord that had first been spoken to him. He went, he ate and drank, and then the other man of God said to him, "How is it you have disobeyed the word of the Lord? Do you not know what the Lord said to you, that you should not eat and drink? Now behold, when you are out on your way, a lion will meet you and kill you along the road." In all the records of men of God in the Bible, this is the only failure. Remarkable. And yet all the sons and children of God — the record is abysmal. Every one of them failed. I don't mean every child of God, but in every category of those children of God, all failed.
It shows, as I have warned before, that we cannot stop at any stage along the Christian life. We have to go on from being children of God to becoming men or women of God. It's very vital, very vital.
Now, let's look into this matter of what it means to be a child of God on the way to becoming a man of God. Now I say this because some people are just satisfied to be born again, to be regenerate, to be saved, and that's it, enough. Let's not get too extreme in this business of becoming a Christian. Let's just get saved and that's good enough. That's why I'm telling you that if you try to stop at the stage of salvation, just being a child of God — if even you became that, we will see in a moment — that in essence, child of God and man of God, the only distinction is in the degree of learning how to function in the Spirit. That's the only difference. It's a difference not of kind, but of degree. Now that's very important to understand. Therefore, if you just want to get saved but don't want to go on from there, maybe you are better off to forget the whole Christian life altogether.
That is why Paul says, "My task is to present every man perfect in Christ," to be mature in Christ. And in our series in Montreal, we've been proclaiming this very thing, that scripture teaches that we must go on to maturity, to becoming a man or woman of God. You can't stop at regeneration.
Let me show you from the scriptures a few things about going back, as I said, to basics, to the elementary things of the Christian life. Let's turn for a moment, if you have your Bible with you, to John chapter 3. John chapter 3 is the passage that talks about being born again. Very basic. But did you really understand the passage? John has a way of being remarkably deep, even when he sounds very simple. John chapter 3 tells us about Nicodemus, and is preached so often by evangelists, that many people think they know it when they don't even begin to understand the passage.
John chapter 3. Now, I'm not going to read through all of this, but let's only just start at verse 5. "Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you,' answered Nicodemus, 'that I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.'" The kingdom of God, in the Bible, is the same thing as entering into eternal life. If you don't enter the kingdom, you don't enter eternal life. Verse 6: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We will return to look into the meaning of this, perhaps another time, maybe next Sunday. "Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again," or born anew. Now, verse 8: "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Did you understand that? He is asked, what is the evidence that you are born again? How do you know that you are born again? Well, the Lord says this: "The wind blows where it will. You hear the sound of it. You hear the sound blowing around, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes. You don't know where it's coming from, you don't know where it's going." All right? All this is plain. We know we have heard the sound of the wind. We see it blowing now this way, now that way. Those of us who have done some training in sailing know this thing very well. The wind can change direction quite unpredictably, and you have to be ever ready to know how to make use of the wind as it changes its direction or when you change your own course.
Now, notice that if you had trouble understanding it, so did Nicodemus. Nicodemus said to him, "How can this be? I'm lost." And the Lord Jesus is not too patient with him. In verse 10, Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?" Notice this is talking about the wind in relation to regeneration. Nicodemus frankly didn't understand. Do you? What is the Lord saying?
Now, the Lord Jesus is using a pun. A pun is a play on words. Two words — or rather, there is one word which has two meanings. And the Lord is using one word which has two meanings to illustrate each other. The one word here is the Greek word "pneuma." Pneuma can mean either wind or spirit. And if you look in some of your Bibles, you will have a little footnote which will tell you that, in fact, in your footnote. And so he is using the picture of the wind to illustrate the activity of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian.
Now, this ought to be elementary, right? Because it tells us how you know you are born again. And if you don't know, as Nicodemus didn't know — obviously Nicodemus wasn't born again, that's why the Lord was telling him these things. If you already knew, the Lord didn't have to tell him that. You'd go on to lesson number two. Here is lesson number one: how to be born again. So if you think then that being born again is simple and you know what's the answer to this, you ought to know what the Lord is saying.
How do we understand these things? Now, one of the marks of the man of God was precisely that he was totally under the control of the Holy Spirit. Absolutely under the control of the Holy Spirit. That is the mark of a man of God. But in the New Testament, it is the mark of regeneration. It is lesson number one. It is not some sophisticated advanced spiritual lesson. It is basic elementary spiritual teaching, as the Lord is telling Nicodemus here.
Now, in the scriptures — perhaps we'll turn to 1st Kings at this point, chapter 18, verse 12. 1st Kings 18:12. You see how this relates to a man of God. Now, in this context, it talks about that man of God, that great man of God, Elijah. Elijah, and by the way, of course, men of God, as distinct from children of God, are equipped because of their maturity with a level of power unknown to the average Christian. They walk close to God, they know the mind of God, and God can therefore use them to accomplish His task in the world in a way that children of God are not quite yet that functional. As I said, the difference is not a difference in kind; it is a difference in degree. The difference between a baby and a grown-up is not a difference in kind; it is only a difference in degree. When the baby grows up, he will function like any of us do. At that stage, he is still not quite so functional. But the fundamental principle of life is the same, though not to the same degree.
Now here Elijah, in this remarkable event, was dealing with a situation in Israel where the king, King Ahab, thanks to his idolatrous wife, brought idolatry into Israel and virtually destroyed Israel spiritually. And therefore Israel, which was meant always to be a theocracy, that is, a nation under God, governed by God — its very character was destroyed by Ahab through his wife Jezebel, who brought in all these alien gods and got them into idolatry. And then appeared on the scene that great man of God, Elijah, to save Israel from its utter spiritual disaster. And one way to do this was that Elijah prayed a prayer which sealed off the heavens. And you read about that in the scripture. He prayed to the Lord and the heavens closed, and not a drop of rain came out of heaven for three and a half years. Now what that does to the economy of a country, you can well imagine. Drought, for three and a half years. We've been having drought in Africa, as you know, Sudan and Ethiopia and so on. And drought is absolute disaster. Reduced the nation's economy to shreds and people are dying.
# Regeneration: Governed by the Spirit (Part 2)
And the nation is bound to lose. You can't fight a man of God. You're bound to lose. That's why you remember that when Elijah was being caught up to heaven, Elisha called out, "Elijah, it is the chariots of Israel!" You're saying, in other words, that Elijah was more important to Israel than the entire Israeli defense force put together. Its chariots, which are modern-day tanks, its armies — no one was more important to the survival of Israel than Elijah.
But Elijah this time turned against Israel to teach it a lesson, to show how serious was its offense against God. And he sealed off the heavens. And Israel was brought to its knees. Ahab the king was angry, but he couldn't do anything about it. He tried desperately to look for Elijah, and Elijah couldn't be found. Why? Because Elijah was instructed by God to go to a little river on the east side of the river Jordan. And there, as you know the story even from Sunday school, he was fed by the ravens and he drank water from the brook there until it dried up.
And so Ahab the king and his officer — this officer's name is given here, as you can see, Obadiah — tried desperately to look for Elijah, in the hope of getting Elijah to say the word so the rain can come again. But Elijah was nowhere to be found. And Ahab sent messengers, the king sent messengers to all the surrounding nations, said, "Have you seen Elijah?" Elijah? Nobody saw Elijah. He simply vanished from the face of the earth, as they thought. But in fact, he was by this little river, waiting the Lord's time.
Now, at this point, Obadiah is going along, trying to look for water, or at least for food for the cattle, the sheep that are dying. And as he goes along, he sees the figure of Elijah appearing. And he is in such a shock that he nearly dies of heart attack on the way. The man of God has appeared. And Elijah says to Obadiah, "Go to the king and tell him I'm going to see him face to face. I've got something to say to him." And immediately Obadiah is terrified. And he is once more frightened. And what does he say? And this is the passage here, in verse 12. We start at verse 11, where Elijah tells Obadiah to go. And now, you see, Obadiah is quoting Elijah's words. "And now you say, 'Go tell your lord,'" that is, the king Ahab, "'behold, Elijah is here.'" And verse 12: "And as soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the Lord will carry you whither I know not. And so, when I come and tell Ahab, and he cannot find you, he will kill me. Although I, your servant, have revered the Lord from my youth."
You see, Obadiah was not sympathetic to Ahab the king in this matter. He remained faithful to the Lord. But he was a kind of a — trying to be, more or less, a secret disciple. He did not stick his neck out too far, in case he gets chopped off. Like so many Christians, they are willing to be Christians up to a point. And then, you see, the point he is saying is this: "You are telling me to announce your presence to the king. But you are a man of God. And I never know whether you will still be here when I come back, because the Spirit of the Lord will just take you and you are gone. I don't know where you are going to. And then the king will say, 'You said that Elijah was here.' And then when I say, 'Well, yeah, he was here, but he is gone now,' Ahab is going to — not just give me the sack, but he is going to kill me."
Now this is a very interesting picture, because it shows what the concept was that Obadiah and the Old Testament people had about a man of God. A man who was so completely at the disposal of the Lord that he would be here one moment and gone the next. And it became a legend that men of God were transported physically away. They were just picked up and taken off somewhere else. Because that wasn't the point — that is not the big picture of a man of God, that you get free transportation by some kind of — as you go on, I won't go on to show you how this idea was mistakenly thought. In fact, in the next chapter, you will see that even the prophets, the sons of the prophets, the trainee prophets, had the mistaken notion that that's actually what happened to men of God. They were picked up and carried off physically somewhere else.
And in Acts chapter 8, I think it's verse 20, Philip is said to have been caught up by the Spirit of the Lord. Now many people think that that means he was physically lifted up and transported away. In fact, more likely than not, as you understand the scriptures, it simply means that he was constantly at the Lord's command and ready to go, here or there or anywhere, at a moment's notice. Totally yielded to the control of the Lord. I don't mean that the Lord cannot pick a person up physically and carry him away if there's no other means of transportation. I think that would be very easy for the Lord to do. But that is not the main point. The main point is that the man of God is totally at the disposal of the Lord, living totally according to the will of the Lord at any time.
Now, do you understand John chapter 3, verse 8? "The wind blows where it wills. And you don't know where it's coming from, you don't know where it's going. The Spirit moves as He wills. You hear the sound. But you don't know where He's coming from, you don't know where He's going. And so is everyone." What's the connection? Well, if you are completely under the control of the Spirit, and just as the movements of the Spirit are unpredictable, so your movements will be unpredictable. You will be carried and directed as the Spirit of the Lord wills.
Two months ago, in Toronto, we had the ordination, or laying on of hands, of two of our co-workers in the church in Toronto. And the time had come for them to receive the laying on of hands to become pastors of the church in Toronto. And so, when the time came for me to lay hands upon them, and they knelt down in front of the church at the platform, and I laid my hands upon them, I heard the moving of a mighty sound of wind. And that was an entirely new experience to me, that I had never experienced before. I have experienced many things in the Lord, but this one was new to me. There was suddenly the sound of a rushing, mighty wind, moving above the top of the church.
Now this church is a very beautiful little church. Many of you, I think, have been there. Boone has only recently come back from there, so he will be very familiar with this. It's wooden, beautifully polished wooden beams in the traditional style of a western church. And the whole church, of course, is a traditional type of structure of a western church. But nicely designed, and quite homely in its design. I mean, you don't get too much of a cold feeling. Some churches you go in gives you a very cold feeling. And this one has a nice warm feeling about it. But anyway, as they knelt down, as I laid hands upon them, the two co-workers, in both cases, I heard the sound of the rushing of the wind, so that I tried to look out through the window to see if the trees were shaking fiercely. How come suddenly there was a wind? At that time, I still thought of it as a literal wind. And then I heard the wind moving right above where I stood. And with such power that the wooden beams were creaking. There were creaking sounds in the wooden beams, so that I was looking up, wondering if the beams could take the pressure of this tremendous power of the wind. "You hear the sound. You don't know where it's coming from, where it's going." And then I realized that this is not the sound of literal wind. This is the sound of the moving of the Spirit. Very remarkable. This was true of both co-workers as they received the laying on of hands. And in each case, when I laid my hands upon them, the sound of the rushing of the wind was heard. Very remarkable.
So, what is the mark of regeneration? This is what the Lord says. "The wind blows, the Spirit moves where He wills. He is sovereign. He is master of the entire situation. He works and moves according to His plan and His purpose." And man does not understand His plan and His purpose. But it is sufficient for us to be so yielded to Him that whichever way He moves us, whatever He chooses to do in our lives, He will have His way. Is that true of your life? Can you honestly tell me that your life is totally under the control of the Holy Spirit? If you can say, "Yes, it is true," you are regenerate. If you cannot say, "Yes, it is true," you are not regenerate. It's as simple as that. As simple as that. Simple, but in terms of daily practice, that is another matter, isn't it? In terms of daily practice, to live it out, you will experience the moving of the power of the Lord in your life.
Now, I can show you that throughout the New Testament, this is the basic teaching. Not only in John chapter 3, but throughout the New Testament. Before we close, let us look at a few more verses, so that I give you a widely balanced exegesis, rather than based only on one verse. Let's turn to another very familiar verse, and very little understood as well. Galatians chapter 2, and verse 20. Galatians chapter 2, and verse 20. "I have been crucified with Christ." Now, everybody knows, and you don't have to be a Christian for a long time to know, that what happened at baptism: you died with Christ. You were buried with him in baptism. Now, Christ died for the sins of the whole world, as the Bible tells us. God so loved the world, He gave His Son. Christ died for the sins of the whole world, but the whole world is not saved. Why? Because He was crucified for us, but in order for His salvation to be effective in our lives, we have to be crucified with Him.
Now, you've got to get this point very, very clear. And there are many Christians who simply think they are saved because they believe that Christ died for the sins of the world. As I told you, the devil believes that too. He knows it's true. That doesn't save the world, neither does it save the devil. Christ was crucified for our sins, but you will not benefit from that death until the day you are crucified with Him. That's what it says: "I have been crucified with Christ." Now, how do you know whether you're crucified or not?
Now, you see, the picture has changed. One was talking in terms of the picture of death and birth. This is talking in terms of the picture of justice. Christ died for our sins, but we have to die with him in baptism. Now then, if you have died, how do you live? Paul goes on: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." You understand what that means? Don't let the familiarity of the words mislead you here. If you have truly been crucified with Christ, you don't live anymore. You are finished. Your old way of life is gone.
As Paul goes on to say, the evidence that I have been crucified with Christ — we are speaking in the Christian life of evidence. In John 3:8 was the evidence of regeneration. Here is the evidence of being crucified with Christ. Let nobody say, "I don't know what it means to be regenerate." The Bible does not speak in vague words that nobody understands. It's very plain language. If we don't understand it, it's because either we don't want to understand it. Some say, maybe the cost is too high, I don't want to listen to this. Fine, you don't need to listen to this. But if you want to know what it is to be a Christian in the biblical sense, best understand this thing, unless you don't want to know.
The evidence of my having been crucified with Christ is that I don't live anymore. It's simple. I mean, you don't need to have advanced studies in logic to understand that. If I have been crucified, obviously I don't live anymore. And then, if I don't live anymore, then what happens? Physically, I'm alive. What happens to me spiritually? Spiritually, it is Christ who lives in me. Christ lives in me. Now, how does Christ live in me? 1 John chapter 3, verse 24: He lives in us by the Spirit that He has given us. But we are back to exactly the same thing as we said in John chapter 3, verse 8. You see? The Holy Spirit lives in us and fully, completely controls our life if we have been crucified with Christ.
So, let me ask you again the same question: Is your life still governed by yourself? You make the decisions, you run your life, and say, "Lord, do you like my plan? Oh, thank you, you like it. Thank you. You don't like it? Well, I'm sorry, it can't be changed. This one is a fixed plan." So what kind of a Christian is that? And then they say, "I got a regeneration problem." You bet you got a regeneration problem. If that's the way you live, you really have a regeneration problem. The Christian has no such thing in which he decides what he is going to do. He lives fully under the governance, the government, of Christ through the Spirit in his life. And that is why, as I said, that is how a man of God functions, that is how a child of God functions. The difference is only one of degree, not of kind.
Let's go on a little bit further. I think if you read the whole of Romans chapter 8 — and I will only point out a few verses for you to read, to look at right now. There's simply too much. The whole of Romans chapter 8 deals with this very same principle. Let's just read a few verses. By now, I hardly have to explain the meaning. I'm sure the meaning is clear for itself. Chapter 8, and verse 4: "In order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us," notice, "who walk not according to the flesh, but walk according to the Spirit."
Do you understand what it means to walk according to the Spirit? Well, I have already expounded it. To walk according to the flesh is very simple. You do what the flesh wants you to do. That is walking according to the flesh. Romans are not so difficult to understand that you have to read complicated commentaries. By all means, read complicated commentaries if you enjoy doing so. But the Lord has given us this teaching to save our lives, not so that we first have to study logic and mathematics and advance to other types of things in order to understand how to get saved.
To walk according to the flesh means your flesh determines how you conduct yourself. But to walk according to the Spirit is that the Spirit determines how you conduct yourself, how you make your decisions, what you do. You are either governed by the flesh, your flesh, your self-will, or you are governed by the Holy Spirit, His will. Which of the two is it going to be? And there admits of no admixture between the two. Believe me, you cannot mix these two any more than you can mix water and oil together. These two will not come together. And there are Christians who think, "Well, I'll compromise a bit between the two." If you do that, you really have a regeneration problem. You have to make a choice. And there is no compromise between the two.
So let's go on here and look at the next verse. Romans 8:5: "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live," notice this phrase, "live according to the Spirit." The second time you have this phrase: "to live according to the Spirit." "Set their minds on the things of the Spirit." Remember? "The wind blows where it wills. So is everyone. The Spirit moves as He wills. So is everyone born of the Spirit." What does it mean now? Paul tells us. It means to live according to the Spirit. Twice he uses this phrase.
Then verse 9: "But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of God does not belong to him." And so the passage goes on. And then verse 14 comes that crucial verse, which was our camp theme in Canada some two years ago. Romans 8:14: "For all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God."
Are you led by the Spirit? Are you controlled by the Spirit? Or do you go your own way, doing your own thing? Why should anyone have difficulty understanding what regeneration is about? It seems to me, I don't know how to put it any simpler and any clearer than this. It's simply the choice as whether you decide to live according to your own flesh and your own desires, or you decide to let the Spirit of God control you completely. He leads you. He guides you. He instructs you. And that means also He protects you. He cares for you. He watches over you. But you can't get His protection without His leading. And therefore, it's ridiculous to have people saying to me, "I prayed to the Lord to pass my exams, and I failed." Well, they most certainly deserve to fail. What do you think? The rest of the time, they live according to the flesh. They come to the exams and say, "Please, please, please help me to pass." And then of course they expect to pass. Well, they don't deserve to pass. Why should the Lord help them? The care and protection of the Lord is for those who are led by Him.
Well, one can go on and on in this way. But I think our time is gone, and I would reserve some of these things for next time, to expound more clearly. Although we did start late, but I will not take advantage of that fact. But let me close with one more verse, in Ephesians chapter 1, and verse 19. Which is saying again the same thing in different words. Ephesians chapter 1, and verse 19. Ephesians chapter 1 — let's start at verse 18: "Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope for which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints." And then verse 19: "And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might." Verse 20: "Which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead."
Did you get the message? Did you understand that point? Paul is saying that in us who believe, he uses the expression, "the immeasurable greatness of his power" is at work in us. I find it beyond understanding. I hope you don't mind me saying so. I find it beyond understanding why it is that some people who come back from Montreal or from Toronto, and they go to Malaysia, go home to Malaysia, or come to Singapore, and immediately spiritual life takes a nose dive down. It goes straight down. I don't understand this. And report after report comes to me: they're going down. They're going down. I'd like to hear somebody going up for a change. It sounds like a lift that only goes in one direction. You just press the button, it goes down. There are no lifts that go up here.
What does Paul say? He didn't say, "the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who are men of God." Oh, that would be true, of course. But what did he say? "In us who believe." Just a believer. He's talking about the Ephesians. The immeasurable — he didn't just say "the greatness of power." Did you notice all his adjectives? "The immeasurable greatness." The greatness of that power cannot be measured. Why? Because he tells us in the next verse, it is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. That power is enough to lift you right off the ground and keep you going up non-stop.
Now, what are all these people going down for? They say, "I got regeneration problem." Indeed you have. You've got to have a regeneration problem if your lift only goes down. There's got to be a problem somewhere. Because we see here that if you are living a life that is led, directed, controlled, empowered by the Spirit, there is no way you're going to keep going down.
Every time I sit in the plane, there's jumbo jets, 747, 300-some people on board. And you see what ease it comes off the ground. How easy. You know why? Because those engines are so powerful. It can lift that whole hunk of steel with over 300 people in it with ease, just up into the sky. You look at the airport sometimes and think, so easy. No shaking, no rattling, before you know it, it's up in the air. And that is greatness of power. Just look at those engines there that lift that thing, tons of steel, right up into the air. Comes down with the same ease, goes up again with the same ease. Power does it.
I was driving a small car lately. And in Canada, I guess we got used to driving some rather powerful things. And when you're overtaking, the difference in power is really sometimes a matter of life and death. Really scary. You want to overtake on a narrow road, the power becomes crucial. And the kind of cars in Canada where you're used to, you put your foot down and you're gone, right past the whole thing. The other day, I was trying to overtake, and I pressed my foot down to the floorboard, and I said, come on, come on, let's go, let's go. It was overtaking. And I see a car coming the other side, and I'm pressing it down, and it's not going. All I could do was step on the brake and fall back, because otherwise we have a head-on collision. I realized there wasn't enough power to do the job. Couldn't do it. I just had to fall back and stay the rest of the road behind this guy, with all his pots and cans and whatever he had on his feet. No power to overtake. But I see most Christians not only don't have power to overtake; they can't even keep going, let alone overtake. They have trouble even staying behind the cattle van in front.
The immeasurable greatness of His power. Do you know this thing to be true in your life? No wonder I find so many Christians say that God is not real to them. How is God ever going to be real? If your lift only goes down and you can't even overtake a cattle cart, you really got problems believing that God is real. But for Paul, who knows the immeasurable greatness of His power, his God is real. You see, the difference of knowing God and not knowing God is to know how to live day by day in the effective control and leading of the Spirit.
Now, let me say one last word, and I'm through for today. If you think that life under the control of the Holy Spirit is a kind of spiritualized dictatorship in which the Holy Spirit kicks you around like a football, you haven't understood what it is to be led by the Spirit. You will, for the first time in your life — in fact, I don't have to explain this, if you are all regenerate people. But maybe I will not try to doubt your regeneration. I will only say, maybe you are still at the stage where you have not yet gone on with the Lord to being a servant, or a man of God.
Anyone who has been a man, who knows what it is to be a man of God, or has walked with a man of God, will see certain qualities about his life. One of these is his steadiness, his steadfast joy. Problems don't seem to shake him very much. You see, a young Christian, even more an unregenerate person, every time they run into a problem — oh, it's a disaster. Everything is upside down. They are down again, the nose dive again. You have to haul them out of the ditch, get them going again, and then next time they are down in the ditch, you pull them out. And emotionally upset, and now they are sad, and now they are happy for two minutes, and then they are sad for half an hour. Oh, you say, I don't know how to deal with this. But the man of God, if you stay with him, you find that he is always steady. There is something steady. There is always a deep, quiet joy. You know why? You see all the characteristics of the power of God effective in his life. Very remarkable.
But through this matter of dictatorship, many people think, if I yield my life's control to the Spirit of God, I live virtually as a puppet. I live as a piece of computer, and the Holy Spirit just presses certain buttons, and I will speak when He wants me to speak, lift my arm when He wants me to lift my arm. Don't have any fear or worry about that. The gentleness and kindness and goodness of the Holy Spirit in His leading us, if something I say is enough to make the tears run down my face.
You know, I yield my life totally and without reserve to the control of the Holy Spirit. As I said, that is basic. But the kindness and courtesy — I use the word "courtesy" — of God in dealing with me touches me so much. He is God. He is Almighty. And we are, about as significant, perhaps in our own eyes, as ants. He could just step on us and we are gone. Look at the vastness of this universe, if you want to look at it in that way, and we are just a speck of dust floating in the universe. But the courtesy and kindness of God is incredible.
He could say to me, "Eric, go!" And I would run like a dog, pick up that ball and bring it back, and I will come back with my tail wagging. He never treats His people like that. Never. It's incredible. Some people think, how is it the life with the Holy Spirit? He is so kind. He is so gentle. I always get to think the Lord is saying to me, "Would you please do this? Would you please go there? Would you like to do that?" Ah, the Lord just give me the word. You don't have to be that nice to me. I don't deserve it. But He is always so gentle and so kind. He overwhelms you with His mercy.
When you read the Psalms, do you think the psalmist is talking nonsense when he says, "Your lovingkindness has made me great"? No. A person who can talk like that is a man who has walked and is walking in the Spirit. No unregenerate or young Christian even understands how to say things like that. They don't understand this kind of language. But the man who has walked with God knows the kindness of God. He is so courteous, so gentle in His dealings with us, that there's enough to make my tears run down.
So I want to close on that note. The joy of living under the control of the Spirit. It is just marvelous. If the Lord permits, we will continue to expound on these scriptural teachings further. For it's my earnest hope that no one, by the time I leave in three weeks time or so, will say, "I don't know what regeneration is about. I don't even know whether I am regenerate or not." I hope no one — whether you are regenerate or not will be your decision. But let nobody say, "I don't even know how to make the decision because I don't know what's involved." This is my earnest prayer.
Let us close in prayer. "Gracious Father, indeed we call You gracious, because so You are. In all Your tender mercy and lovingkindness, of which the psalmist sings through one psalm after another, so it is true of all of us, Lord, unworthy as we are, who have been granted the privilege to walk with You. And Lord, I do earnestly pray for all the dear ones here who have been struggling, or who are still struggling, with the question of regeneration, the very basic things of what it means to be a Christian, that You will fully illuminate their hearts and help them to understand what it is to live under the leading of Your Holy Spirit. And to experience not just Your power, but the greatness of Your power. Indeed the immeasurable greatness of Your power in each one who believes. Hear our prayer. Have mercy upon each one of us, O Lord, according to the greatness of Your love for us. And accept our thanks for this time together. We ask in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen."
We are going to close with a hymn. But I think the hymn I requested didn't get printed. So perhaps we can sing together the first one that the song team sang: "A Heart Like Thine." That we may think is very appropriate. Because we can sing this. Thank you.