BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT

BE FILLED
An old timey tent revival preacher had a little “gimmick” he would use during his services. He would arrange before hand for a kid to wait outside the tent, hidden as best he could. He would give the kid a white dove in a small cage. At a certain point in the service when everything was near a fever pitch, the preacher would raise his hands and shout, “Holy Spirit, come on down!!!”. At this point the kid was to let the bird loose, and it was trained to fly up and land on the preacher’s shoulder. When this would happen the crowd would go wild and break loose in near hysteria. This one particular night, at the appointed time in the service, the preacher did just that, but NO BIRD. He said it again, a little louder, still NO BIRD. He turned to where the kid was supposed to be hidden, literally shouted at him, but still NO BIRD. Finally the kid appears and says, “Preacher, the cat ate the Holy Spirit, do you want me to send the cat down”.

With this essay and the next two, we are going to look at the relationship between the Christian and the Holy Spirit. In this article we will look specifically at the need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the command to bring forth Good Fruit. Briefly, we will also look at the gifts of the Spirit, and the relationship between the Christian and the Church.

Who is the Holy Spirit? Hours of sermons and shelf after shelf of books have been written concerning the Holy Spirit and all aspects of His ministry. First of all, to refer to Him as a person is appropriate. He is a Person with His own personality. He has all the characteristics of a personality. He is intelligent, He knows things, especially the mind of God (I Corinthians 2:10 and 11). He has feelings, for instance He can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30) and can be outraged (Hebrews 10:29). I Corinthians 12:11 tells us He has a will which we can choose to obey or resist. The Bible speaks of Him as a person using masculine human pronouns in place of the neutral words translated Spirit.

He is God. He is a fully fledged member of the trinity along with God the Father, and God the Son (Jesus Christ). As such He is Omniscient, all knowing (I Corinthians 2:10 and 11). He is Omnipresent, present everywhere all the time (Psalm 139:7 to 10). He is Omnipotent, all powerful (Job 33:4). With the Father and Son, He was involved in creation (Genesis 1:2; 1:26; 3:22)

He is involved in the lives of Christians. He gives us new life. John 3:5 and 6 read, “ Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (NKJV). He is God’s presence in us His people. John 14:16 to 18 read, “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (NKJV).

Ephesians 5:18 says, “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,” (NKJV). Alcoholics anonymous tell us, “One drink is too many, and 1000 is not enough”. Alcohol has control over any person who allows it to have control. The Holy Spirit wants to control the Christian to the same degree. He resides in the life of every truly born again believer, but He wants to preside in the life. Another way of putting it is to say He not only wants to be present, He wants to be president. How do we allow him to fill us? Consider these passages. Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (NKJV). We need to desire the filling, the control, of the Holy Spirit. We also need to present ourselves as “living sacrifices”. Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 and 2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (NKJV).

If it is that simple, then why are more professing Christians NOT filled with the Spirit? Paul, in Galatians 5, tells us there is a battle raging between the flesh and the Spirit. If the flesh wins bad fruit will be produced. Verses 19 to 21 say, “. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” (NLKV). The alternative is the fruit of the Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.’ (Galatians 5:22 and 23 NKJV). How could the flesh win this battle? One contributing factor is the neglect our relationship with the Word of God (Psalm 119:97 to 105). Our pride and self centeredness contributes to the victory of the flesh (Proverbs 16:18 to 20). A love for worldly things adds to the mess (I John 2:15 to 17). Perhaps the greatest factor is our concern over what other men may think, than what God thinks. Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.” (NKJV).

In addition to good fruit being brought forth by being filled with the Spirit, two other things happen. We will be witnesses testifying of our relationship. Acts 1:8 says, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (NKJV). We think of witnessing as something hard to do, something we need to be trained to do, but it is a lot simpler than that. Think of a court trial. A witness tells, testifies to, what he has seen, heard, or experienced. Nothing more. A Christian’s testimony may be verbal, spoken from our mouths, but more importantly it may be non-verbal, acted out in our life. There is an old cliché’ which says, “You may be the only Bible some people will read.”. In other words, how you act testifies more than what you say.

The other thing that happens is that you will leak. A husband was invited, more like drug kicking and screaming, to a revival meeting. His wife stood up and began to testify how much she had been filled by the Spirit the night before. The husband nudges one of the other husbands, who had come in the same fashion, and told him, “She may have been filled, but she leaks.”. A literal translation of Ephesians 5:18 says, “…be, being filled with the Holy Spirit”. It is a continued action, not a onetime event. We need to maintain our desire, and continue to present ourselves.

Dr. O