ARE WE SITTING COMFORTABLY?             revised 25/04/05

By Colin Thompson, Gateshead, England.      e-mail colin@cthompson.org.uk

Find out something about the author and links to relevant sites at www.cthompson.org.uk/colin.html

This book is written in hope, with the purpose of stating observations of the Saints in the West at the present time and to stimulate thought, prayer and action to a positive end - towards a New Covenant expression of the Body of Christ in each location. It is essentially about faith in the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God, who is able to save all who come to Him.

Where particular denominations or traditions are mentioned it is purely for illustration and not to attack the members or adherents of these organisations.

Please note that for the purposes of this book some terms have been omitted purposely because of the subjective modern associations attached to those words. These are;

Baptism: The Greek word used in the New and Old Testaments (Septuagint) has no special religious or ritual significance, but simply means ‘immersion’ of any thing or anyone in some fluid. Due to the cultural bias of the translators this word is normally left in the Greek to make it associated with a religious ritual. The religious ritual it has become associated with would depend on the background of the reader. So a Roman Catholic may think of one thing and a member of a Brethren group may think of something else. To avoid this subjective association I have used the straight translation – immersion.

Church: This Germanic religious specific word again has various subjective meanings depending on the cultural background of the reader and did not figure in the Greek New Testament. Whatever it’s origins (which are unclear and controversial to say the least) and original meaning, it is used in most English translations exclusively as an alternative translation to assembly or gathering, the simple meaning of the Greek word ecclesia. Again there has been a retrospective replacement of a secular, non religious word for gathering, interchangeable with other Greek words for collection, set, or group. As the subjective associations we have with this emotive word may often be a long way from the simplicity of assembly or gathering, I have not used the word church except in context of modern western religious term for a sect or a religious building.

Gospel: Another Anglo-Saxon word that has taken on subjective meaning according to the usage experienced. The Greek word so translated simply means good message or good announcement and again was a secular word, whereas Gospel is now a religious word with very specific connotations to different people. The Anglo Saxon god spiel was okay for the Anglo Saxons as it then simply meant ‘good spiel’ or good story. Spiel is still an English colloquial word for story or explanation. I have used ‘message’ or other none religious terms. I have kept to the word gospel in connection with the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Disciple: A good enough translation of mathitis but now with heavy religious overtones. The word pupil could equally well be used and would better convey the straightforward sense of the original. The teacher – pupil relationship should be unambiguous and clear.

Contents:

Chapter 1: Good and Faithful Servant?

Chapter 2: Disciples - Pupils?

Chapter 3: Will the Real Saints Please Stand Up?

Chapter 4: One Is Your Leader.

Chapter 5: The Bible as an Icon.

Chapter 6: And Where Are You Going Now?

Chapter 7: Demonstration Please.

Chapter 8: The Back Door.

Chapter 9: See That You Build According To the Pattern.

Chapter 10: The Pattern Part 2 - Families.

Chapter 11: The Pattern Part 3 - The Outer Courts.

Chapter 12: Practical Problems.

Chapter 13: We’d like you To Hold down A Leg.

Chapter 14: Decisions.

Chapter 15: Whatever He Tells You to Do, Do It.

Chapter 1: GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT?

In February 1984 I was driving down the A1 motorway from the North East of England to London to buy some machinery in connection with my business. At 5 o’clock in the morning I passed the Scotch Corner intersection where I went into the overtaking lane to avoid a heavy lorry that had just joined the dual carriageway. It was freezing cold outside and it had been snowing in the days before my trip. As I overtook the articulated lorry at seventy miles per hour the slipstream buffeted my van away and towards the central reservation. Turning the steering wheel to steer the van back into line with the road resulted in nothing happening - the van carried on turning towards the central barrier.

I was on black ice and knew what would happen next. The van moved forward at speed while at the same time spinning round slowly in a clockwise direction. It was a safe bet that I would end up in the opposite carriageway and that the next heavy vehicle from that direction would plough into me at a combined speed of around one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

Everything went pitch black dark as the van somersaulted through the air, spinning now through two axis, vertical and horizontal as it collided with the central barrier and tipped up. In the darkness, hearing and feeling the collisions where the van thumped various objects in its path I knew I was about to die. I was going home to see Jesus face to face. But I wasn’t happy.   I felt a deep sense of loss, aware of having nothing to bring him. No stars in my crown, knowing that I was saved and not afraid but with an overwhelming sense of regret that I’d somehow failed my Master.

The bumps and the noises stopped. The van was upright so I cut the engine and climbed out. It had come to a halt on a break in the central reservation, which was provided so that traffic could be diverted from one lane to another during road works to either carriageway. It was facing the correct way and traffic was able to pass safely in each direction.

A man who worked at the air force base nearby and was taking his wife to work there came to see how I was. They had been following my van and his wife had just vomited with shock after seeing the van flying through the air, convinced that I would be smashed to bits. The roof of the van above my head had an indentation, which was a perfect profile of the steel barrier along the reservation. It came to within one millimetre above where my head had been.

The van was no longer rectangular in shape but like a cardboard box, which had been pushed at two opposite corners. I was without a scratch or a bruise. God had been doubly gracious to me. I was delivered from harm and yet had been allowed to taste death and the sorrow of being an unprofitable servant. I thank God for both.

Jesus taught his disciples/pupils time and again that how we perform as his servants is up to us. Read Matthew chapters twenty-four and twenty-five and you will get the idea. He wants us to be aware that we have the opportunity to be his partners in the kingdom of God and that at stake is the eventual entering into the joy of our master or of facing him empty handed with subsequent wailing and gnashing of teeth. God recently reminded me of the parable of the talents with emphasis on the trading aspect. The parable goes like this. Matthew 25:14 to 30.

"For the kingdom of heaven is like a man travelling to a far country who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents of silver, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability, and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he with two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his Lord’s money. After a long time the Lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying. "Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them." His Lord said to him, "Well done good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." He also who had received two talents came and said, "Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them." His Lord said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." Then he who had received the one talent came and said, "Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, you have what is yours." But his Lord answered and said to him, "You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. Therefore you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

This could well be called the parable of the middlemen. The expression ‘middleman’ is almost a term of abuse in some circles. It means someone who uses money to buy from those who produce goods to sell to those who consume them. Without middlemen though, commercial life would come to a standstill. In my business I am a middleman. I buy machinery from those who either manufacture it or who no longer require it, to sell it to those who need it. I’m able to continue to do so because I meet a need of the suppliers and of the consumers. In this parable Jesus demonstrates that he makes every disciple/pupil of his a partner and a middleman in the kingdom of God. He has gone away to heaven and he has left the fortunes of his business in our hands.

I worked out that a talent of silver in that economy must have been the equivalent of at least a million pounds in the nineteen nineties. I worked it out like this. It appears that a talent was thirty-four kilos weight of silver. A days wage for a labourer was a denarius, worth about one gram of silver. He may earn three hundred and forty grams a year, three point four kilos in ten years, one talent in one hundred years! If today’s labourer earns ten thousand pounds a year then a talent would be equivalent to one million pounds. Any way you look at it, a talent was a whole lot of money and a great responsibility. Obviously a great prince was not going to leave his servants pocket change and say "trade with this until I return." This is not a game but a serious business, with serious money. I can well sympathise with the guy who panicked and just buried his master’s talent.

In another parable Jesus talks about a pearl merchant, who sold everything he had to buy the one pearl of great price. This is what traders do with money. They first exchange the money for a commodity that has a resale opportunity, then they resell or retail this commodity. His disciples/pupils knew about trading and merchants. You can’t trade without people. You first buy from one person, then sell to another. Get the picture? The money by it self earns nothing. Without the money there could be no trading, without diligent hard work the money makes no profit.

The talent that the disciples/pupils were left with when Jesus went away up to heaven was the gifting of the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Body of Christ is given gifts of the Spirit, differing according to the ability of each. What we do with these tremendously powerful gifts is up to us. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the gifts of the Spirit are subject to those who possess the gifts. We can see in the New Testament Saul receiving the Holy Spirit at the hands of Ananias in Damascus and immediately going out to the synagogues preaching and teaching that Jesus is the Christ. He was a five talent servant. He had gifts of teaching, healings, miracles and evangelism that we know of. And he traded with these gifts.

We see Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit who did great signs and wonders among the people. Stephen is incidentally a good example of the distinction between the gifting of the Holy Spirit and functions or roles within local structures. The assembly of disciples/pupils in Jerusalem had need of men to take on the role of distribution administrators – in the Greek text ‘desk jobs’.. There is no spiritual gift of ‘distribution administrator’, but men demonstrably full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom were chosen by the local saints to take on this role. In the same way there is no gift of ‘eldership’ but men full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom were recognised as fit to fulfil the roles of overseers among their brothers. We can not appoint each other to gifts of the Spirit. But I digress.

We are made partners when we are filled with the Holy Spirit. As Paul writes, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels." This treasure is a share of the stock of the kingdom of God. We can then pray, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven", from the standpoint of servants in the kingdom who have an interest (share) in it’s success on earth. Partners in a business are accountable for their performance and share in the success or otherwise of the endeavour. If you are among the very many who have lately been re - filled with the Spirit, understand that to him to whom much is given, much will be required of him.

To get back to the poor servant who hid the treasure because he was afraid, fear was his downfall. Trading is a risky business. You convert the treasure or wealth into tradable assets or services that can be sold on at a profit. One needs a certain amount of faith to trade in the economic world and in the same way we need faith to trade spiritually or operate the gifts within us. We could reason as traders on the market might, "Suppose no one wants to buy these goods after I invest in them?" Similarly we can reason. "Suppose no one wants my gift?" By faith Paul went immediately out into the synagogues in Damascus teaching and preaching that Jesus was the Christ. He did not wait to be invited. He had faith that having been commissioned to do so by Christ and empowered with the Holy Spirit results would follow.  And Paul did minister his gifts to get results. Jesus has given us our gifts according to our ability so that we may be fruitful. We may reason, "Suppose no one wants my gift of hospitality?", or; "Suppose no one wants my gift of encouragement?". Or teaching, exhortation or whatever your gift is. Well perhaps a lot of people won’t want our gifts but we should move in them anyway to get results for the kingdom. The middleman in business doesn’t let negative responses put him off, he just keeps going at it because he knows, or believes, that someone somewhere will buy his product on the right terms and bring in a profit.

We can see that trading involves interaction with people. At the end of the day it is people who buy the goods from the middleman. In the same way, all of the gifts of the Spirit are geared towards interaction with people. If we look at Paul’s list of spiritual gifts in Ephesians 4; 7.

"But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore he says: "When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men"; quoting from the Greek Septuagint version of Psalm 68:18. "And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry (serving), for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into him who is the head - Christ - from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does it’s share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

Add to this the list Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians; 12,4.

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom by the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills.        He carries on; "Now you are the body of Christ and members individually. And God has appointed these in the assembly; first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?"

By no means do I think that these lists are meant to be exhaustive or exclude other gifts. Paul was not trying to catalogue every possible gift. Helps and administrations could cover a multitude of gifts like hospitality, practical help, friendship, guidance, encouragement, problem solving, linking people together, ability with songs? You know what your gift is, it is something you are able to do by the power of the Spirit working in you that actually does build up the local saints or spread the message of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It stands out that all of the gifts entail communications and relationships to some degree. The middleman who fails to communicate and to foster good relations in business will not be successful. The adage goes; ‘The more you tell, the more you sell’. In our business we maintain a stock of hundreds of machines. Out there in industry someone has need of some of these machines. The way to ensure that those who need the machines get them from us is by communicating the fact that we have them to as many people who may need them as possible. When we first make contact with potential customers it is usually because we have gone looking for them. We search for customers systematically by going through the Yellow Pages looking for trades that use our machines. Then we get in touch by phone and letter with the individual who deals with the equipment in an attempt to create a cordial relationship.

In our initial letter we are making the customer aware that we exist and we outline some of the services we offer which may assist him. In other regular communications we inform our entire customer base of the machines we currently have available. Essentially our function as a business is to communicate, bringing the customer into contact with the product he needs. Where you have people with a real need of something you have to offer, you don’t need to use fancy words or deceitful descriptions. We only have to be accurate in describing what is on offer. In the same way Paul did not use powerfully persuasive arguments, as he says ‘not with wisdom of words’, but as he writes in 1 Corinthians 2:1.

"And I, brothers, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and power, that your faith should not be in men but in the power of God."

Paul was afraid. Paul was weak. He did not let that stop him from communicating the good news of Jesus Christ to those who obviously were in need of what Christ had to offer. He was a man who made contact with multitudes of various people. The more folks we have contact with, the more opportunities we will have to use our gifts.

I have lately been made aware of the centrality of Paul’s theme of the unity of the body of Christ in many of his letters, especially 1 Corinthians and Ephesians. Of there being only one world-wide Body and how if it is divided, then the ‘joints’ of ministry gifts will be impeded from effectively imparting ‘that which every joint and part supplies’. Even more so where the local body of Christ is divided, without joints, gifting is unable to flow in supply from one to another.

In southern Spain they have parcels of ground in the country where vegetables and vines are grown,  As it seldom rains, regular irrigation is required. There is usually a cistern of spring water at the highest point in the area and the rows of plants are separated by trenches, which snake from the highest point in the parcel to the lowest. A gate at the top point in the enclosing wall  is opened and water allowed to flow around the whole parcel along the trench. I have seen the saints in the locality separated by walls of institutional and sectarian division and by gaps in community between members of the same individual groups. This is like building walls across the vegetable plot and cutting gaps in the trenches. This would result in stopping the flow of the water, or in losing it to barren areas. The result among the local saints is that the Spirit cannot flow through, but hits obstacles and holes, being deflected or lost.  As a result the only way we can be refreshed by the Spirit is as he sovereignly pours down upon us from above, but he wants to bless us through one another.

Please read the whole of 1 Corinthians and Ephesians, carefully noting the emphasis on unity, through receiving one another. "Endeavouring to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace", Ephesians 4:2.

Joints primarily connect one part with another, and life can flow through these and hence the whole body. If we are to function, it will be as we connect with specific individuals around us, among the saints in our locality.

Imagination or vision is another necessity for a successful business. The mentality to think ‘what if’ and imagine scenarios in which one could trade. If there are no apparent opportunities then the imaginative entrepreneur creates openings from what is out there. The saying, "where there’s a will there’s a way" applies equally to business and to using gifts for the kingdom of heaven. ‘Seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you’ Jesus said as recorded in Matthew 6:33.

We are all seeking something. If we have ample food, drink, clothing, shelter etc. we may think that we are not worried about such earthly things and are by default seeking the kingdom of God. The fact is that we may instead be worried about, or seeking, many other things - distractions are everywhere. We may be seeking a career. A partner. Amusement. Security. Whatever is on our mind. We know we are seeking the kingdom of God when it is on our mind. What we seek is normally what we find. If we go looking for opportunities in business we will, with a little imagination, dig them up. If we seek with a bit of earnest desperation for opportunities in the kingdom of God we will find them also.

So we have all been given some measure of gift according to our ability on receiving the Holy Spirit and it is up to each one of us to use that gift whether it is public or private, platform or intimate, popular or not. Bearing in mind Paul’s exhortation that without love we are like sounding brass or clanging cymbal! It is good to remember that the talent of silver remains the property of the Lord, ‘his goods’ and we have been entrusted with it to make it work on his behalf ‘till he comes’. No excuses will be accepted. We may be in a difficult time in history or a hard place spiritually but we can still find opportunity to use the gifts we have. A successful trader looks at the market and searches for opportunities to trade. A trader who leaves it to the market to determine the success of his business will fail. Markets come and go. "The value of shares can fall as well as increase." The diligent trader evaluates the position and takes action accordingly. Basically he looks for opportunities and jumps at them.

Charles Wesley, an Anglican priest, had a gift for evangelism that was not appreciated in the Church of England at the time. He would often go to a meeting at an Anglican place, sit through the service and when it had finished he would preach outside to whoever would listen from the congregation. (Usually all of them plus anyone passing.) This made him even less popular with the Anglican authorities but he made a profit for his Lord. Let us not fall into the trap of thinking that if we have a gift of the Spirit it will work automatically as God wills and as he gives opportunity. He has given us the power, is it not up to us to make opportunities and use it for his glory?

Paul certainly entered into the joy of his master. As he wrote in 2 Corinthians; 6.1.

"We then, as workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you’ "quoting Isaiah 49 verse 8. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We give no offence in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed. But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in sleeplessness, in fastings; by purity, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet known; as dying, and behold we live; as chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

You and I do not have to compete with Paul. He was a five-talent servant and we might only be entrusted with one talent. But our Lord, Jesus Christ, wants us to enter into the joy of our Master, on that day when we are called to give account of our stewardship of the treasure he has entrusted to us. He does not want us to arrive as pitiful failures, as ‘wicked and lazy servants." The choice is ours. As long as we are not living on a deserted island we can make opportunities to use the gifts we have. Otherwise we would be like some businesses, asset rich, cash poor. We can have all the riches of his grace and power at our disposal yet little spiritual currency in our pockets. Let us imaginatively look for openings or create them if necessary, among our brothers and sisters where we live.

The purpose of what follows is to examine ways, through genuine relationships, to enter into ‘joint’ experience and allow the Spirit in us to work for the edifying of the parts we come into communion with, so building up all the saints in our localities. Surely, without experiencing the reality of the body of Christ where we live, our gifting will be impeded,  having nowhere to flow to.  The gifts have been given to us, this is an historic fact. The circumstances amongst the saints locally maybe the major hindrance to the effective working of those gifts.

CHAPTER 2: "DISCIPLES - PUPILS’

When I was seventeen and about to leave Gateshead Grammar School for Boys I was a typical teenage intellectual snob; - not so much an intellectual, more of a snob. My two friends from school, Billy, Ron and I were ‘into’ beat poetry; - Bob Dylan fans fantasising about going off to Kathmandu, and well on our way to sorting out the ‘meaning of life’. This was in nineteen sixty-six and just before the Hippie Revolution. Most of our ‘beat’ contemporaries evolved later into hippies. Some into school teachers and some into social workers.

Related to the ‘intellectual’ poetry thing we had started reading the Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes and Proverbs in the Old Testament. I couldn’t understand much of it but that was part of the attraction. We could recognise that it had an aura of wisdom and truth nonetheless. About this time we had been to see the motion picture ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’, a film of the life of Jesus. This left me with the impression that Jesus had been a true ‘beat’ and had come to show folks that there was more to life than the mere mechanics of existence. What that was, again I wasn’t quite sure. He seemed to have had ‘The Word’ which all beats were continually looking for but never quite finding. I think I may have cried during the crucifixion scenes. The resurrection part seemed very sketchy and did not tie things up tidily to my satisfaction. The overall effect was to create in us all an empathy with the man Jesus; he was eminently ‘cool’.

The songs of Bob Dylan had created an awareness of social injustice, racism, hypocrisy within the system and man’s inhumanity to man. Protest and non-conformity was becoming my motivation. This was all nicely re-enforced by Ron and Billy’s company who were similarly smitten.

In May of that year we had been camping in Plessey Woods and we spent a whole night talking about creation, the stars, the universe and eternity. Out there in the woods under the stars it was all mind blowingly beautiful and awesome to us. I came to the conclusion that I did not know who God was but whoever he was, I couldn’t help but love him.

One Sunday evening, around about nine thirty, Ron and I were strolling through the Bigg market in Newcastle upon Tyne. I was carrying my white semi-acoustic guitar. This was a very popular night-spot full of bars, snooker halls, coffee bars and night-clubs. Folk would go from place to place in the course of an evening, especially at weekends. On Sunday evenings it was also a bit like Speakers Corner in Hyde Park in as much as in the centre of the cobbled market place various groups would have open-air speeches and meetings.

At the top end was the communist party. They appeared very passionate, clever intellectuals and raving idealists. It looked obvious that there was no room for debate or discussion with them. On down to the next group, the Catholic Evidence Society, as advertised by the white lettering on the black board. This was a new one on me. I thought people were born Catholics! It consisted of a priest at the top of a pair of step ladders with three women fans standing at a suitable distance in front of him, hanging on to every quietly spoken word. I couldn’t actually hear anything he was saying. On to the next group. This was a homogenous circle of about thirty well-dressed and groomed mainly middle aged men and women. They were paying dutiful attention to a middle aged man in the middle of the circle with his dark grey trilby hat in his hand. A lot of the men had dark grey trilby hats. We noticed that he was talking in a confident manner, which suggested that he had done this kind of thing before, talking about Jesus and some woman at a well some two thousand years earlier. Those listening obviously approved of the story and one older gentleman, also wearing a dark grey trilby, was anticipating the speaker and joining in as if it were a well-rehearsed tale. We didn’t like the look of what these people’s religion had done to their individuality and moved on down to the next group, a large circle instantly recognisable as the Salvation Army. We had a pretty good idea of what they were about and moved quickly on to the final group at the lower end of the market.

This was a motley gathering of assorted individuals as was clear from their differing dress and accents. I liked that. They were singing cheerful songs about Jesus and taking it in turns to stand in the centre of the ring, some shaking with nerves, and talking about what Jesus had done for them that week! I couldn’t help wondering what motivated such an individual to do that. Soon a pleasant, confident young man who offered us a tract and attempted to engage us in conversation approached us. The guitar was an easy talking point and he asked us if we liked music. He said that they had a special speaker from America the following weekend who would be playing the saxophone. He asked us if we would we like to go and hear him. When he said "go and hear him", we thought he meant hear him play the saxophone! As we had a huge window in our social schedule at that time we said we would and the following Saturday night duly went to their building called Bethshan Tabernacle!!! (How the name didn’t put us off I’ll never know.)

I was surprised to find that there were quite a number of young people there and wondered what sad reasons they had for being at a place called Bethshan Tabernacle on a Saturday night. I told you I was a snob. People were however genuinely friendly and interested in us which was very gratifying.

The American was middle aged, very cheerful, and, as Americans were few on the ground in those parts in those days, a novelty. He didn’t play the saxophone that evening. He talked. I listened carefully as he told the story of a young Italian American boy of twelve years who was very ill and diagnosed as suffering from kidney failure. The doctor had said that there was nothing he could do. The child’s mother had gone to the priest and asked him to pray that the boy would be healed but the priest had said that if it was God’s will, then God would take the child. The boy’s skin turned black and he fell into a coma. The priest was called and he gave the boy the last rites. It was evening and an envelope was pushed through the door of the house were he was in bed. In it was a handkerchief and a note. This said that the handkerchief had been prayed over in Jesus name and it should be placed on the boy and he would recover. The mother of the dying child placed the handkerchief on his chest and went to bed. The next day the boy got up, ate a big breakfast and this was the boy, now grown up into a large healthy looking specimen, telling the story! I was impressed. I wasn’t quite sure how to take this story, given the fact that the guy was standing there. Maybe there was more to the Universe than was taught by the atheists in science class at school. We left with something to think about.

That was in July and at the end of the month we would be leaving school to start our adult life. Yeeeesss!

The three of us left school earlier than we were supposed to the last day. We walked over the High Level Bridge to Newcastle where we sat on a bench and considered the enormity of the moment. Bill asked the question out loud for us, "What happens now?" It was an exciting and somewhat daunting prospect. Everything was now open to us. If only we knew what it was.

We had planned to hitch hike down from Gateshead, where we lived, to London, an exciting prospect, and then on down to Brighton, an even more exciting prospect. There we would hang out with the beats on the beach and maybe get discovered like Donovan had. When you are seventeen you don’t hang about. The next evening we were assembled on the side of the old A1 Great North Road just south of Low Fell in Gateshead. We started thumbing for lifts and walking south.

On the way down it rained quite a lot, like it can during August in England. There were three of us with our haversacks, sleeping bags and a semi acoustic guitar, not ideal for getting lifts, especially as cars were typically smaller in those days. Even in a lorry cab it was quite a squeeze. Consequentially the lifts were not forthcoming at any great speed and we had a fair bit of time to think as we were walking or waiting. When we got to a roundabout on the A1 near Nottingham, at the Grantham turnoff, we slept in a bus shelter, as it was dark. I woke up at about four o’clock in the morning covered with little spiders and wet as it had started raining in on me. Getting up I went outside and stood at the corner of the roundabout with a plastic sheet over my head. The light was just beginning to dispel the darkness of the night when I was suddenly aware that God loved me. I didn’t know how I was aware of this but I knew God loved me and was interested in me and wanted me for some reason. Wow! I just stood there in the gentle rain for what must have been at least an hour with this great joy in my heart - God loves me!

In the meanwhile the sun had come up and a mustard coloured VW Caravette came round the bend and pulled up just past me. Inside were two identically dressed and groomed American Mormons. This was a time of campaign for the Mormons in England. I asked them if they could give my sleeping friends and me a lift to Grantham and then woke them up and we piled in. We sat on the bench seats at the back of the Caravette in silence while the two Mormons totally ignored us and didn’t speak one word. On a seat was a black leather bound book, which looked like a serious bible to me. At Grantham they dropped us off with barely a glance and we thought - weird!

After walking through Grantham and a brunch of a pint of milk, bread and some cheese, we got back on the road to London. My friend Billy tells me that he has been praying for lifts on the journey and has just prayed for a white pick-up to take us to Watford. Shortly after a white pick-up stops and gives us a lift to Watford. I was impressed. We arrive in London and walk through Regent Park to sleep on the benches. I was not impressed with London. It was just like the worst parts of Newcastle but a lot bigger. Well, you live and learn.

The next day we walked through London to Croydon and eventually hitched a lift to Brighton. We headed for the beach and there found a little hut with a door that had no lock. Inside was a little pile of rubbish and we decided it was perfect for us. The three of us could manage to bed down snugly in our sleeping bags on three sides of the pile of rubbish in the centre. It didn’t enter our heads to move the rubbish! The third day we were there it was raining like it did most of that week. We were sitting on our sleeping bags in the hut with Billy and Ron playing the guitar and harmonica. The door was open to the sea and a tramp came in out of the rain and crouched in the doorway. He had a big bottle of cider in his hand and said that it was written in the book of Proverbs in the Bible that it was good to drink wine on a rainy day. It made sense to me. He appeared to be a simple and benign man and he gave me a copy of Saint John’s Gospel in modern English, the Living Bible version. I took this and read it within about forty minutes and gave it back to him. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. I then asked him if he knew if there was a Pentecostal place in Brighton. I didn’t know what Pentecostal meant, I just knew that this was the sort of thing Bethshan was. He told us where there was such a place and that there was a meeting on Sunday at six o’clock.

Come Sunday we were sitting in the hard polished pews in a half-filled room with the hushed air of a doctor’s waiting room. Not surprisingly no one sat beside or spoke to us as by now we looked and smelt a little unsavoury. The meeting started and we stood to sing hymns we recognised from school assembly and listened to announcements about a building fund. At one point a plate of small fragments of cream crackers was passed around followed by small glass thimbles of blackcurrant juice. Bemused, we partook of these and after someone spoke for a little while another song was sung. Then everyone piled out as if class was dismissed. Not a little disappointed we stood outside the external doors of the building on the street in what is known as ‘The Lanes’. As the folks milled around us on their way out I asked a young man if this was a ‘Pentecostal church’. He pointed up at the arched sign above the doorway and said; "Yes, you see, ‘Elim Pentecostal Church’."

At that moment, looking up at the sign, I suddenly felt an overwhelming glow of euphoria spreading from my stomach upwards. It was as if I was instantly drunk. My heart was in my mouth with ecstasy. I thought, ‘this must be heaven, I am going to heaven’. I wanted to go to heaven there and then. I wouldn’t have minded getting knocked down as I crossed the road. I knew this was God but absolutely nothing else. Foolishly, perhaps, I turned to my friend Billy who was standing right beside me and asked him if he felt what I was feeling, but I couldn’t tell him what I was feeling. Later he told me that he had felt an overwhelming conviction of his sinfulness at that moment. He then went to a public toilet, got down on his knees and asked God to forgive him. I was blissfully unaware of sin at that time. I only knew God loved me and had come to me in some fantastic way. Much later I was to come to understand that the presence of the Holy Spirit falling upon me had convicted Billy of his sin.

In that moment I was changed. I had passed from death into life. I didn’t know any of the terminology or mechanism or why, but I was changed. We soon decided to go back home to Gateshead and we got a lift from a lorry going straight there from North London. We had discovered that a lot of the people we had come into contact with on the beach were either perverts, phoneys or desperate folk who had to be prepared to do almost anything to survive. We had enjoyed the stay but weren’t impressed.

We got back home on a Sunday and the following evening Billy and I went to the prayer meeting at Bethshan. I wanted to see John, the lad who had asked us to come that night in the Bigg Market, and tell him that he was right, there was a God. When I told him this he looked pleased but wisely told me, yes there is a God, and he loves us, but there was something called sin which had to be dealt with in order for us to be able to have a relationship with him.

There followed a period of me going along to all the meetings at Bethshan, hearing a conventional Gospel message on successive Sunday evenings and ‘going out to the front to receive Jesus as my personal Saviour’ several times. I eventually came to the point of realising that whatever was meant to happen had happened by the sheer grace of God there on the street outside the Elim place in Brighton. In terms of salvation there wasn’t anything else for me to get from God. He had saved me by his mighty power and sovereign grace. Later I came to understand how that had been made possible through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross for my sins and the sins of the whole world. But he had saved me when I didn’t understand.

In due course I was immersed in water after being rightly informed that this was Christ’s command to those who would believe on him. Later still I was informed that God was wanting to immerse me in the Holy Spirit so that I would have power to live the life he intended for his children.

After a number of attempts to receive the Spirit at receiving meetings I did receive another filling with the Holy Spirit, with speaking in tongues this time, and I knew then that this was that which had happened initially in The Lanes in Brighton.

So I had become a disciple - pupil of Jesus. Yes? Well, yes and no, or perhaps, maybe, er, I’m not quite sure. I had been born again of the Holy Spirit. I knew this would mean doing the will of God, not doing my own thing. In my case taking a boring job instead of trekking off to Kathmandu or Israel. There was faith, repentance and obedience to the limited revelation of the gospel I had been exposed to. All a gift of the grace of God!

The point of me telling you how I came to be born of the Holy Spirit is to illustrate the fact that salvation is the free gift of God. It can’t be earned. It cost me nothing but cost God the blood of his only begotten Son. This salvation through a new birth in the Holy Spirit is the promise of the Father. It is his plan, his doing A free gift that whoever believes, receives. It is open to little children, indeed, as Jesus said, except we are converted and become as little children, we will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Also it was by the supernatural power of God, so that my faith would be in His power, not in a form of words or theory.

On the other hand, being, or continuing as, a disciple/pupil of Jesus is up to me. Sure, God enables those born of the Spirit to be pupils of Jesus but it is clearly up to us whether we continue as his disciples/pupils or not. Jesus asks us to deny ourselves, take up our own cross daily and ‘stick to him’. The Greek word used is akolouthw which while meaning follow gives the sense of following because of connection, like a train follows the engine – because it is hooked up! I have to die daily because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It is not by might, nor by strength, but by the Spirit of the Living God.

I had gradually absorbed a misunderstanding of what it meant to be a disciple of Christ today. This may have been because I started to confuse the picture of the disciples/pupils of Jesus before his death and resurrection with the new experience which is open to us also who believe, of being a disciple/pupil after Pentecost, when the promise of the Father was poured out on all flesh.

The word disciple may conjure up mental pictures of men with beards wearing long robes following another man with a beard and wearing a long white robe. They would follow their teacher and master around, listen to his teaching, be involved in helping him in his work and serve him. The Greek word that Jesus used is mathitis, from which we get mathematics. It means simply pupil or student. Disciple is a good enough alternative to pupil if you speak King James English, but in our modern western society it does not immediately suggest simply pupil. Unfortunately nowadays it is loaded with a religious specific connotation. So from now on in the text I will use the better word pupil. Jesus used everyday, common, simple terms. He does not intend the good news to be hidden behind archaic or confusing terms.

Jesus went to great lengths to spell out the way they would be his pupils after the Spirit came, as is recorded over five chapters in the gospel of John. I would ask you to read from chapter thirteen to the end of chapter seventeen. Let us take a look at it.

In chapter thirteen we are told that Jesus knew the time had come for him to leave this world and consequentially this was going to be a crisis time for his pupils. How could they be pupils of someone who was no longer around? Jesus had called them to forsake all and physically follow him and learn from him. They had learned from him principally by being with him and observing him and listening to him. Another important part of being a pupil was serving their teacher. By giving their teacher service they were paying for their instruction. Now he was about to leave them. How could they continue to be his pupils?

After the last Passover supper Jesus begins his final instructions to his pupils by washing their feet. He draws their attention to the fact that he is their Teacher and Lord and this is the basis of teacher – pupil relationship. He says plainly that he has washed their feet as an example for them to imitate. "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them." Washing his or her feet was a very humble and practical thing to do for someone. Perhaps on a par with washing the toilets, necessary but unglamorous and low on the list of things we would like to do. Unlike washing toilets however, this was a very personal service. Jesus was doing a practical, unglamorous humble service for each one of them in turn. It was a service they would normally have been very glad to receive. Their feet would be hot, covered in dust and other unpleasant stuff as a result of the day’s walking in open sandals on dry dusty tracks shared with goats, sheep and donkeys. This demonstration then was the dramatic introduction to his teaching them about the new way that they would be his pupils after he had gone. They would do as He taught them and serve him by serving one another. The earthly object of their service was to change from their teacher to their teacher’s brethren (family) – fellow pupils, while the teacher would from now on be the Holy Spirit.

After Judas had left, Jesus continued to spell out how they were to be his pupils.

John 13:33 "Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my pupils, if you have love for one another."

Peter then breaks in with a question about where the Lord is going and Jesus eventually continues on his main theme with;

John 14:15 "If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Instructor, (or Encourager, Counsellor, Comforter, Advocate. The word in the Greek text is paraklitos, used in the New Testament only by the writer of the fourth gospel, here to describe the Holy Spirit and in his first letter chapter two verse one to describe Christ as our Advocate. The associated verb parakaleo is translated in the New Testament variously as beseech, comfort, exhort, desire, pray, entreat, call for. Basically the parakletos is someone who verbally advises, exhorts and communicates encouragement: - a communicator.) That he may abide with you for ever, 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."

Jesus continues; John 14:21. "He who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. These things have I spoken to you while being present with you. But the Instructor (Paraklitos: - Communicator), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." John 15:9.

"As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another."

John 15:26. "But when the Instructor (Paraklitos:- Communicator) comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me."

John 16:5. "But now I go away to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Instructor (Paraklitos:- Communicator) will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they do not believe in me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more; of judgement, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak; and he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you."

So, after Jesus had gone, the Holy Spirit would come and take over the role of teacher and leader from Christ. The Holy Spirit would be in them. Just as Jesus had spoken the words of the Father to them, so the Holy Spirit would speak the words of the Father to them. And not only to them, but to all who would believe, as Peter declared on the day of Pentecost;

Acts 2:32. "This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself : ‘The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand. till I make your enemies your footstool."’ Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both the Lord and the Christ." and he went on ; Acts 2:38. "Repent, and let every one of you be immersed in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins; and you shall receive (take, seize) the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to all who are afar off. As many as the Lord our God shall call."

In those early post Pentecost days the believers were still called, and truly were, pupils. However, the unbelievers could not see whom those pupils were being taught by! You can’t be taught by or serve a dead person. The world cannot see or hear the Holy Spirit. It is not surprising then that eventually in Antioch the pupils of the Christ were given the name ‘Christians’ by the unconverted.

Can we now see the two separate, although linked, states of being born of the Holy Spirit into a new and living way - salvation, and of continuing as a pupil of Jesus Christ? The first is what God does to us out of what he has done for us in Christ. The second is a continuing experience, which is up to us as we listen to the Holy Spirit bringing to us the words of the Father on Christ’s behalf. As is written in 1 John 2:27. "But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone should teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in him."

We each have the same opportunity of following Christ and hearing him speak to us through the Holy Spirit as those early pupils had after Pentecost. We do not have the opportunity that they had before Pentecost when they saw Jesus going around Galilee and Judah, of hearing him say, "leave all and follow me." They had to leave everything behind if they wanted to listen to the physical Christ as he wasn’t staying put in one place. They had the privilege of actually seeing, hearing and serving him. However we are in a better situation. We have the Holy Spirit in us, teaching, leading and counselling us. We can serve Jesus through serving our brothers and sisters. We have his complete attention. We can let him have our complete attention. We still have to be prepared to forsake all to follow Christ in as much as we don’t know in advance what he may ask of us. It’s a bit like shaking on a deal and making payment as it is asked for later. Also the Holy Spirit needs to have our complete attention. We cannot sow to the flesh and to the spirit simultaneously. We do have to actually die daily to our own flesh and to the world in order that we might live in the Spirit. Otherwise, having commenced in the Spirit we may continue or proceed in the flesh, as did the Galatians.

We have a clear indication of what the result of being a pupil of Christ will be. This is that we will become like the Christ, loving one another, serving one another and laying down our lives for one another. As it is written in 1 John 3:16. "By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." And as Paul wrote, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."

I have found that many who would without hesitation affirm that they have been born again by the Holy Spirit find it difficult to believe that the Holy Spirit actually will speak to them. I often get asked; "How do you know that it is the Holy Spirit speaking?" I would ask; "How do you know that it was the Holy Spirit that you were initially immersed in?" The sad fact is that if we can’t recognise the voice of the Spirit then we haven’t started being pupils of Jesus. How did the writer of the book of Revelation know that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day? How did he know that the voice he heard and the things he was shown were of God? How did any of the prophets and writers of the Old and New Testaments know it was the voice of the Spirit speaking to them? When you were converted, what voice were you hearing that brought repentance and faith to you? If we have been born again of the Spirit we should recognise his voice by now! Jesus didn’t tell His pupils how they would know the voice of the Spirit. Those born of the Spirit and filled with the Spirit know the Spirit. The conscious presence of the Holy Spirit is absolutely stunning. Sometimes quiet maybe, but always tangible.

As Jesus said; John 10:14. "I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd." It really does comes down to ; "let him who has ears to hear, hear." This is what Jesus meant when he said ‘unless the Father draws you, you cannot believe.’ It was the Spirit who drew me, and who drew you, if indeed you have received the Spirit and are then of Christ.

Paul echoes this in Romans 8:1. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in the Christ, Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit: Romans 8:8. "So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God." Paul also wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:10. "But God has revealed them to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual."

Often a misplaced emphasis on the role of the scriptures can be something of a hindrance to our hearing the Spirit. While the Spirit can and often does speak to us through the scriptures the reverse is not always true. We don’t always read or hear scripture through the Spirit. While they are the truth, they aren’t magic words. We do have our preconceived notions and ideas born of human tradition which can misinterpret and mess up generally our reception of the truth.

We are however told in the prophecy of Joel concerning the outpouring of the Spirit; Joel 2:28. "And it shall come to pass afterwards that I shall pour out my Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also on my menservants and on my maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days."

What is clear from this is the fact that the Holy Spirit is come on all flesh to communicate. Prophesy is communicating the word of God as received from the Spirit. Dreams and visions are ways in which the Spirit communicates truths to his people. By mentioning sons, daughters, old men, young men, menservants and maidservants he makes the point that when he says all flesh he means all flesh down to you and me. No one is excluded.

In Numbers 11:25 we read; "Then the Lord came down in the cloud, and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him, and placed the same Spirit upon the elders; and it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. But two men had remained in the camp; the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them. Now they were among those listed, but who had not gone out to the Tabernacle; yet they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses and said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." So Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, one of his choice men, answered and said, "Moses my Lord, forbid them!" Then Moses said to him, "Are you zealous for my sake? Oh, That all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them!"

In the Old Testament the only people who received the Holy Spirit were generally the prophets and Kings. This was why they were anointed with the Spirit, so they could communicate the word of God to the people. We can see this clearly in John the Baptist. He was anointed with the Spirit from his youth and was the prophet heralding the coming of the Messiah. In John’s Gospel we are informed that he was standing with two of his pupils. If you wanted to hear the contemporary word of God the only way was to hear through a prophet anointed with the Spirit. So these men who wanted to hear from God were pupils of John, waiting to hear the latest word of God through him.

Then one day John sees Jesus and proclaims; "Behold, the Lamb of God." And straightaway the two pupils of John leave him, a mere man anointed with the Holy Spirit, and follow the Messiah, Emmanuel, God in flesh. They made a wise decision. Now they were pupils of God himself. They could hear God in the Christ first hand. This is the intermediate stage between the Old and the New. Finally on the day of Pentecost the promise of the Father, as quoted from Joel, descends upon them and they prophesy, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the mind of the Christ. Now they were pupils of the Christ by listening to the Holy Spirit who was within them. This same promise is to us also who believe.

It is important also to see that the Christ has left the saints, his body, to carry on his work. It cannot be ‘just Jesus and me’. This is demonstrated wonderfully in the account of Saul’s conversion in Acts. Here Saul is asked, "Why do you persecute me?" When Saul inquires, "who are you Lord?" he gets the reply; "It is I, Jesus". Saul was actually engaged in persecuting the saints, which Jesus identified as ‘me’. Then Jesus tells Saul to go to Damascus and he will there be "told what you must do."  At Damascus Ananias, a pupil, is sent by Jesus so that Saul may receive his sight, receive the Holy Spirit and be immersed in the name of the Lord Jesus the Christ, i.e. what he must do. Thus Saul experienced the reality of the body of Christ. In this way Christ can be truly the head of His body in a locality, as each member submits to the leading of the Spirit, hears His voice and follows Him.

Jesus asked the Pharisees, "the immersion of John, is it from heaven or of man?"  When we experience a ministry which is from heaven, and therefore not of man, we can confidently submit to it, knowing that we are submitting to the Spirit in that ministry. We are getting back here to the local body of Christ, and the ministry gifts within.

So, we can now be taught by the Holy Spirit, and we follow his instruction when we obey him in what he tells us to do. What pupil is it who hears what his teacher says he should do and then ignores him or disobeys? The Spirit is patient and gracious, but he will not strive with men forever!  Having been born into a new life of the Spirit and receiving the deposit of the same Spirit it is up to us to listen to him earnestly and obey him. By obeying the Holy Spirit we will continue to abide in Christ and so bear much fruit. The alternative is to stop hearing him, stop abiding in him and withering up like those dried branches Jesus mentioned in the passage we looked at in John’s gospel. I have to confess that I have seen both in those around me and that I have experienced some of both states in myself.

We have a clear and solemn warning sounded in the letter to the Hebrews;3:1 to 4:14. Remember that this is written to those who have heard the message of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus the Christ. The message is that we should be careful to keep believing on Jesus, keep listening to Jesus, keep obeying Jesus, and keep ourselves un-spotted by sin.

3:1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partners in a heavenly calling, take note of Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess, 3:2 who is faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses was also in God’s house. 3:3 For he has come to deserve greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house deserves greater honour than the house itself! 3:4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 3:5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that would be spoken. 3:6 But the Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. We are of his house, if in fact we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope we take pride in. 3:7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! 3:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness. 3:9 “There your fathers tested me and tried me, and they saw my works for forty years. 3:10 “Therefore, I became provoked at that generation and said, ‘Their hearts are always wandering and they have not known my ways.’ 3:11 “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” 3:12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has an evil, unbelieving heart that forsakes the living God. 3:13 But exhort yourselves each day, as long as it is called “Today,” that none of you may become hardened by sin’s deception. 3:14 For we have become partners with Christ, if in fact we hold our initial confidence firm until the end. 3:15 As it says, “Oh, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” 3:16 For which ones heard and rebelled? Was it not all who came out of Egypt under Moses’ leadership? 3:17 And against whom was God provoked for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 3:18 And to whom did he swear they would never enter into his rest, except those who were disobedient? 3:19 So we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. 4:1 Therefore we must be wary that, while the promise of entering his rest remains open, none of you may seem to have come short of it. 4:2 For we had good news proclaimed to us just as they did. But the message they heard did them no good, since they did not join in with those who heard it in faith. 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my anger, ‘They will never enter my rest!’” And yet God’s works were accomplished from the foundation of the world. 4:4 For he has spoken somewhere about the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works,” 4:5 but to repeat the text cited earlier: “They will never enter my rest!” 4:6 Therefore it remains for some to enter it, yet those to whom it was previously proclaimed did not enter because of disobedience. 4:7 So God again ordains a certain day, “Today,” speaking through David after so long a time, as in the words quoted before, “O, that today you would listen as he speaks! Do not harden your hearts.” 4:8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken afterwards about another day. 4:9 Consequently a Sabbath rest remains for the people of God. 4:10 For the one who enters God’s rest has also rested from his works, just as God did from his own works. 4:11 Thus we must make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following the same pattern of disobedience. 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to the point of dividing soul from spirit, and joints from marrow; it is able to judge the desires and thoughts of the heart. 4:13 And no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to his eyes to whom we must render an account.

Am I then a disciple/pupil of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah?   Thanks to his mercy and grace this is what I have been called by him to be and what I am.  Looking to Jesus, the one who begins and the one who completes our faith. By being pupils of the Christ in reality we can fully enter into the God given organism which is the assembly of the saints, as commenced on the day of Pentecost.

CHAPTER 3: WILL THE REAL SAINTS PLEASE STAND UP?

Daniel 2:33. "It’s feet partly of iron and partly of clay."

"As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay." Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as explained in Daniel chapter 2. We are going to look at this image as a type of the history of the saints.

Indisputably a fundamental, and to some a seemingly insurmountable problem is the mixture of those born of the Spirit with those who are not. Personally I have never yet encountered a local group that was not a mixture of iron and clay, that is those born of the Spirit and those still unregenerate. As this is in accordance with prophecy it should not be a surprise. However the fact that it is prophesied does not mean that we should just accept the situation. The point of prophecy is to warn us so that we can take appropriate action.

Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image - Daniel chapter 2 verse 31 onwards. It’s head was of fine gold, it’s chest and arms of silver, it’s belly and sides of bronze, it’s legs of iron, it’s feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. It starts off at the head of gold. Gold in the scriptures is often a metaphor for the qualities of God. The head is at the highest point, in the heavens as it were. The feet are of clay, a metaphor for man and at the lowest point, planted on the earth.

Ideally we should be gold, like the head of the statue, or at least silver or bronze. Still, iron is better than nothing. Nebuchadnezzar’s statue is paralleled obviously in the succession of empires and perhaps not so obviously in the history of the saints.  The early pupils of Christ spread through the Jewish dispersion from Portugal to Kerala in south-western India within a generation. Their faith and fellowship was refined in the furnace of intense and often violent persecution. They were documented as taking practical care of one another, gathering in homes to share simple meals in honour of their Lord, having resolute faithfulness: Gold.

After the death of the Apostles and their peers and with an easing of persecution in some areas the saints were still in good shape, but not as at the first. All the dangers warned about by Paul and the other Apostles in their letters to the local assemblies were having an effect. Community life was becoming polluted with organisational structure: Silver.

By 110A.D. faith in the Christ was becoming almost popular. Not surprisingly as the world was then full of superstitious and religious people and faith in Christ was starting to look like just another religion. Philosophers and statesmen were joining in and starting to make subtle ‘improvements’. Around this time a letter from Ignatius, a monarchical bishop of Antioch, shows that already the saints were being organised and dominated in ways contrary to the principles of the kingdom. The emergence of the rule of the local assembly by a single overseer instead of joint care by a group of elders reveals the effects of growing institutionalism and diminished listening to the Holy Spirit: Bronze.

We then come to a period where we have ‘Christianity’ the world religion. By 150A.D. most assemblies are organised under monarchical overseers with a clergy class distinguished from the laity class. The operation of the gifts of the Spirit was by this time becoming rare. Those who did not have these gifts operating within their assembly were saying that they may have just been given for the apostle’s time. Community was formalised, the celebration of the Lord’s Table was becoming a formal ritual and under organisational control: Iron.

With the Emperor Constantine around 330AD we arrive at the final stages in the imagery, both in the temporal and spiritual realms. The new religion is by now full of ritual and superstition, associated closely with the emergence of clergy - laity distinctions, filling the vacuum left by the exclusion of the Holy Spirit. The religious section has succeeded in bringing in elements from the Old Testament including a separate priesthood with rites, robes and artefacts. Immersion in water becomes a rite of initiation. It is seen as best done as near as possible to the initiates death, since it was thought to be a waste of the remission offered by baptism to then go and sin again afterwards. In line with this thinking Constantine himself refrained from being immersed until just hours before his death. Instead of being pupils of Jesus, mere formal membership. Breaking of bread becomes reduced to a ritual ceremony. Prayers become organised and predictable. Instead of individuals each being taught by the Holy Spirit, the elevation of ‘Holy Writ’ and tradition as the prime source of instruction. The downward slide from the new covenant of the spirit, back to old covenant ways of the flesh, is complete.

The world religion of ‘Christianity’ is first recognised and then intermittently promoted by the state as the official religion, followed by more times of persecution, followed finally by official endorsement. Pagan priests are converted and go overnight from serving at the altars of heathen gods to being ordained as ‘priests’ in official buildings with Old Testament style altars, holy artefacts and robes: Iron mixed with Clay.

From this point on the saints are clearly mixed up. Pupils of Jesus born of the Spirit are involved with people at all levels who are not born of the Spirit. Sometimes the true believers were overwhelmed numerically by the unregenerate as it was not the Holy Spirit who was doing the adding. Neither were folk being added purely to the Body of the Christ, but to a human religious system.

The two legs of the statue can be seen to be the two halves of the Roman Empire, which divide and become effectively separate empires a little while after this time. The Latin speaking west eventually has its capital in Rome and the Greek speaking east takes Constantinople as its capital city. The religion of Christianity divides also, with Rome becoming the base for the western Catholic half and Constantinople (Istanbul) becoming the base for the eastern Orthodox half. This remains so to this day, with the western arm largely ignorant of the Orthodox arm in the East.

In case you are getting depressed, the next big thing will be the return of the Lord Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords (the stone cut out without hands) and all the above will pass away.

We can learn from the rapid spiritual decline of the saints from the Golden Apostolic Age to the sad state by 300A.D. We should not be surprised at the present state of the saints or of the tendency to slip backwards rather than to make progress. To go backwards we need do nothing. The unregenerate and our own flesh will take over, organising and controlling affairs. History shows that to make progress spiritually we will need to arise, acquit ourselves like men and fight with everything God equips us with. We should accept no substitutes for having the life of Christ within us, by the Spirit manifested outwardly in community with the saints in the local body. Maintained through prayer, sharing in the Lord’s Table.

Where what is perceived as the Body of Christ is in distinctive institutions, then the threshold over which one enters will be one of conformity to the minimum requirements of each group’s culture and rules.

What do I mean by this? The saints where I live in Gateshead are scattered, mostly among numerous distinctive entities each having their own venue for public meetings. Just as each has its own venue they all have their own style of public meeting and standard of what passes for a good member. What might be considered a good Roman Catholic might not be considered a good Baptist or a good Pentecostal, and vice versa.

To enter and become an acceptable member of any of these organisations one would have to meet the differing criteria of each. To become a good Roman Catholic I would need to accept various doctrines and customs peculiar to that body, many of which may be offensive to members of some other body. To be considered a good Pentecostal I would need to adopt another set of beliefs and practices, many of which would in turn be offensive to other groups. And so on. With some places the only requirement is to come along!

In contrast perhaps it would be helpful to imagine the apostle Paul arriving at say, Ephesus and looking for the pupils of the Christ. He would be looking for a people, not for a building. He perhaps would begin by asking his fellow tent makers if they knew anyone who belonged to the Way, that is pupils of Christ. Or he may even inquire at the synagogue! Having found one Ephesian brother he would have found them all. That brother would be connected directly or indirectly at a personal level with the whole assembly of saints in that city, through being in practical community with them.

The kingdom of God is entered through receiving a revelation of Jesus the Door, by faith, upon repentance from sin, being born of the Holy Spirit into a new spiritual life. It is much easier for a rich man to enter a religious organisation than to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for any of us to join an institution than to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus, continuing in the Spirit, putting to death our flesh.

And unfortunately many of us do enter the religious organisations. So do many not so rich and many folks who are disadvantaged in some way. We all may find some comfort in our attendance and affiliation to these many and various groups. Calling them churches and fellowships does not help members of the Body of the Lord Jesus. Many who are born of the Spirit are led to incorrectly think of these as legitimate expressions of the kingdom of God and not as the purely natural human manifestations they are. Hence the divided and mixed assembly is truly mixed up. It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the kingdom of God is about those who were not a people (nation) becoming now the people of God. Where the horizon is littered with many and various groups and buildings it is these that impact on our minds and corrupt our perception of the Body of Christ and the kingdom of God - His Holy Nation.

I started attending a ‘church’ straightaway as ‘it was there’. The nice people who told me about Jesus were attending there also and told me that this is what God wants! So is this what God really wants? Is this from heaven or of man?

Why Go To Church?

This part is written in love to all those who have been born from above, not of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of the Spirit. To those who have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the powers of the coming age. To those called to be the sons of God through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus, the Christ. To all who would lay aside their own lives, that they might know Him, and the fellowship of His sufferings, and His resurrection life.

Nothing written here is intended for anyone else, nor to offend.

Going to Church is not for those to whom this is written.

Jesus never told anyone to ‘go to church’.

He did say, beware of the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees, which is hypocrisy – play acting - pretence.

Going to church is a universal expression and component of many world religions.

It may not always be called ‘going to church’. It may be called;

‘Going to mass.’

‘Attending church.’

‘Church membership.’

‘Christianity.’

‘Temple worship.’

‘Fellowship.’

‘Bible study.’

‘Prayer meeting.’

‘Communion service.’

‘Celebration’.

It can be observed in most major world religions, even if it is called something else.

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism etc all have their own way of ‘going to church’.

Evangelical Christianity is obviously the one that presents the greatest danger and snare to the saints.

An enemy has done this.

The prophetic example in the scriptures of this strategy of Satan is in 1 Kings.

1 Kings 11:28:

28 And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valour: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph.

29 And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field:

30 And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces:

31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:

32 (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)

33 Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.

34 Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes:

35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes.

36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light always before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.

37 And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.

38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.

39 And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.

40 Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

20 And it came to pass, when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again, that they sent and called him unto the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only.

21 And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah, with the tribe of Benjamin, an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men, which were warriors, to fight against the house of Israel, to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam the son of Solomon.

22 But the word of God came unto Shemaiah the man of God, saying,

23 Speak unto Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the remnant of the people, saying,

24 Thus saith the LORD, Ye shall not go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is from me. They hearkened therefore to the word of the LORD, and returned to depart, according to the word of the LORD.

25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel.

26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:

27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.

28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.

30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.

32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

1 And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.

2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men’s bones shall be burnt upon thee.

3 And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD hath spoken; Behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out.

So Jeroboam was the first king of the ten tribes, over whom he reigned twenty-two years (B.C. 976-945). He was the son of a widow of Zereda, and while still young was promoted by Solomon to be chief superintendent of the "burnden", i.e., of the bands of forced labourers. He fled to Egypt 1Ki 11:29-40 where he remained for a length of time under the protection of Shishak I. On the death of Solomon, because of Solomon’s apostasy in turning towards the foreign gods of his illicit wives, the ten tribes, having revolted, sent to invite Jeroboam to become their king. The conduct of Rehoboam favoured the designs of Jeroboam, and he was accordingly proclaimed "king of Israel" 1Ki 12:1-20 He rebuilt and fortified Shechem as the capital of his kingdom. He at once adopted means to perpetuate the division thus made between the two parts of the kingdom, and erected at Dan and Bethel, the two extremities of his kingdom, "golden calves – worship aids," which he set up as symbols of Jehovah, enjoining the people not any more to go up to worship at Jerusalem, but to bring their offerings to the shrines he had erected. He effectively created two alternative places of worship, one at Bethel – the house of God- sounds a good place to have a worship centre, doesn’t it? The other at Dan, in the extreme north, so that the Israelites could choose the place of worship that was most convenient. As the Levites weren’t going to play along with this rebellion against the clear commands of Jehovah he opened up the priesthood to any who had a vocation to serve at the new altars.

Jeroboam also invented his own feasts to Jehovah at times of his own setting. Thus he became distinguished as the man "who made Israel to sin." This policy was followed by all the succeeding kings of Israel. While he was engaged in offering incense at Bethel, a prophet from Judah appeared before him with a warning message from the Lord. Attempting to arrest the prophet for his bold words of defiance, his hand was "dried up," and the altar before which he stood was rent asunder. At his urgent entreaty his "hand was restored him again" 1Ki 13:1-6 9 comp. 2Ki 23:15 but the miracle made no abiding impression on him. His reign was one of constant war with the house of Judah. He died soon after his son Abijah 1Ki 14:1-20. Effectively Jeroboam, God’s appointed King of the 10 tribes of Israel, had laid a trap for the people of God, to draw them into disobedience and idolatry, to see if they would obey God or just ‘worship’ anyplace, anyhow.

Jesus gave His word on the whole matter in John 4.

19 The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshipped in this mountain (Samaria); and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

21 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

25 The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.

26 Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.

Very soon after the passing of all the original apostles of the Christ, most of the saints who had began gloriously in the Holy Spirit ended up by continuing, going on, in the flesh. The style of our going on in the flesh may vary tremendously, from pseudo Messianic liturgical leanings to hyper-rationalizing the scriptures, with a wide spectrum in-between.

Eventually pagan emperor Constantine declared the by now very fleshly religion of ‘Christianity’ to be the official religion of the Roman Empire. He then made it his business to see to it that this religion was viable by attempts at homogenising it and ensuring it had all the trappings of a world religion, with temples, altars, priests, ritual, dressing up, feasts, holy days and new moons. This politically motivated strategy is well documented as a universally occurring way of unifying a state. Right down to the Inquisition, the English Church Laws of Henry VIII, Islam, and other manifestations in all ages and cultures.

As God is the God of heaven and earth, none of this is outside His providence, just as in the case of Jeroboam. It happened to God’s chosen because of their apostasy – rebellion.

Nevertheless God has always kept a remnant of those who worship Him in Spirit and in the Truth.

Very often they have been mixed up with the prevailing culture they happened to have been born into. But usually they eventually ‘came forth out from among them’. Often with, or through, great suffering, persecution and loss. The original ‘friends’ of the seventeenth century United Kingdom are just one example among many.

Going to Church though, has always endured as the state approved mode of religion, even if it has been ‘tweaked’ from time to time. The prince of this world loves to have it so.

And so ‘Going to church’ is always there as a stumbling block to those who desire to know the Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and the Truth. It presents itself as harmless, indeed, as beneficial. It can also appear as a relatively quick and easy way to ‘worship’ God or to ‘fellowship’ with brothers. The lack of a clear visible Holy Spirit anointed alternative is also a major challenge to us all at this present time.

So, what is the alternative?

The alternative is to repent of lukewarmness, of going for the easy, the cheap, the attractive, the socially acceptable, rather than seeking first (preferring) the Kingdom of God, which is in the Spirit.

Why did I mentioned at the beginning that ‘This is written in love to all those who have been born from above, not of the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of the Spirit. To those who have been sealed with the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the powers of the coming age. To those called to be the sons of God through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus, the Christ. To all who would lay aside their own lives, that they might know Him, and the fellowship of His sufferings, and His resurrection life.’?

Simply because unless and until one is born of the Holy Spirit one cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is not apparent in any way. (John 3.) We remain in the dark.

So if we have indeed received of the Spirit of Christ and so are His, we who have tasted of the powers of the coming age, we can prefer the Kingdom of God. We’ve had a taste of it. But we have to prefer it to the point of mourning, fasting, craving the reality of immersion in the Spirit day by day. And not accept the sop, substitute, of Going to Church religion. When we are immersed in the Spirit, we are then immersed in the Christ, Jesus, in His death and in His resurrection to new eternal (quality) life. (Romans 6.) Any day we are not immersed in the Spirit, we are continuing (going on) in the flesh. Now we know that the flesh wars with our spirit. And wins. We become like the dog returning to it’s vomit, the washed pig back wallowing in the mire, very quickly. At least this has been my personal experience. And I’ve witnessed it in others I’ve known and loved.

But we have to pull down those altars that are not of God’s making.

We shouldn’t sign up for this substitute form of ‘worship’ which is in effect idolatry.

Brothers and sisters, lets leave the things of childhood behind and grow up into the Christ who is the Head.

Knowing Jesus is worth it. I’m not sorry that He got me out of there alive! I am so grateful.

And, when we are out of this pattern of going to church religion, we become motivated to seek out our brothers and sisters. The love of God shared abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit in us looks for sheep to feed, lambs to care for, feet to wash.

The alternative that Christ Jesus provides is a hundred mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and homes, both in this life and in the age to come!

Mr 10:29 And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,

Mr 10:30 But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

But all of this, out of the fruit of the Spirit, not of our own will or devising. If we abide in Jesus, we will bear much fruit. It is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.

Please seek the Lord about all of this. Time is short, and we only get one shot at this.

May we all know the unmerited favour and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father in knowing the company of the Spirit as we seek earnestly His mind.

"When he (the Spirit) has come he will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement." John 16:8. So Jesus informed his followers prior to the outpouring of the Promise of the Father, for which he, Jesus, came. When questioned about whether an individual is or is not born of the Spirit we may be coy about giving a definitive judgement, as if it is not our responsibility to know who are and who are not our brothers. The way to know if someone is born of the Spirit is by getting to know him or her! Sounds obvious don’t it?  Hence the importance of genuine community.

But if we do not know who is our brother, how can we obey Christ’s new commandment, that we love one another as he loved us? How can we shepherd sheep and wolves together? How can light have fellowship with darkness? We would be disappointed at not receiving the love of the Spirit shed abroad in the hearts of those who have not got this experience. We would have expectations of the unsaved, which could not be fulfilled. Hang about, does this sound familiar?

May it not be that we are coy about judging who is and who is not born of the Spirit because we are coy about the message of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus, the Christ of God?

John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." None of the distinctive groups would argue with this but this is not the whole message.

Lots of people believe in Jesus to some degree but do not have eternal life. True? How can they be saved unless they hear all the good news of God’s free offer? How can they hear unless someone is sent with the clear message? An ambiguous or compromised message leads to an ambiguous or compromised people. If the truth is hid is it not hidden from those who are perishing? How can it be the whole message of faith in the power of God if not in demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit?

The reverse is also true. The message of God’s offer is ambiguous because the saints are ambiguous. One will not accommodate the other. That is; a mixed assembly will reject a clear cut message of the opportunity of a miraculous new birth in the Holy Spirit as proclaimed by Peter on the day of Pentecost; - as being the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Also the proclaiming of God’s offer of an actual new birth when Christ immerses the repentant believer in the Holy Spirit will divide the mixed assembly into those with and those without this experience and the resultant fruit.

History and current events in any group where the Spirit is moving bear this out. The Spirit brings a sword and we hate to see people upset.

A proclamation of God’s offer of salvation based on repentance from sin; on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sin which was shown to be accepted by God through God raising him from the dead; on immersion in water in obedience to the command of Jesus and in expectation of being immersed in the Holy Spirit as the start of a new life; where there is the daily possibility of being full of the Holy Spirit in a way that can be discerned by oneself and others.

This would be seen by many to be trite, offensive and frankly, unbelievable. And here is the crux of the matter, unbelievable. For without faith we cannot be born of the Spirit. No matter how nice, religious, sincere, loyal, hardworking, honest, good, kind, dependable, wise, intelligent, knowledgeable, searching, inquiring, devout in prayer, fervent in singing praises to God, emotional, attentive, articulate, regular in attendance at public gatherings of a religious nature or even skilled in leading them and taking part. Without faith that obtains the Gift of God which he offers - nothing.

In our desire to see numbers grow at our group we may settle for a formula which only prompts folks to ‘ask Jesus into your heart.’ If they get to that stage we may then eventually advise them to be immersed at the next ‘baptismal service’ instead of teaching that Jesus commands all who desire to follow him to repent of their sins and be immersed in his name straight away. As a separate matter some folks, depending on what sort of enterprise it is, will be told about the immersion in the Holy Spirit, almost as an ‘extra’ to give power to live the sort of life God wants his children to live.

With the Good News split up into these various parts is it any wonder that the level of a true experience of salvation in those who hear this ‘message in instalments’ is so varied. As the record shows of those believers in Ephesus who had only heard the message according to Apollos before he was corrected, we generally only receive that which we believe; and we can only believe that which we have heard. These particular believers in Ephesus had not so much as heard that there was a Holy Spirit, so how could they receive the Holy Spirit when they believed? Acts 19.

Having said this however all preaching of Jesus the Christ is to be applauded. By the grace of God many come to faith in Jesus in all manner of circumstances and under a very wide variety of preaching.