THE TEACHING
WORK OF THE
HOLY SPIRIT
IN BELIEVERS

THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES ALL THINGS.

The Holy Spirit guides the believer into all the truth.

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

This promise was made in the first instance to the Apostles, but the Apostles themselves applied it to all believers.

1 John 2:20, 27 [20] But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. [27] As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit -- just as it has taught you, remain in him.

It is the privilege of each of us to be "taught of God." Each believer is independent of human teachers -- "you need not that any man teach you." This does not mean, of course, that we may not learn much from others who are taught of the Holy Spirit. If John had thought that he would never have written this epistle to teach others. The man who is most fully taught of God, is the very one who will be most ready to listen to what God has taught others. Much less does it mean that when we are taught of the Spirit we are independent of the Word of God. For the Word is the very place to which the Spirit leads His pupils and the instrument through which He instructs them.

Ephesians 6:17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

Ephesians 5:18-19 [18] Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. [19] Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

But while we may learn much from men we are not dependent upon them. We have a Divine teacher, the Holy Spirit.

We shall never truly know the truth until we are taught by the Spirit. No amount of mere human teaching, no matter who our teachers may be, will give us a correct understanding of the truth; not even a diligent study of the Word either in the English or original languages will give us a real understanding of the truth. We must be taught by the Holy Spirit. And each of us may be so taught. The one who is so taught will understand the truth of God better, even if he does not know a word of Greek or Hebrew, better than one who knows Greek and Hebrew and all the cognate languages, but is not taught by the Spirit.

The Spirit will guide the one He teaches into all the truth. Not in a day, nor in a week, nor in a year, but step by step. There are two especial lines of the Spirit's teaching mentioned. (a) "He shall declare unto you the things that are to come." Many say we can know nothing of the future, that our thoughts on the subject are guesswork. Anyone taught by the Spirit knows better. (b) "He shall glorify me (i.e., Christ), for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you." This is the Holy Spirit's especial line with the believer as with the unbeliever, to declare unto them the things of Christ and glorify Him.

Many fear to emphasize the truth about the Holy Spirit lest Christ be disparaged, but no one magnifies Christ as the Holy Spirit does. We shall never understand Christ nor see His glory until the Holy Spirit interprets Him to us. The mere listening to sermons and lectures, the mere study of the Word even, will never give you to see "the things of Christ." The Holy Spirit must show you, and His is willing to do it. He is longing to do it. I suppose the Holy Spirit's most intense desire is to reveal Jesus Christ to men. Let Him do it. Christ is so different when the Spirit glorifies Him by taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto us.
 

The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance the words of Christ.

John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Here again we have teaching of the Holy Spirit, but we have something besides.

This promise was made primarily to the Apostles, and is the guarantee of the accuracy of their report of what Jesus said; but the Holy Spirit does a similar work with each believer who expects it of Him, and looks to Him to do it. He brings to mind the teachings of Christ and the Word, just when we need them for either the necessities of our life or of our service. How many of us could tell of occasions when we were in great distress of soul, or great questioning as to duty, or great extremity as to what to say to one whom we were trying to lead to Christ or to help, and just the Scripture we needed -- some passage we had not thought of for a long time and perhaps never in this connection -- was brought to mind. It was the Holy Spirit who did this, and He is ready to do it even more when we expect it from Him. Is it without signifi- cance that in the verse following this blessed promise, Jesus says: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you?" If we will just look to the Holy Spirit to bring to mind Scripture just when we need it and just the Scripture we need, we will indeed have Christ's peace.
 

The Holy Spirit reveals to us the deep things of God which are hidden from and foolishness to the natural man.

It is primarily to the Apostles that He does this, but we cannot limit this work of the Spirit to them. Also:

The Holy Spirit imparts power to discern, know and appreciate what he has taught.

1 Corinthians 2:9-14 [9] However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" -- [10] but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. [11] For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. [12] We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. [13] This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. [14] The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Not only is the Holy Spirit the author of divine revelation -- the written word of God -- He is also the interpreter of what He has revealed. How much more interesting and helpful any way deep book becomes when we have the author of the book right at hand to interpret it to us. This is what we always may have when we study the Bible. The author, the Holy Spirit, is right at hand to interpret. To understand the book we must look to Him and the darkest places become clear. We need to pray often with the Psalmist: "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." (Psalms 119:18) It is not enough that we have the objective revelation in the written word, we must have the (subjective) inward illumination of the Holy Spirit to enable us to comprehend it. It is a great mistake to try to comprehend a spiritual revelation with the natural understanding. It is the foolish attempt to do this that has landed so many in the bog of "the higher criticism." A man with no aesthetic sense might as well expect to appreciate the Sistine Madonna because he is not color-blind, as an unspiritual man to understand the Bible simply because he understands the laws of grammar and the vocabulary of the languages in which the Bible was written. I would as soon think of setting a man to teach art because he understood paints, as to set him to teach the Bible because he understood Greek and Hebrew. We all need not only to recognize the utter insufficiency and worthlessness before God of our own righteousness, which is the lesson of opening chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, but also the utter insufficiency and worthlessness in the things of God of our own wisdom, which is the lesson of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, especially the first to the third chapters. See, e.g.:

1 Corinthians 1:19-21, 26-27 [19] For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." [20] Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? [21] For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. [26] Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

The Jews had a revelation by the Spirit but they failed to depend upon Him to interpret it to them, so they went astray. The whole evangelical church recognizes the utter insufficiency of man's righteousness, theoretically at least. Now it needs to be taught and made to feel the utter insufficiency of man's wisdom. That is perhaps the lesson that this nineteenth century of overweening intellectual conceit needs most of any.

To understand God's word we must empty ourselves utterly of our own wisdom, and rest in utter dependence upon the Spirit of God to interpret it to us.

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children."

When we have put away our own righteousness, then, and only then, we get the righteousness of God.

Philippians 3:3-9 [3] For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh -- [4] though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: [5] circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; [6] as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. [7] But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. [8] What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ [9] and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ -- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.

Romans 10:3 Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

When we put away our own wisdom -- then, and only then, we get the wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 3:18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise.

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

1 Corinthians 1:25-28 [25] For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. [26] Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. [28] He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things -- and the things that are not -- to nullify the things that are,

When we put away our own strength, then, and only then, we get the strength of God.

Isaiah 40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

1 Corinthians 1:27-28 [27] But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. [28] He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things -- and the things that are not -- to nullify the things that are,

Emptying must precede filling. Self poured out so that God may be poured in.

We must daily be taught by the Spirit to understand the word. I cannot depend today on the fact that the Spirit taught me yesterday. Each new contact with the Word must be in the power of the Spirit. That the Holy Spirit once illumined our mind to grasp a certain passage is not enough. He must do so each time we confront that passage. Andrew Murray has put this truth well. He says "Each time you come to the Word in study, in hearing a sermon or reading a religious book, there ought to be, as distinct as your intercourse with the external means, a definite act of self- abnegation, denying your own wisdom and yielding yourself in faith to the Divine teacher."
 

The Holy Spirit enables the believer to communicate to others in power the truth he himself has been taught.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5 [1] When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. [2] For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. [3] I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. [4] My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, [5] so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.

1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 [4] For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, [5] because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.

Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

We not only need the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth in the first place, and the Holy Spirit in the second place to interpret to us as individuals the truth He has revealed, but, in the third place also we need the Holy Spirit to enable us to effectually communicate to others the truth He Himself has interpreted to us. We need Him all along the line. One great cause of real failure in the ministry even when there is seeming success, and not only in the ministry, but in all forms of service by Christian men and women, is from the attempt to teach by "enticing words of man's wisdom" -- i.e., by the arts of human logic, rhetoric and eloquence -- what the Holy Spirit has taught us. What is needed is Holy Spirit power "demonstration of the Spirit and of power."

There are three causes of failure in preaching:

First. Some other message is taught than the message which the Holy Spirit has revealed in the Word -- men preach science, art philosophy, sociology, history, experience, etc., and not the simple word of God as found in the Holy Spirit's Book, the Bible.

Second. The Spirit-taught message, the Bible, is studied and sought to be comprehended solely by the natural understanding -- i.e., without the Spirit's illumination. That, alas, is too common even in institutions where men are being trained for the ministry.

Third. The Spirit-given message, the Word, the Bible, studied and comprehended under the Holy Spirit illumination, is given out to others with "enticing words of man's wisdom," and not "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power."

We need, we are absolutely dependent upon, the Spirit all along the line. He must teach us how to speak as well as what to speak. His must be the power as well as the message.
 

The Holy Spirit helps, guides and gives power to the believer in prayer.

Jude 1:20 But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 6:18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Romans 8:26-27 [26] In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. [27] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

The disciples did not know how to pray as they ought to, so they came to Jesus and said: "Lord, teach us to pray."

Luke 11:1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

John 14:16-17 [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- [17] the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Romans 8:26 (above)

He teaches us to pray. True prayer is prayer in the Spirit -- i.e., the prayer the Spirit inspires and directs. When we come into God's presence we should recognize our infirmity, our ignorance of what we should pray for, or how we should do it, and in the consciousness of our utter inability to pray aright, look up to the Holy Spirit, and cast ourselves utterly upon Him, to direct our prayers, to lead out our desires an guide our utterance of them. Rushing heedlessly into God's presence and asking the first thing that comes into our mind, or that some thoughtless one asks us to pray for, is not praying "in the Holy Spirit," and is not true prayer. We must wait for the Holy Spirit, and surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit. The prayer that God the Holy Spirit inspires is the prayer that God the Father answers.

Note 1 -- Romans 8:26-27 (above)

The longings which the Holy Spirit begets in our hearts are often too deep for utterance, too deep apparently for clear and definite comprehension on the part of the believer himself in whom the Holy Spirit is working. God Himself must "search the heart" to know "what is the mind of the Spirit" in these unuttered and unutterable longings. But God does know what is in the mind of the Spirit, He does know what those Spirit-given longings mean, even if we do not, and these longings are "according (to the will of) God," and He grants them, so it comes to pass that:

Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

Note 2 1 Corinthians 14:15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.
 

The Holy Spirit helps, inspires the believer to and guides him to praise and thanksgiving.

Ephesians 5:18-20 [18] Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. [19] Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, [20] always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not only does He teach us to pray, He also teaches us to render thanks. One of the most prominent characteristics of "the spirit- filled life" is thanksgiving.

Acts 2:4, 11 [4] All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. [11] (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs -- we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"

True thanksgiving is "to God, even the Father," through or "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," in the Holy Spirit. The same is true of prayer.

Ephesians 2:18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
 

The Holy Spirit inspires worship on the part of the believer.

Philippians 3:3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh --

Prayer is not worship, thanksgiving is not worship. Worship is a definite act of the creature in relation to God. Worship is bowing before God in adoring acknowledgment and contemplation of Him. Someone has said: "In our prayers we are taken up with our needs, in our thanksgiving we are taken up with our blessings, in our worship we are taken up with Himself."

There is no true and acceptable worship except that which the Holy Spirit prompts and directs.

John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

The Flesh seeks to enter every sphere of life. It has its worship as well as its lusts. The worship which the flesh worships is an abomination to God. (Herein we see the folly of any attempt at an interfaith worship service, where the representatives of different religions attempt to worship together.)

There is certainly a difference between Christians of different denominations worshipping together as contrasted to persons who believe in different gods or who claim to believe in the same God of Christianity but in truth have fundamentally different beliefs, e.g., Muslims who worship the deistic Allah, orthodox Jews who deny that Jesus is the Messiah, Christians, and Mormons, who claim that Jehovah was once a man on "another earth" and that he became the god of this universe and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three separate gods.

Not all earnest and honest worship is worship in the Spirit. A man may be very honest and very earnest in his worship, and still not have submitted himself to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the matter, and so his worship is in the flesh. Even when there is great loyalty to the letter of the Word, worship may not be "in the Spirit" -- i.e., inspired and directed by Him. To worship aright we must "have no confidence in the flesh," we must recognize the utter inability of the flesh -- i.e., our natural self, as contrasted to the Divine Spirit that dwells in and should mold everything in the believer -- to worship acceptably; we must realize also the danger there is that the flesh, self, intrude itself into our worship. In utter self-distrust an self-abnegation we must cast ourselves upon the Holy Spirit to lead us aright in our worship.

Just as we must renounce any merit in ourselves and cast ourselves utterly upon Christ and His work for us for justification, just so must we renounce any capacity for good in ourselves, and cast ourselves utterly upon the Holy Spirit an His work in us, in holy living, knowing, praying, thanking and worshipping, and all else that we are to do.
 

The Holy Spirit calls men and sends them forth to definite lines of work.

Acts 13:2-4 [2] While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." [3] So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off. [4] The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and sailed from there to Cyprus.

The Holy Spirit not only calls men in a general way into Christian work, but selects the specific work and points it out.

"Shall I go to China, to Africa, to India?" many are asking, and many others ought to ask. You cannot rightly settle that question for yourselves, neither can any other man settle it rightly for you. Not every Christian man is called to China or Africa, or any other foreign field, or to the foreign field at all. Go alone knows whether He wishes you in any of these places. He is willing to show you.

How does the Holy Spirit call? The passage before us does not tell us. It is presumably purposely silent on this point, lest, perhaps, we think that He must always call in precisely the same way. There is nothing to indicate that He spoke by an audible voice, much less that He made His will known in any of the fantas- tic ways in which some profess to discern His leading -- as, e.g., by twitchings of the body, opening the Bible at random and putting the finger on a passage that may be construed into some entirely different meaning than what the inspired writer intended by it. But the important point is, He made His will clearly known and He is willing to make His will clearly known to us today.

The great need in Christian work today is men and women whom the Holy Spirit calls and sends forth. We have plenty of men and women whom men have called and sent forth, or who have called themselves. (There are many today who object strenuously to being sent forth by men, by any organization of any kind, who are, what is immeasurably worse than that, send forth by self, not by God.)

How shall we receive the Holy Spirit's call? By desiring it, seeking it, waiting upon the Lord for it, and expecting it. "As they ministered to the Lord and fasted," the record reads. Many a man is saying in self-justification for staying out of the ministry, and staying at home from the foreign field, "I have never had a call." How do you know that? Have you been listening for it? God speaks often in a "still small voice." Only the listening ear can catch it. Have you definitely offered yourself to God to send you where He will? While no man ought to go to China or Africa unless he is clearly and definitely called, he ought to definitely offer himself to God for this work, to be ready for a call an to be listening sharply that he may hear it when it comes. No educated Christian man or woman has a right to rest easy out of the foreign field unless he has definitely offered himself to God for that work, and is clear no call from God has come. A man needs no more definite call to Africa than to Boston, or New York, or Chicago.
 

The Holy Spirit guides in the details of daily life and service, as to where to go an where not to go; what to do and what not to do.

Acts 8:27-29 [27] So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, [28] and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. [29] The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."

Acts 16:6-7 [6] Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. [7] When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

It is possible for us to have the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit at every turn of life. For example, in personal work it is manifestly not God's intention that we speak to every one we meet. There are some to whom we ought not to speak. Time spent on them would be taken from work more to God's glory. Doubtless Philip met many as he journeyed toward Gaza before he met the one of whom the Spirit said: "Go near, and join thyself to this chariot." So is He ready to guide us also. So also in all the affairs of life, business, study, everything, we can have God's wisdom. There is no promise more plain and explicit than the following:

James 1:5-7 [5] If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. [6] But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. [7] That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;

Here are really five steps;

First. That we "lack wisdom." We must be conscious of and fully admit our own inability to decide wisely. Not only the sinfulness, but the wisdom of the flesh must be renounced.

Second. We must really desire to know God's way, and be willing to do God's will. That is implied in the asking if the asking is sincere. This is a point of fundamental importance. Here we find the reason men oftentimes do not know God's will and have the Spirit's guidance. They are not really willing to do whatever the Spirit leads. It is "the meek" whom He guides in judgment and "the meek" to whom "He will teach his way." (Psalms 25:9) It is he that "willeth to do his will" who shall know, etc. (John 7:17)

Third. We must "ask," definitely ask for guidance.

Fourth. We must confidently expect guidance. "Let him ask in faith, nothing doubting." (John 7:6-7)

Fifth. We must follow step by step as the guidance comes. Just how it will come no one can tell, but it will come. It may come with only a step made clear at a time. That is all we need to know -- the next step. Many are in darkness about guidance because they do not know what God will have them do next week, or next month, or next year. Do you know the next step? That is enough. Take it and He will show you the next.

Numbers 9:17-23 [17] Whenever the cloud lifted from above the Tent, the Israelites set out; wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped. [18] At the LORD's command the Israelites set out, and at his command they encamped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they remained in camp. [19] When the cloud remained over the tabernacle a long time, the Israelites obeyed the LORD's order and did not set out. [20] Sometimes the cloud was over the tabernacle only a few days; at the LORD's command they would encamp, and then at his command they would set out. [21] Sometimes the cloud stayed only from evening till morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they set out. Whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud lifted, they set out. [22] Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. [23] At the LORD's command they encamped, and at the LORD's command they set out. They obeyed the LORD's order, in accordance with his command through Moses.

GOD'S GUIDANCE IS CLEAR GUIDANCE

1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Many are tortured by leadings they fear may be from God, but of which they are not sure. You have a right, as God's children, to be sure. Go to God. Say, "Here I am, heavenly Father, I am willing to do thy will, but make it clear. If this is thy will I will do it, but make it clear if it is so." He will do so, if it is His will, and you are willing to do it; and you need not, and ought not to do that thing until He does make it clear. We have no right to dictate to God how He shall give His guidance: by shutting up every other way, or by a sign, or by letting us put our finger on a text. It is ours to seek and expect wisdom, but it is not ours to dictate how it shall be given.

1 Corinthians 12:11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

Two things are evident from what has been said thus far about the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer:

First. How utterly dependent we are upon the Holy Spirit at every turn of Christian life and service.

Second. How perfect is the provision for life and service that God has made and what the fullness of privilege that is open to the humblest believer through the Holy Spirit's work. It is not so much what we are by nature, either intellectually, morally, spiritually, or even physically, that is important, but what the Holy Spirit can do for us, and what we will let Him do. The Holy Spirit often takes the one who gives the least natural promise and uses him beyond those who give the greatest natural promise. Christian life is not to be lived i the realm of natural temperament, and Christian work is to be done in the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is willing and eagerly desirous to do for each of us His whole work. He will do for each of us all that we let Him do.