Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: We're continuing this series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. That's the title, but it probably should should have been titled the Person and Works of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, there are a vast multiplicity of things that the Holy Spirit does and we can't exhaust in this series all of those. But tonight I'm going to be zeroing in on several of the specific works of the Holy Spirit, particularly through understanding the symbolism of the Holy Spirit.
Now when one begins, particularly in a Protestant church, more particularly in a Spirit filled church, a Pentecostal or charismatic church, to talk about the Holy Spirit, then everybody wants to jump the gun.
Everybody wants to jump. When are we going to get to the upper room? When do we get to the upper room? We're coming to the upper room. But I just need you to understand that the Holy Spirit wasn't invented in the upper room and it certainly wasn't invented in the 20th century or the 21st century.
We are only hoping and believing the Holy Spirit invented us.
So what I've tried to do is go back from the very beginning. I'm just not going to recapitulate two weeks of teaching. But we talked about the Holy Spirit is the breath of God, the wind, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit that brooded over the face of the abyss, reporting to God in inside the divine community of the Godhead. This is not like you. This is dark and chaotic and a boiling abyss of nothingness. And it longs and aches for your creation and your light and your grace. So the Holy Spirit is pre creation, the third person of the Trinity. He is the Spirit of God.
Then we talked about the Holy Spirit as the breath of life and I got so many questions on it. I fear somewhat that I confused you.
When I talk about the Spirit of Life, the Lord, the giver of life. The Holy Spirit is called the Lord, the Giver of life.
I talk about God removing his Holy Spirit. But listen to me, I'm not talking about baptism in the Holy Spirit or the fullness of the Spirit or the Holy Spirit as the earnest of our redemption New Testament realities. I'm talking about the Holy Spirit as the Lord, the Giver of life.
So when God breathed into Adam the Holy Spirit, it is that spirit of life that made Adam come alive. That's the reason that I said every person who is alive has the spirit of life.
So if God were to. This was I think, the sentence that confused everybody. If God were to withdraw his Holy Spirit from you, it's not that you no longer are a Christian, it's that you are no longer alive.
We see that on the cross when Jesus. It says in the kjv, Jesus gave up the ghost.
But ghost is a synonym for spirit. Gave up the spirit. What it means is he released the spirit of life from his physical body. And that's what we still even use in some of the younger people probably never heard the phrase. But among older Americans, we still use use that phrase to mean died.
We may use it to a person or you say, oh, he used to own a restaurant, but he gave up the ghost. And it means died.
So the breath of life leaves has nothing to do with Christianity or sanctification or the baptism of power is just about life.
Now then, we talked about the spirit of holiness.
And I'm not again not going to go over that whole teaching on holiness.
But the Holy Spirit, it's no mere accident that the Spirit of God is called the Holy Spirit, that he is the Spirit of holiness according to Romans chapter one that raised Christ Jesus from the dead.
So he is the Spirit of I am that I am.
Again, just quick summary.
God is I am that I am. He is never partial. He is never a memory. He is never.
There is no part of him that is superfluous. There's nothing in God's character or nature that if it were removed, would make him a better God than He is. There is nothing missing in his character or nature that would make him a better God if it were added.
So our God is altogether Himself, altogether perfect, altogether holy.
And we know the nature and character of his holiness. But which is according to one John. God is love.
God is holiness. Is I am, is love.
God is I am is love.
Amen.
Now, let's begin with a prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this evening. I thank you for those who have made the effort, perhaps even left sick folk at home. We pray for them where they are. Then your healing power would address itself to their deepest need. And here in this evening, tonight, we are with you and before you. And we pray that your word will witness with us. Breathe, O breathe, thy loving spirit into every troubled breast.
Let us all in Thee inherit. Let us find that second rest in Jesus Name the strong son of God. Amen.
I wonder if there's anybody here that's old enough to remember the educational manipulative called flashcards. Anybody here remember flashcards? Okay, we no longer use flashcards in elementary school. Do you know why? It's because they actually worked.
We wouldn't want educational theory to bow to practical reality, but flashcards worked because the purpose of flashcards was that if you see it in one context and become familiar in that context, then when you change context, the truth doesn't change.
So you remember the teacher would hold up a card, three plus two, and you'd yell out five, five, five. And she'd turn the card over and it was five.
So the idea of the flashcard was you became so familiar with the picture of the problem three plus two, that if it's three plus two, when the teacher holds it up and you're all trying to shout first and get the prize, if it's three plus two on that card, then it's three plus two on an arithmetic test, on a pop quiz.
That's why flashcards work.
So it is my own particular provocative hermeneutic that the entire Old Testament could actually be summarized as a series of flashcards.
That God is saying, see this?
You're going to see it again and again and again. You'll see it again and again. And then when you see it over here in an entirely different context, you're going to say, oh, okay, this is that.
Do you see what I'm trying to say now, when we come on next week, if we get to it, we'll talk about the upper room. But let me tease you with this.
At the end of the upper room experience, after all of the pyrotechnics have calmed down, Peter is asked, what happened in here?
And he answers, this is that.
This is that which was prophesied by Joel.
So what he's saying is, I recognize this as something that we saw on the flashcard 850 years ago.
All right? John Baptist uses the same concept when he points to Jesus on the bank of the River Jordan and he says, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.
That is not language. That was peculiar to that setting. Everybody there understood exactly what he was talking about. Because they weren't 21st century Christians, they were 1st century Jews. They understood that language. That's the language of redemption, the language, the lamb that taketh away the sin of the world.
So they understood that. He says, all of the blood, all of the rivers of blood, all of the sacrifices, all of the lambs, all of the red heifers, all of the sprinkling ashes, all of that was about this.
Okay, so now we're going to talk about flashcards about the Holy Spirit.
So these are symbolic flashcards.
There might be more symbols than these, but I want to deal with these. Wind, fire, oil, water and a dove.
Wind, fire, oil, water and dove, not necessarily in that order, but those are symbols of the Holy Spirit. In those symbols, in those representations of the character and nature, each of them revealing some specific ramification or nuance of the character and nature of the Spirit of God.
As we explore those and see how they were used in the Old Testament and then how they were picked up in the New Testament, you'll see how they unfold as symbolic flashcards, pictures if you will, of the Holy Spirit.
So let's take first of all oil, if you'll take your Bibles, if you will please, and turn to 1 Samuel, chapter 16. 1 Samuel, chapter 16 and verse 13. 1 Samuel, 16 and 13.
Then Samuel took the horn of oil and, and anointed him. That's David. Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.
The oil throughout the Old Testament is used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit in two ways.
One is for anointing here, as in the anointing of authority, of power, the sense of the coming upon of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for power, for authority, for kingliness, or for prophetic power. It's very, very important because the shocking language of Joel, chapter two decries this limitation.
So if we think of the Holy Spirit as being as they, as most people did in the Old Testament, as being only for kings and prophets and heroes. Samson got the Holy Spirit, David got the Holy Spirit, Isaiah had the Holy Spirit. But the idea of just folk receiving the Holy Spirit was not only would not only be shocking to pre Christian Jews, it would be a little frightening, it would be a little scary.
You remember when Moses approaches the mountain and there's the thunder and the lightning and everything, and all the people say to Moses, you go, we're okay right here. When you come back, there was this sense of this unapproachable power of God, almost the terror of God.
So the Holy Spirit was given by sovereign fiat, by divine choice, to a prophet, a king. And it wasn't always a happy thing. God has always felt the liberty to jerk his prophets through Knotholes.
When I was university president, every now and again some kid would come and say, I just feel like God is calling me to be to the office of prophet.
Will you pray with me for that anointing? I say, absolutely. Just before we do that, let me just say just a couple things.
Prophets were thrown down wells, they were sawn in half.
They were rejected.
They were despised. They were cast out.
John Baptist had his head cut off. Jesus was nailed to a cross. And the Spirit, all that's wrapped up in the spirit of prophecy, but so kneel down. And every one of them said, you know, let's wait.
So do you see what I'm trying to say? The oil, the oil that was poured on David at his father Jesse's house in that moment, that prophetic anointing that came on him as king, there is a sense in which one may say, hey, anoint me as king.
There's another sense in which basically that disturbed and messed up the rest of David's life.
So the idea is still, though, even in the contemporary church, we still use that Old Testament language. Somebody is speaking, teaching in a book or whatever, and we say, that was so anointed.
I have a wonderful friend. He's not a Christian believer, but he is a wonderful, dear friend of mine. He is a rabbi in Jerusalem, David Nakrutman. And he's a wonderful, wonderful man. But he, because of his interaction through Christian churches and all, he sometimes is invited to come and lecture or something like that. And he told me, he called me one night, he said, I just spoke at a church, and after I was finished, somebody came up and said, you're so anointed.
And he said, it just shocked me.
He said, I was shocked.
And he said, what, what could they mean by that?
And I said, I think they mean by that, that sense that there is something going on with you, something happening. He said, do you realize what that language means? He said that David was anointed.
And I said, well, they don't mean it in the same way. They're not confused about who you are, David. They're just.
They're just telling you they sense God was on you that night. And he said it was shocking language that shows you that Old Testament view.
The oil of the Holy Spirit coming upon, and we're not using it here, but also mentally, the mantle of the prophet, the coming upon of the Holy Spirit. All right?
The second way in which oil is used is for healing.
So the Holy Spirit reveals to us in the symbolism of oil that he is a.
A liquefaction of the presence of God for healing and for power and anointing.
These are themes that are consistent with Pentecostal understanding of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
I never felt much of an interest in healing ministry until I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And it was almost. I never.
I didn't receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to get involved in a healing ministry. I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit to keep from blowing my brains out.
But as soon as I received the Holy Spirit, I found automatically, instantly I was interested in and wanted to be a part of the healing ministry because we still find the Holy Spirit in that picture of oil being poured out, that soothing, healing, empowering, anointing presence.
Now, the second one that we want to choose is the dove.
A dove is, across religious boundaries and cultural boundaries insofar as I know universally, a symbol of peace.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of peace in both Luke and John, when John Baptist baptizes Jesus.
When Jesus comes up out of the water, John says in one version, the Holy Spirit in the bodily form of a dove. In another, he says as a dove.
But either way, the Holy Spirit comes and rests on Jesus.
He is called the Prince of Peace.
So the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of that part of God which is about peace.
It is not God's will for his children to live knotted up, anxiety ridden lives.
He doesn't mean for us to live in this world filled with fear and anxiety and worry and turmoil, with all of the promises of the New Testament and the inner presence of the Holy Spirit within them. It's amazing to me how many Christians live in constant anxiety.
They live in all of the memories of the past as stuff that has hurt and wounded and made them afraid. And they drag it on their back like pilgrim trying to make his progress up the hill. Is that enough?
No, no. They reach way over into next year and get all the stuff that might ever happen and pull that in on them.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of peace and Jesus is the Prince of peace.
Now the third I want to deal with is that more engaging and more startling symbol, and that is fire in Isaiah, chapter four. I'm not going to do all these scripture references for the sake of time. Isaiah chapter 4, verse 4, Matthew, chapter 3, verses 11 through 12, and Acts 2, 3, 4. We'll come to that more specifically next week.
But the Holy Spirit is revealed in form as a fire in multiple places.
Think for example, of the burning bush.
Now, a fire is a means of purification.
You know, I don't think anybody didn't much make western movies anymore. But when I was a kid, it was stock and trade. I bet. I think I've seen every movie that John Wayne ever made.
And in most of them, there would come that moment where somebody has been shot. An arrow. They dig the arrow out, the bullet, something. But they have no. They have no triple antibiotic ointment.
So somebody pulls out a bowie knife. Come on, hold it in the fire.
Get that blade hot. And then they press it against John Wayne's manly chest. And does he even. Does he even cry out? No. God forbid. John Wayne never wept a tear in his life.
But what's the purpose of that hot knife being pressed against that wound? It's to cleanse it. I have no clue if that would actually work. But the symbol is the sanctifying, purifying fire.
So let me ask you about the burning bush on the mountainside.
That it says God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush.
Now did.
Here's. Here's a profound question. Did God cause a burning bush to appear or was there a bush there and the fire engulfed it?
I believe it is that one.
That what God sent was not a bush.
What he sent was the fire.
And the fire engulfs that.
The. The miracle was not just that there was a fire there. The miracle was that the fire didn't destroy the bush, wasn't burned. All right, now here's my question.
When Moses left and went back down to Zipporah and to his father in law, the fire didn't stay in that bush, did it?
The fire lifted.
But how many of you believe there were any parasites in that bush?
That bush was changed.
So what I'm saying is that the fire of the Holy Spirit is a symbol of the purifying fire of God, John Baptist, when he said, I indeed baptize you with water, but one cometh after me the latchet of whose shoes I'm not worthy to loose. And he shall indeed baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost. It. It blesses me that the first person to preach a baptism of fire was not a Pentecostal. He was a Baptist. And so the fire, the flashcard of fire is about sanctification, but not simply sanctification. Us word. It is about the holy presence of God. Because here is a little more sobering flashcard about the Holy Spirit.
Remember when Aaron's sons came in the tabernacle and they said arrogantly, we don't need this old guy.
We don't need Aaron. We can light the fire. So they go into the holy of Holies and they're going to light the fire that dwelt between the cherubim. And instead the fire leaps out and burns them and destroys them. And you remember Moses and Aaron come in and find the boys dead, the young men dead.
And God tells Moses and Aaron, don't even weep.
I forbid you to even grieve.
Take their bodies outside the congregation and don't even weep.
So the issue then is not simply sanctifying fire. It is that the fire itself is true.
There can't be any substitute fire.
There can't be strange fire.
There can't be manlit fire. This is a sobering word for Pentecostals.
Some places the issue is the absence of fire. Remember the old country music song, there's nothing cold as ashes once the fire goes out.
But there are some places where the absence of fire is the deal for us.
The more sobering reality is wildfire, strange fire.
God will not suffer that either.
So it has to be real fire. It has to be God sent fire. And the purpose of it is holiness. God wants to purify a wounded people with the sanctifying fire of the Holy Spirit.
So these symbols are going to show up now. Stay with me.
So then there is the fourth, and that is water.
I could teach for an hour on this one. This is the one I would love to speak on at length.
But let me just say the Sukkot, the Jewish feast of Tabernacles, was always from. From ancient times, associated with the outpouring of water.
The three people would go, and on each day of Sukkot, the of the feast of Tabernacles, okay, let's say it that way. They would. Three men would go down to the Pool of Siloam. Siloam means sent.
Okay? Do you remember later on in the New Testament where the Pool of Siloam shows up? Right. Hold on to it. Hold that thought. Three people would go down, fill up big jugs of water, and as they approached the temple, trumpets would sound.
And then they would come inside the temple and pour that water. There was a hole in the altar, and they would pour that water into the altar. And when they did, it was joyful, celebrational.
It was a festival of delight. People would just rejoice and it was joyful, okay?
That went on for seven days.
And on the eighth day, it was an absolute fiesta when they would pour that water out and the unexpected would happen.
I read that scholars who had learned to juggle would juggle because they thought, wow, here's this rabbinical scholar juggling. It was unexpected.
And dancing and laughing, all kinds of things like that.
Where does this show up in John?
Jesus. It says, on the last day, the great day of that feast, he stood in the temple and cried out, if anyone's thirsty, let him come to me and drink, and rivers of living water will flow out of his innermost being.
It must have been the most shocking thing in the world. He could say they've had eight days of pouring out water as a symbol for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit from the Pool of Siloam. One who is sent will bring the Holy Spirit to be poured out on joy and celebration. And it's all done. It's celebrating. People have feasted, they've rejoiced, they've danced. And Jesus said, all right, now, if you've had all of this religion and you're still thirsty, now come to me and drink.
Because he says, I am the Pool of Siloam, I am sent to bring you this.
Flashcards.
Flashcards.
But then the man born blind, Jesus, makes a clay, puts it on, and tells him to go wash in the pool at Siloam.
Water from the pool of Siloam. The healing, cleansing. What does water do? It cleanses. It washes. And let me tell you something else water does.
It refreshes.
It's a strange effect of water, isn't it?
You ever take a shower when you're exhausted, you mow the lawn, you're tired and hot and dirty, and you shower. And you're not just clean, you feel better.
It's a strange thing about water.
Furthermore, just as it does on the feast of Tabernacles, water makes us joyful.
Come on, now, be honest with me. I'mma ask you. I'm watching you. How many of you often find yourself spontaneously and irrepressibly singing in the shower? Come on.
Four people raise their hand. The rest of you, There's a lake of fire.
No, you know, there's just something about it. And that is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for joy and cleansing and liberty sent, poured on us from him who is sent.
And then there is the wonderful one of wind we talked about on last week. I'm not going to dwell on it anymore, except now this. The outpouring of wind.
Now, here's an intriguing passage of Scripture in John, chapter 20, and there's a great deal of controversy around this passage, and everybody has their own view on it. So mine is no better or any Worse than anybody else's. But it's mine and I have the microphone.
So here it is.
John, chapter 20.
Jesus is with the disciples and he says, receive the Holy Spirit. It says, he breathes on them, receive the Holy Spirit.
Now, some people teach that there they received the Holy Spirit and his witness and presence was not manifested until Pentecost.
Here's what's wrong with that. For me, there is no witness manifestation, since he says received the Holy Spirit.
But there's no sense that they do.
So here's what.
Here's the only way the passage makes any sense to Mark Rutland, and it is this.
Jesus is priest and king. He is also prophet.
I think in that sense, he was operating as a prophet. He was giving them a prophetic sign act.
He's saying, this is going to happen.
Here's a flashcard.
When you hear the wind blow, then receive it.
So he's saying, if I said, if I said to you, look, Pastor Joy is coming to your house at 2 o' clock this afternoon. When he knocks on the door, open the door, receive him.
I think Jesus is saying, when you feel the wind blow, don't stiff God, don't fight him, don't resist.
When this happens, you'll recognize it because it'll sound like this.
When that happens, receive him.
We don't know.
But these disciples, these were not particularly clever chaps, I think when they left that meeting that night, I think they said to each other, reckon what that means?
What do you think that meant?
And I think somebody, probably John, said, I don't know what it meant today. I just know. We'll know it when we see it.
Because three plus two equals five, when the teacher holds it up, is going to equal five on the arithmetic quiz.
So next week we're going to talk about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in second chapter of Acts. But for tonight, let me close with this. I told you I was coming to it. Here it is.
Remember, Simon Peter is a fisherman.
He's not a rabbinical scholar, he's a fisherman.
Just a guy working class.
He's got calluses on his hands and calluses on his brain.
And life is just the last three years has just blown his socks off.
He fails. He denies Jesus. He is renewed, restored, lifted back up.
Spends 40 days with Jesus.
The upper room. The power of the Holy Spirit. What does it say? Suddenly there was wind, breath.
The sound of a mighty rushing wind.
The sound of a mighty rushing wind.
And then cloven tongues as of fire separated out the boiling shekinah. Glory of God appears in a tumult over their heads and whirls off until over every person's head, in the whole room, there is a physical, visible dancing fire over their head.
And then they began to speak in tongues, praising God, worshiping God. And this says, and I'm going to deal with it more next week, but for tonight, I just want to zero on this one thing.
The people came, thousands that came around. What's going on? What's going on? What is this?
Some said these men are drunken.
Peter, in his peculiarly earthy wisdom, he says, it's nine o' clock in the morning.
He said, do you know what it would take to get 120 people so stoned they can't talk Lane by 9 o' clock in the morning?
He says, there's not that much thunderbird in all of Jerusalem.
But he says, these men are not drunken as you suppose, seeing it as but the third hour of the day, nine in the morning.
But this is that which was prophesied by Joel. And he quotes an remote, obscure little passage that had laid on the floor of Judaism for 800 years. It was there, people knew it, but it didn't make sense because the anointing of the Holy Spirit came on Kings, on prophets, on Samson, on warriors, on Judges.
But Joel says, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.
And then he says, remember what I said? When the water is poured out on Sukkot, the unexpected happens.
Joel says, old men will dream dreams.
See, that's wrong.
Old men don't have dreams. We have memories.
He says, I'll give old men dreams. They'll dream about the future as if they were in their twenties.
And then I'll give children words of prophecy.
That's wrong.
Prophets are old. Gray haired men look like rabbis.
Then he says, I'll tell you what else too. It's not going to just be for the men.
See, that doesn't sound very shocking in a 21st century church.
First century Jews.
Not only that, he says, going to let your servants, everybody, irrespective of station in life.
He says, this is that.
That little prophecy in Joel chapter two.
I saw that flashcard.
We saw it. We watched it for eight centuries.
And here it is.
This is that wind, fire, oil, water and a dove.
One spirit who can do a vast multiplicity of different operations in the lives of needy people. Amen. Amen.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: You've been listening to the Leader's Notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review today's podcast. You can follow Dr. Rutland on Twitter @Dr. MarkRutland or visit his website, Dr. MarkRutland.com join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
