Ministers of the
Spirit
Lesson 100
The gospel will not
close in obscurity with only
insignificant results. The notable
advances of science and the
astonishing triumphs of technology
will not overshadow it. Man-made
earthquakes (underground H-bomb
explosions) may cause dishes to
rattle and buildings to sway a
hundred miles away, but when God
arises to shake the earth, the cities
of the nations will fall. (Revelation
16:18, 19.) God will more than meet
space-age achievements.
God has declared that
just preceding those stupendous
events that accompany our
Savior’s return, He will pour
out His Spirit upon all flesh. (Joel
2:28.) God has promised a last-day
world-embracing Pentecost. Here and
in related Scriptures He has pictured
such a turning to God within the
church and from without as has not
taken place since apostolic days. The
everlasting gospel will be proclaimed
with more than Pentecostal power
“to every nation, and kindred,
and tongue, and people.”
(Revelation 14:6.)
A church-wide revival
and reformation must precede the
worldwide ministry of the Spirit. As
Christ’s disciples
“continued with one accord in
prayer and supplication” (Acts
1:14) in order to receive the
outpouring of the Spirit, so the
earth’s twilight hour the people
of God in all lands through “the
supply of the Spirit”
(Philippians 1:19) will seek
“the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3)
that will prepare them to receive the
promised last-day outpouring.
All who have found
unity with the Spirit will find unity
in the Spirit with every other
Spirit-endued soul. This unity
transcends every other, for it, stems
from love and can exist only among
those “having the same love,
being of one accord, of one
mind.” (Philippians 2: 1,2.)
Paul constantly wrote
of this unity of spirit, a unity akin
to that which exists between the
members of the Godhead. For the
church at Philippi he prayed that
they ‘stand fast in one spirit,
with one mind striving together for
the faith of the gospel.”
(Philippians 1:27.) To the church at
Corinth he wrote, “For by one
Spirit are we baptized into one body,
… and have been all made to
drink into one Spirit.” 1
Corinthians 12:13.
When the disciples
became of one accord into one place,
the Pentecostal shower began to fall.
(Acts 2:1-4.) Then the 120, filled
with the “same love” became
“ministers… of the
spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:6).
All who receive the
Spirit are under obligation to share
the Spirit. On one occasion, the Lord
took of the Spirit that was upon
Moses and put it upon the seventy
elders of Israel. Sixty-eight of the
group went into the Tabernacle, where
God bestowed His Spirit upon them.
Seeing what had happened, Joshua
said, “My lord Moses, forbid
them.” Moses’ reply showed
the greatness of the man:
“Enviest thou for my sake? Would
God that all the Lord’s people
were prophets, and that the Lord
would put his Spirit upon them!”
(Numbers 11:25-29.)
Paul had some concern.
Finding disciples in Ephesus, he
asked them, “Have ye received
the Holy ghost since ye
believed?” Acts 19:2. When this
minister of the Spirit learned of
their spiritual destitution, he
immediately set about to remedy the
situation.
However, today’s
church needs to have a new endowment
of the Spirit it can impress a world
busied and occupied with its Babel
towers of human achievement, its
Aladdin lamps and magic carpets, its
mansions and skid-row hovels, its
racketeers and riots, its political,
economic, educational, and social
problems. The world refuses to listen
to the accounts of how the Spirit
used Old Testament prophets and New
Testament apostles. The World today
pays little heed to those who speak
of the religion of our father and
mothers. The world wants to see what
the Spirit can do in the lives of
those who profess to serve God now.
However, where can the world see
those who have been signally blessed
by the Spirit – where are lives
that have been mightily transformed?
Where are the missionary witnesses
charged with the Holy Spirit who is
communicating the Spirit to those
about them?
Can anything be so
frightening as that the sinners in
Zion are unafraid? That the
hypocrites go unrebuked. That the
evil, bold, defiant, and unashamed
feel no terror? Conscientious
Christians must ask as did Gideon,
“Why,,, is all this befallen us?
And where be all his miracles that
our fathers told us of? Judges 6:13.
Soon God will wipe
away the reproach. The same God that
heard the 120 in the upper room will
hear His people today and make them
ministers of the Spirit. He will give
the Spirit not to glorify man, but to
glorify Christ. When Christians
imbued with the same Spirit become
living epistles, “known and read
of all men,” when the sword of
the Spirit will be unsheathed and the
glories of the cross-told abroad.
Modern David’s will sing –
not to glorify self or glorify music,
but to glorify God. Modern Daniels
will interpret current events.
Nehemiah’s will call for Sabbath
reform. Then every church member will
do all that the apostles did. Peters
and Paul’s and Johns will
proclaim Christ’s second coming.
Then the church will not glory in
numbers and statistics, her works of
benevolence and mercy, or her
institutions and houses of worship;
but in the power of the Spirit she
will cry to a world going down to
destruction, “Save yourselves
from this untoward generation.”
Acts 2:40.
Never has so much been
at stake. Many obstacles lie at hand,
but the church will meet the greatest
challenge of all time, for the world
at its worst will see the church at
its best. The unity of the believers
will be the unity of the Spirit.
Missionary witnesses for Christ will
make people as conscious of the
invisible as they are of the visible.
The message of redeeming love will go
to every town and hamlet around the
world. The heralds of Christ’s
return will have the courage of the
Reformers and the zeal of the
evangelists.
Thousands will turn
from the sin-drenched world, its
follies and foibles, its drunkenness
and gluttony, its forms of godliness.
A divine compulsion will lead heads
of state, merchant princes, the
intelligentsia and the lowly, men and
women of every walk of life, to step
out and willingly make any sacrifice
to serve the Prince of peace. “A
great company of the priests were
obedient to the faith” in the
early church. (Acts 6:7.) Therefore,
among the clergy today many will make
the irreversible commitment to become
ministers of the Spirit. Church
members will face prejudice,
persecution, boycott, and even
threats of death, but their passion
for the souls will rise above the
fierce opposition of the synagogue of
Satan. Indeed, the more desperate the
battle, the greater the victory.
Satan can do nothing against the
truth except what will ultimately
result in giving the truth a greater
luster.
God wants to use you
as a minister of the Spirit in this
climax. The whole earth is to be
lightened with the glory of the
gospel. Language proves inadequate to
describe the blending of the
celestial glory with the bravery of
God’s last-day witnesses, sealed
with the seal of the living God. In
vision, John beheld their triumph
over Satan’s final worldwide
confederacy of evil. He said, “I
saw … them that had gotten
victory … stand on the sea of
glass… and they sang the song of
Moses the servant of God, and the
song of the Lamb, saying, Great and
marvelous are thy works, Lord God
Almighty; just and true are thy ways,
thou King of saints.” Revelation
15:2,3. My friends, will you join in
those hallelujah choruses?
