LIVING STONES

LIVING STONES

                This morning bonnie and I will be leaving for our second day and the woman’s retreat in Pigeon forge Tennessee. Bonnie is going there because she is a woman and I am going because I play on eth worship team that is providing the music for the retreat.

                I will have to be brief this morning, but I just wanted to say a few words about the difference between living stones and dead stones in the temple of our God. There is a great moving of the Holy Spirit going on in this revival. There are miracles of changed lives, miracles of healing and miracles of life as dead stones are being made into living stones in the temple of God.

                John the Baptist said this of himself and of Jesus: “As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but HE who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not even fit to remove His sandals; HE Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’ Mt. 3:11

                If you want to be a living stone in the body of Christ it is not enough to repent and be baptized. John could do that, but the church was not born by his ministry. He was ordained by god to prepare the way for the One who would breathe life into the church and to produce the seed of life that would bring many sons and daughters to glory.

                It is easy to miss little details in scripture, especially if it doesn’t f it our doctrine. WE let things go by because we don’t want to hear them, but if we will take notice, John told us something very important. John said that Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit AND with fire. Was that true or was John just elaborating with a little hyperbole? Well, let’s look at this series of events in the disciple’s lives.

                “Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

                So Jesus breathed on His disciples and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” So, did His disciples receive the Holy Spirit? Of course they did. Jesus is the Giver of the Holy Spirit and He breathed His Holy Spirit upon them because He was sending His disciples into the world in eh same way that His Father had sent Him into the world.

                Jesus had been raised from the dead at this point and He was in His glorified body. He was giving last minute instructions to His disciples before He went back to heaven and He breathed His Holy Spirit upon them. So then why did Jesus tell them a few days later saying: “I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high?”             Luke 24:49. Had He not already breathed His Holy Spirit upon them?

                Jesus’ last parting words to them on the Mt. of Olives were this: “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.” And then He rose into the clouds.

                They had already received the Holy Spirit when Jesus had breathed on them, but on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came with tongues of fire and right then and there the prophecy of John the Baptist was fulfilled. Jesus had baptized them with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

                Could it be that the church is largely made up of dead stones today simply because they received the Holy Spirit when they received John’s baptism, but they never tarried in Jerusalem              until they have received the baptism of fire?

                This is what the woman’s conference is about this week. Dead stones are receiving a baptism of fire so that they can become living stones… not only has Jesus taken up residence within them, but He is clothing them with power from on high so that they will be His witnesses in the world. Living stones change the atmosphere wherever they go. Living stones obey God rather than man.

                Worship can get a little noisy when living stones get together to worship and praise the Lord. It gets a little crazy when the Holy Spirit falls and dead stones look on with jaws dropped thinking that they are drunk. Worship is all-consuming as flesh dies and self—consciousness dies and the spirit is set free to worship God just as it is commanded throughout all of scripture.

                There is a tradition that the disciples were waiting in the upper room where Jesus and the disciples had taken the Passover meal some fifty days or so earlier, but that doesn’t fit the occasion or the description. This was the day of Pentecost. Jews from every part of the ten known world had converged as required upon the city of Jerusalem. The disciples were in Solomon’s portico waiting on god and praying when a rushing mighty wind swept into the courts of the temple and the followers of Yeshua received tongues of fire on their heads.

                It was bedlam and the crowds that had come for the feast of Pentecost looked on thinking that these crazy people had come to the temple drunk. So Peter stood up in their midst and filled with this new baptism of fire, he preached the first Pentecostal sermon and 3000 Jews, or should I say “Israelites” were baptized with the Holy Spirit as well. All of them heard Peter preaching to them in their own language.

                The feast of Pentecost, having been observed as a ritual ever since the first Pentecost on Mt. Sinai, was now being fulfilled turning dead stones into living stones. The Law once carved on stone, was now written in their hearts. And now, they had received power to pass this life in the Spirit on to all people as they took it back to their own cities and towns and nations.

                In the coming harvest the church is going to receive a baptism of fire once again so that the many dead stones of tradition can give way to living stones filled with a baptism of fire. The Body of Christ is going to come alive again and when it does, persecution will soon follow. If there is anything that a dead church and a dead nation cannot stand it is a move of the Holy Spirit. When people come to life and they go out doing the same works that Jesus did it brings the demons out of the woodwork. They don’t like being exposed and flushed out.

                Worship can get pretty messy when the living God is on the scene. Demons are cast out and that is ugly. Old habits and old ways are banished and souls are set free from strongholds that have long had them pent up like dead bricks. Sicknesses are healed and deaf ears are opened as happened last night. One woman suddenly received her hearing and she took out her two hearing aids and she could hear even a whisper from across the room. Things change when the Holy Spirit and fire comes upon the scene.

                Several women were delivered from demons and I found out years ago that demons can hide quite well in a dead church. They masquerade as perfect saints. They masquerade as being very religious, but they reveal themselves in things like gossip and divisiveness and condemnation within and without. Demons can spread like a cancer throughout a congregation robbing it of its life… stifling pure worship… bringing discord and strife.

                Yes it is a messy thing when the Holy Spirit shows up, because hidden things are revealed and Satan is exposed. Even with his best acts of piety, he cannot remain hidden when the Holy Spirit comes.

                But the truth is we haven’t seen anything yet. When the seven fold Spirit of God is poured out in the final harvest with a power seven times greater than at Pentecost, there will be a great shaking. Dead stones will be shaken out. Everything that is not borne of the Spirit will be shaken out so that what remains will be the Body of Christ, made pure as a Bride adorned for her husband. She will be a living temple, made up of living stones.

                So because some whole denominations deny that there are two works of the Holy Spirit I will describe them here for you as best I can:

1.       When you receive Jesus as Savior and Lord and you are baptized in water, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you and you become a temple of the Holy Spirit. This corresponds with Jesus’ breath upon His disciples.

2.       But when you continue praying for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your life in fire, you then receive the gift of the Holy Spirit which comes upon you with power to do the works of Christ in the world. Remember He promised that the works He did and even greater works shall we do because He has gone to the Father. Pentecost then is that greater power to do the works of Christ in the world.

                Today the church is largely laughed at and or ignored because we have many words but very little power. The living power of the Holy Spirit has been replaced with tradition and ritual. The church has largely failed to be a force of change in our nation today, simply because we no longer carry this power and fire from on high. And we have become satisfied with our flesh born rituals and programs.

                Far be it from most churches to ever allow the messiness of revival to happen when the Holy Spirit shows up and church programs give way to the rushing mighty wind of Pentecost. Yes, God wants everything to be done in decency and order, but He also wants to flush all of the dead bricks out of His church and to transform what remains into living stones.

                When Jesus cast the demons out of the Gadarene demoniac if was messy. 2000 pigs ran off a cliff. The people of the town begged Jesus to leave. He had stirred up their gods. My son Zach mentioned that perhaps the people were glad to have all of those demons pent up in that one man, and so they banished him from town to live among the tombs. Perhaps they were fearful because now that the demons had been cast out, they were loosed from the one man and well… where would they go next? They had obviously tried to bind the man up with chains and ropes, but the man had broken them all. They were glad that he had stayed out of town.

                But the next thing we see as this naked demoniac clothed and in his right mind and wanting to go with Jesus. But Jesus left him there to witness to the town and because of it, many people in that area undoubtedly came to Christ through His witness.

                Living stones… We need to become living stones and only the Holy Spirit can make it so. It is time to begin praying for the Holy Spirit and fire.

                I’ve got to go, so I hope there aren’t too many typos in this. My apologies and love to all.