Classic Christianity – Book of John Part 56 (08-07-19)
Synopsis
The disciples are with Jesus for three years but not understanding these things that Jesus had come to do. How could they? They did not have the Holy Spirit living in them. We do not naturally understand these things. We can be in church all our lives. We can hear about Jesus birth, his death, and that he died and was raised from the dead yet we ourselves can still be dead to the things of God. We could still be spiritually dead. Do you know your condition of spiritual death? Do you know that Jesus is God? Do you know He wants to live inside you by His spirit? Do you now what his death did for you personally? Do yo know why he rose from the dead for you? Do you know why he went back to His Father in heaven? Do you know he did these things in order to give life to you so you can live a new way?
The reason we cannot understand the things of the Spirit is because we inherited a nature of Adam. Adam and Eve were the only human beings created spiritually alive but chose death. God had warned them that the day they chose to decide for themselves right from wrong, good from evil, would be the day they died. They did so, and by doing so had sinned against God, and died spiritually. Physical death eventually, but dead to God. That is how sin and death entered the world. The Spirit of God left Adam and Eve and they became dead to what left them, the Spirit of God.
Since that time all men have been born dead to God. We have been born dead with an opportunity to choose life. So man’s most basic need is that he is dead and in need of life. But people do not understand these things unless someone explains things to them. The Holy Spirit must reveal truth to men.
Again, how can man understand unless the Spirit of God reveals truth to them. So man leans on his own understanding and makes up his own ideas of how to live in this natural world. Man even makes up his own ideas of how to be saved, by being good enough. They incorrectly conclude that God grades on a curve. And almost everybody thinks they are a pretty good person. But being a pretty good person is not the issue.
So people are confused on what salvation is. Even the religious world, filled with numerous denominations, are leaning on their own understanding. Instead of studying God’s word, asking God to reveal truth to them, they misinform people as to what truth is. why? They are leaning on their own understanding or repeating what they heard like a parrot.
In the religious world, almost all you hear about is “the cross, the cross, the cross”. Now, the cross is important but it is a preparatory work of God. Salvation is not getting your sins forgiven. It is the receiving of life. The only life available to man is the one who was not born dead, who was born of a virgin, and did not inherit the nature of Adam, but has the Holy Spirit in him and is God in the flesh. That man is Jesus Christ.
Why is salvation not getting sins forgiven? Jesus went to the cross to take away the sins of the world. And even my sins were in the future when he died. We know from Hebrews that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. So Jesus shed his blood on the cross to forgive the sins of the world, once and for for all, and for all men. He was reconciling the world to himself. Sin is what caused death. In order for God to offer eternal life, he had to take away the consequences of sin, which is death, first. So the death of Jesus on a cross was a necessary preparation in order for God to give life to man through his son Jesus Christ, whom He raised from the dead.
The forgiveness of sins was provided for man by Jesus shed blood on a cross but forgiveness is only received in Him. Reconciliation is an accounting term. The debt has already been paid in full but did you receive the check? Even though all our sins are forgiven, even on men like Stalin and Hitler, and the day we were born, that is not universal salvation because salvation is not getting sins forgiven.
Jesus resurrected life and ascension to His Father, whereby He gives the Holy Spirit to live in man, to those who believed by faith, now that is salvation. Salvation is the receiving of new life, the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in man. That is received by faith alone in what Christ did for you. You are saved by His life. The same Spirit that was once in Adam is restored back to man so that you can communicate with the living God. You can choose life today.
So how does man communicate with God? How do the animals know by instinct to go to higher ground in a tsunami? God told them. How does a missionary, who is a born again believer, know also to go to the higher ground? God told him. If God can talk to the animals, by instinct, how much more can he talk to man? Man also has a plumb line so he has further guidance as to whether he knows he has heard from God. God will never tell man something contrary to His word, the meaning of which is revealed by the Spirit of God.
Now, in something like knowing to go to higher ground, you will not find that anywhere in the bible. But, if someone tells you that it is necessary to be baptized as an infant, where did that come from? Man sits around wondering about an infant who has never heard. So instead of trusting God, whom they may not even know, a God who is perfectly loving and perfectly just, man comes up with his own ideas. He thinks, “Why not sprinkle the infant so as to preserve him.” Was that his own idea or did he get that from God? There is nothing in the scriptures about baptism of water preserving life. Indeed, scriptures in 1 Peter indicates otherwise, that removing dirt from the body does nothing for man spiritually. So man leans on his understanding, which is so natural for man to do, being born dead until he becomes born again, and only then is he able to grow in the grace and knowledge of God.
So when man believes the message of Christ, and is born again, the Spirit of God comes to dwell in him. The Spirit renews his mind with truth, as man spends time listening to God through His word. Little by little, the Spirit guides him into all truth. He tells him of things to come and He uses His word, explaining its meaning, so man can walk in a supernatural way. God will produce through man what man could never do. Indeed, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control are all a fruit of the Spirit. Such fruit is born through man as he lives in a vital relationship of trust in God who produces such fruit.
It is almost like walking in the garden of Eden all over again. Although this world is certainly not a garden. Far from it, as the world and all of nature is groaning for its redemption. Our bodies groan too with age or injury. Our bodies, our flesh and blood, do not inherit the kingdom of God, but are temporary bodies we have for now in which God’s Spirit dwells. God has promised us a new immortal body that is suited for heaven. But we walk in faith not by sight. In this world we will have tribulation, but Jesus told us to be of good cheer for he has overcome the world. We too can overcome the trials and tribulations in this life, by having Christ’s supernatural life, being lived through us by faith. We are to lean not on our own understanding, but in all things, acknowledging and relying on the living God to guide and direct our path.
Transcript
Turn to John 12. We have come to the point in the gospel where Jesus just made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, people crying out, “blessed be the name of the Lord”.
John 12:12-17
12
12 The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 hey took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,“Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”
1414 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:
15
“Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming,
seated on a donkey’s colt.”16 At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
17 Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word.
In verse 16, we read that the disciples did not understand these things. We came to understand that there is no way to know the true meaning of the word of God apart from the Holy Spirit of God, who lives in a believer, revealing that truth to you. You can read and study and go to seminary to know what the bible says. But in order to know what it means, it has nothing to do with seminary or education. It has to do with whether or not the Spirit of God is living in you, and if he is living in you, are you relying on Him to reveal to you what it means.
1 Corinthians 2:10
10these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
John 14:26
26 But the Advocate, 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.
The reason the disciples did not fully understand the meaning is because they had no ability to understand because Pentecost had not occurred yet. At Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit first came to indwell believers.
Acts 2:1-4
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Today we do not have to wait for the Holy Spirit indwelling. But that was the first time in all of history where the Holy Spirit lives in a person. The day of Pentecost provided them something that has never been provided before. It was first of all taking away the sins of the world, which is the cause of spiritual death, and the resurrection offering resurrected life, and at Pentecost, the giving of that resurrected life. That was the first day the disciples became born again believers. At Pentecost was the first time the disciples were permanently indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. From that day forward, the Holy Spirit comes to indwell us the moment we accept Jesus as our Lord and our Savior.
Ephesians 1:13
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
A lot of time there is confusion on understanding that. At age 36 was when Bob was born again. All of his life he was in church every Sunday with his brothers and sisters. He never denied Jesus was Jesus. He never thought of denying Jesus died on the cross. There was no way of denying he was raised from the dead. We celebrated those things, even on Easter, along with the Easter bunny. He never knew Jesus was God and God wanted to indwell him.
1 Corinthians 2:14
14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
In Baton Rouge, at a men’s conference, driving a fellow believer back to the airport, Bob was discussing that it was so hard to reach people in the mid-west because they are all nice people. In Indiana, there were never murders back then. We never locked our houses or cars. Bob’s father was a lawyer and they did business with a handshake. Business was done with a handshake and your word was gold. You go in there and tell someone they are a sinner, they look at you as if you are crazy. If you brought such a subject up, you would hear, “Don’t go tell me I am a sinner. I am a nice guy”. They look at you and wonder what you are saying.
Colossians 2:20-23 (TLB)
20 Since you died, as it were, with Christ and this has set you free from following the world’s ideas of how to be saved – by doing good and obeying various rules – why do you keep right on following them anyway, still bound by such rules as 21 not eating, tasting, or even touching certain foods? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings, for food was made to be eaten and used up. 23 These rules may seem good, for rules of this kind require strong devotion and are humiliating and hard on the body, but they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person’s evil thoughts and desires. They only make him proud.
There are a lot of nice people in the world. It is not a matter of how nice you are. The issue is how dead you are. It is not an issue of how good you are. How good do you have to be to earn your way to heaven? It is not an issue of how bad you are either. How bad do you have to be to not make it to heaven? When would that line be drawn? What if we just barely missed it. “Well”, we say, “ that is not fair”. If that were the case, then we would say, “let us raise or lower the standard”.
Philippians 3:8-10
8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have put aside all else, counting it worth less than nothing, in order that I can have Christ, 9 and become one with him, no longer counting on being saved by being good enough or by obeying God’s laws, but by trusting Christ to save me; for God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith – counting on Christ alone. 10 Now I have given up everything else – I have found it to be the only way to really know Christ and to experience the mighty power that brought him back to life again, and to find out what it means to suffer and to die with him.
God had to get us to recognize that, as far as salvation is concerned, the day Adam sinned in the garden, when he decided he did not need God to determine right from wrong, good from evil, on that day the Spirit departed from Adam and Adam was left dead spiritually. He was dead to what left, to what vacated him, and that was the Spirit of God. From that point on all of us were born dead.
Romans 5:13-15 (TLB)
13 We know that it was Adam’s sin that caused this because although, of course, people were sinning from the time of Adam until Moses, God did not in those days judge them guilty of death for breaking his laws – because he had not yet given his laws to them nor told them what he wanted them to do. 14 So when their bodies died it was not for their own sins since they themselves had never disobeyed God’s special law against eating the forbidden fruit, as Adam had.What a contrast between Adam and Christ who was yet to come! 15 And what a difference between man’s sin and God’s forgiveness!
For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin. But this one man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God’s mercy.
In the fifth chapter of Genesis, we read that Seth was born in the image of his father, who was dead spiritually. They were created alive but Seth was born in Adam. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God but we were born in the image of Adam. The only man born alive spiritually is Jesus. That is why the virgin birth is not up for grabs. That is why Jesus was born alive spiritually.
Genesis 5:3 (TLB)
3 Adam was 130 years old when his son Seth was born, the very image of his father in every way.
Romans 5:12
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned
Luke 1:29-35
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.—
The only man who can lay down his life for you and me is the only man who had a life to lay down, and that is Christ Jesus. For us today, we believe those things intellectually, but we need to know our condition. Man needs not just the provision of God for our condition. The only way we can know our true condition is, is not through the psychological world, but through God who created us. God tells us we are born dead.
Bob did not know that he was born dead. It did not take too many years to know he was a sinner. He figured that out at the age of three. He thought God graded on the curve, that if you do more good than bad, then you will be okay. You ask the average person if he is going to heaven, they will say they are a good person. They may have beaten their wife and beaten their cat and still they would say, “I am basically a good person”. How nice or good you are or bad you are is not the issue.
You have a problem called death, spiritual death, that can only be corrected by spiritual life. Then, the “Christian” world comes along with their own ideas and has all focused on the cross. That is all we hear, “the cross, the cross, the cross”. Thank God for the cross but the cross is not salvation and does not bring salvation. The cross was preparatory for salvation. It is what God had to do to clear the deck for the divine action of bringing salvation to man, which is being saved from the consequences of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life.
Colossians 2:13
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,
Colossians 1:20 (TLB)
It was through what his Son did that God cleared a path for everything to come to him – all things in heaven and on earth – for Christ’s death on the cross has made peace with God for all by his blood.
We stopped at the preparatory, which is the way God had to prepare all men for salvation to bring life to the dead. We stopped there. We streamed people down the aisle in evangelistic campaigns, to come forward to get your sins forgiven. That is not true. Your sins were forgiven when you entered into this world.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people”s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
He not only died for our sins but he died for the sins of the whole world. Is that salvation, getting sins forgiven? If it is, then that would be universal salvation. That would mean everybody would be saved. That means Stalin and Hitler would be saved. All of them were forgiven but they were not saved. That forgiveness, even though provided, did not produce life. Forgiveness produces forgiveness. That is called reconciliation.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Forgiveness is for everybody but that is not salvation. Salvation is being raised from the dead.
There is a consequence to sin called death and the only solution to death is life. The only life available to mankind is the resurrected life of Christ Jesus. It is not a religion. It is not even a religious issue. It is a very practical issue. If you are dead, then you need life. The issue is this. Where are you going to get life? Is Buddha going to give you life? No. He is dead. Is Mohammad going to give you life? No. He is dead. Is the pope going to give you life? No. He just looks like he is dead. Can Billy Graham give you life? No. Can Bob George give you life? No. The only man who can give you life is the one who was raised from the dead, and that is Christ Jesus.
Acts 4:12
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
It is a very practical issue. It does not matter where you are coming from or what background you came from. When you are dead, you are dead. A dead German is as dead as a dead American. A dead African is as dead as a dead China man. A dead China man is a dead China man. When you are dead, you are dead. And when you are dead, you need life. The only life available to us is the resurrected life of Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19
12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
The resurrection is the centrality of the Christian message. That is why the apostle Paul said that without the resurrection we are to be pitied of all people and are still dead in our sins, knowing full well that a cross had occurred.
That is just like Satan to get us to just deal with the preparatory issue and to forget about the resurrection. Just get people to get forgiven. So we have thousands of people thinking they are alive, born again, when all they did was come forward to get their sins forgiven. It is just like a life insurance policy. I sure do not want to go to hell. How do I keep from going to hell? Come down and get forgiven. That is the wrong message that has been preached. The person says, “Okay, I will do it” and he goes back to the pew as dead as when he first went to the altar. That is why they call them pews because there are dead people in them. You do not come to Christ to get forgiveness. You come to Christ because you already got forgiveness but that forgiveness is only received in His resurrection.
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
It would be like saying to Richard. Richard, I put a billion dollars in your bank and I also provided a replenishing deal so that every time you spend it, I just keep putting it back in. Thank you, Bob. Where is that money? Well, it is in the First National Bank of Little Elm. I do not like that bank. I like Bank One. Well, I am sorry. It is not in Bank One. It is in the bank of Little Elm. I cannot stand that. I like other banks. Well, Richard, until you go to the bank in Little Elm, you are not going to get your money. I am not going. So what will he do? Die in poverty. Why? Because the money isn’t there? No, because he does not go there. He does not like it. Same thing. I do not like it. I do not like Jesus. I like Buddha. I like religion. Do not give me a relationship. Do not tell me about these banks where money is. I do not like the whole idea of banking institutions. There are millions of people in that boat.
The only way you and I will be made alive spiritually is when we accept the fact that we first of all, we were and are sinners, but by the grace of God, Jesus went to a cross 2000 years ago. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in his resurrected life we might have the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
John 1:12-13
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
I do not have any righteousness of my own. I do stand clothed in His, not because I earned it or deserved it or even because I act like it, but because he made me a child of God. A child of God is our true identity. People like to put labels on a jar, such as Baptist or Presbyterian. What is important is not the label but what is in the jar. We come to Christ and we are born again. The Spirit of God comes to live inside of us, literally.
1 Corinthians 1:30
30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
When the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us, we have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ lives inside you and me. He came to guide and direct our paths. He came to guide us into all truth. The person inside of us has a voice. Why am I not always hearing? I have no trouble hearing in my flesh.
1 Corinthians 2:16
16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
John 16:13-15
13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the 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. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Bob gave an illustration, how in Indonesia, a tsunami took place. Not one animal was killed but over 100,000 people were killed; not a frog, not a horse, elephant or dog. They went to the high land. Why? Instinct. Who gave them instinct? God.
1 Corinthians 2:16
16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
John 16:13-15
13 “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the 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. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
A Missionairy, the son of a friend of Bob’s, was a missionary at that time. He was out at the beach that day. All this water came out and everyone ran out to see what was going on. As a born again believer, God said to him, “head to the high ground”. He headed to the high ground and watched all those people drown. Why? God told him. Who else was God telling? We do not know. We know he listened. I do not know if there were other believers who did not listen. But the ones who did are alive and the ones who did not are dead.
Fish go back and spawn. The swallows come back to Capistrano every time. How can God give instinct to the animal kingdom with a stronger voice that He gives to us when He gives us the Holy Spirit? There is nothing wrong with God and your voice. There must be something wrong with me. There is something wrong that is keeping me, many times, from listening intently to this voice of God that is living in me because He is there and we know He is there.
I know indwelling sin has something to do with that. Our flesh is inhabited with indwelling sin that sometimes keeps us from listening to the truth of the word of God. One way we are going to know what God is saying, whether it is of God or of the flesh, is by the word of God. The Spirit of God will never be leading you to something contrary to the teaching of the word of God. It is so vitally important to study the word of God with the attitude that if the Spirit living in me does not reveal the meaning to me I will not know what it means.
1 Corinthians 2:8-10
8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived” –
the things God has prepared for those who love him –10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
It must be revealed by the Spirit. The Spirit of God must reveal what the bible means.
Why do we have so many denominations in this world today? Why do we have one group that believes this and another one that believes that? It is because of leaning on your own understanding. Instead of acknowledging Him and allowing Him to direct your path, and to reveal the meaning of the word of God, we lean on our own understanding. That is why we have people adding to the things of the bible.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.
Is there anything in the bible about baby baptism? No. Where did it come from? Somebody says, “What happens to a baby if they die before they heard?” “I do not know. We better do something to prepare them.” “What are we going to do?” “Let’s dunk him with some water. Baptize them. Maybe that will preserve them.” So what do we have? Infant baptism. Is it biblical? No. What is biblical? I do not know the answer to that. I do not know what happens to a baby who has not heard. What I do know is this. That decision goes into the hands of a God who is perfectly loving and perfectly just and I cannot believe He will not make the right decision concerning that baby. I do not need to dunk him or sprinkle him. I trust God in that.
Anything in scripture about slaying people in the Spirit? The Spirit came to give you life not to knock you over. Did Jesus come around knocking people over? No. It does not happen. It is not there. Why do people do it? You got me. There are people leaning on their own understanding, who come up with a hair-brained idea knocking people over and saying, “We have Pentecost all over again”.
That is why you have different denominations. People are leaning on their own understanding as to what the bible means instead of relying on the Holy Spirit to explain to you what it means.
We are a privileged people to have the word of God in our hands. One thing I can know when I do hear the voice of God is I have a plumb line. If it is of God it will not be contrary with the scriptures.
2 Peter 1:21
21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
One reason we do not trust the Spirit of God is because we are so accustomed to live only in the natural world. It is almost like we want to be animals with instinct who always seem to act on it. There are times when God tells us something. You have a situation where a dog is howling, knowing something is going to happen. I do not understand all that but I can observe it. When dealing with the Holy Spirit of God in us, we do have a plumb line.
But at other times we have the Spirit of God who tell us to go to the highlands. We are not going to find that in the bible. That is how he guides us living in this life. How many times do you have the Spirit of God tell you to call somebody? When you do, he says, “How did you know to call me?” How many times have we not called? If I am indwelt with the Holy Spirit, then you have someone inside you to guide you into all truth. Why do we not trust this? Sometimes we just do not trust this. It is supernatural. I am more accustomed to the natural. This is supernatural. It is a supernatural way of living to be guided by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Is that not what God has come to give, the supernatural? So God says, “Do not lean on your own understanding and I will guide and direct your path”.
John 16:13
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the 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 missionairies’ son is alive today because of that. How did he know to go up to the hills? God told him. Was he smart enough or was he dependent enough? God told him and he listened and did what God told him to do.
John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
