Following Spirit

Churchianity has always had some disagreements with God in defining righteous-ness. They have made a conscious decision that God's law is either unjust or irrelevant to them, and so they have decided to define righteousness (and love) in their own way, according to their own understanding. They justify this by saying that God put away His law, leaving us to define love by the Holy Spirit. While this sounds good, it is equally true that the moment we reject a portion of God's Word, we will be blinded in some area of our life, making it highly improbable that the Holy Spirit will be able to truly lead us in that area.

Our ability to be led by the Spirit in a perfect path of righteousness is limited by our rejection of the Word already revealed to us, whether it be the written Word to others of the past or the spoken Word to us. It took me years to learn this by hard experience.

Israel's rejection of the spoken Word in Exodus 20 was the source of all their later problems in dealing with the Adamic nature. Ultimately, it caused them to reject the voice of God when He told them (through Caleb and Joshua) that they were to enter the Promised Land in fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles. While they all had the faith to leave Egypt, they did not have the faith to enter Canaan (Heb. 4:2). Faith comes by hearing, and as we continue to hear, our faith increases until it comes to full fruition. Israel failed on this point, for they refused to hear the rest of the law.

But the problem is not limited to Israelites in the Old Testament at that original Day of Pentecost at the foot of Mount Sinai. In the book of Acts, many still refused to hear the voice of God, and this problem has continued to the present day--even among those who think that they have heard and responded to His Word. More than that, the early Church very soon refused to hear the rest of God's law in the same manner as their predecessors of Israel.

The underlying problem of Pentecost from the days of Moses to the present has been its tendency to refuse to hear the divine law. There are many excuses given. Some say, "I am not an Israelite, and the law was given only to Israel." Others say that the law was put away. Others say that Jesus fulfilled it perfectly, making it unnecessary for me to do so. (That is like saying, "My father did what was good and right, so I do not have to do so." Instead, we should say, "Jesus did it, and so I should follow His example.") 1 John 2:6 tells us,

⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

Pentecostals {those who hear God's voice} are most vulnerable in this area, because the abundance of revelation tends to impart confidence in one's ability to be led by the Spirit. Confidence, knowing the will of God, is a good thing; but it can also become one's fatal flaw. We do not find fault with Pentecost, any more than we find fault with the divine law. The problem is in us, not in God or His law.