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Have you ever been in a gathering of the saints and started to experience that sweet presence of the Holy Spirit, that sense of His unifying power, His stillness, His willingness to move among us to restore and establish His will in our lives? Oh how I long for those times that are all too rare.
Too often in the past I have seen that gentle dove of His Spirit start to light down, only to be driven off by a man's agenda. So often someone, quite often pastors I am afraid, stand up and take control. "The meeting must go on according to plan. We have a schedule to keep." Many of us seem so driven by what we want to see happen or want to say that we rudely interrupt the Lord and start speaking from our souls. So as a result the Dove of the Lord returns to the ark form which He came, finding no place for the soul of His foot to rest. It is such a shame the way we treat Him.
Recently, I was reflecting on what might have been happening in that upper room between the Passover and Pentecost almost 2000 years ago. We know that those 120 souls were anything but perfect. Their soulishness was recorded for all mankind to read in the pages of the New Testament. As they were trying to settle in and wait as the Master had commanded, I imagine at first that there was much grieving for the great loss of His physical presence. They must have wondered what this command to wait was all about. After all, wasn't this a waste of time? And time is so precious, isn't it? These were Jews; I wonder if they had a saying like our culture does, "Time is money!"
I imagine that as they waited there, the novelty wore off rather quickly and the discomforts of being cooped up together for so long started getting to them. After all, this wasn't a banquet room in the local Hilton where they could just go off to their plush rooms periodically and "freshen up a bit."
As we observed in the gospels, there was infighting and jealousy between the very ones that Jesus chose to be "the twelve." I can just hear the conversations that these 120 souls were having between themselves as the days wore on. Nathan says to Peter, "Peter, I just don't get it. After walking with our Lord for over three years and seeing all His miracles, how you could deny Him?" Peter answers back, "Well, you're one to talk! You're the one that doubted that any good thing could come out of Nazareth!" Another says, "Mary, what made you think that you of all people could touch Him in his resurrected body?" Mary says, "Well, say what you like, but He appeared unto me first in the garden and Peter had just been there!" Then someone else remembers James and John enlisting their mother's help to get the right to sit on Jesus' right and left side in the kingdom. Just imagine yourself and the Christians you know, placed in the same circumstances and you should get the picture of some of what was going on in the upper room.
When I was in the U S Navy during the Vietnam war, our squadron had a secondary mission, and that was to deliver nuclear bombs to targets behind the iron curtain if necessary. Our pilots often practiced this procedure, which was different than regular bombing. As a result, we enlisted men were recruited to join the nuke bomb loading team. This required special training.
The information I am about to share is no longer "classified." It
can be found on the internet in much greater detail. I share
this information to
demonstrate what might have happened in the upper
room 2000 years ago, and what I believe was the norm of Christians
gathering in the early Church.
There are two main fissionable materials present in a nuclear bomb. They are U-235, highly enriched uranium (or HEW), and plutonium. Tons and tons of uranium ore must be refined down to get enough HEW for a "critical mass." Critical mass is the minimum amount of fissionable material required to maintain the chain reaction necessary for a nuclear explosion, around twenty pounds. Plutonium is a byproduct of a uranium fired reactor. It also takes much refining to obtain a few ounces.
These two atomic materials are placed in proximity in the bomb. Their shapes and how they are formed in relationship to one another is critical. Picture a ball of plutonium in the center, then a concentric sphere of HEW around that. They are machined to fit around each other exactly.
You see, the three years that Jesus spent among the early disciples was a refining period. First, not everyone He called followed Him. He often called them in such a way to offend their souls. He asked them to give up the thing most important to them before they came to be with Him. He had to be first above all else!
After that choice was made to follow Him, the refining started.
He
discipled them! You might say that He "mined and then
refined." Today
many are called to "make commitments" in the Church,
but few are refined or discipled. This was hands on training in
which they first watched the master take dominion over demons and
sickness and the elements and then were sent out to do the same in His
name.
Jesus commanded the apostles to also "make disciples." He still requires the saints to be refined and made ready and fit for His pleasure and His work, not just make a "commitment" that will buy them out of hell. A disciple is made when he can walk the walk just as his Master. This takes refining and a lot of grinding away of the old man in us.
So, back to the upper room. By the close of this fifty day period
after
Christ's death, I believe these disciples were coming into
spiritual
proximity. They were forced by the closeness of their
confinement to deal with the issues of their flesh. This is where
God's "bomb" was being assembled.
There is one other ingredient necessary to make an atomic bomb work. An explosive charge is placed around it all. When this explosive charge is detonated it is made in such a way that it first causes an implosion. It drives the radioactive materials into one another, welding them together with the intense heat and pressure. From this welded mass a nuclear reaction is released in the form of a nuclear explosion.
We see from the history of the Church that God assembled the components needed to cause an explosion in the middle east two thousand years ago. The "fallout" is still being felt today. The "dunamis" of the Spirit (dynamite) welded together those 120 souls in that upper room, resulting in an explosive outpouring of God's Spirit "on all flesh," just as Joel prophesied hundreds of years earlier. The first thing that Peter preaches after this visitation of the Holy Spirit is the words of the prophet Joel.
8 "But you shall receive power (dunamis- the Greek word from where we get the word dynamite) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8, NKJV).
If there is no "dunamis" there is no witness. All of our best
efforts in
the natural man will not be used of God as a witness of His
kingdom. We must rely on His Spirit if we want to see our fruit
remain.
I and some of you were involved in an outpouring that took place in the
early '70's known as the Jesus Movement. It has place in my
heart a hunger for that simplicity in heart that allows God's children
to come together in unity and agreement. I long for that
"critical mass" of His refined saints to come together with no agendas
of their own. Refined saints who will just wait before Him in His love
for God to manifest His will in them. To prayerfully wait for
His dunamis power to be released once again, and not settle for man's
soulish attempts to fake it.
Many of us have been in His refining fire, which brings to death our good ideas that are the enemy of His Best, the Spirit. Is it possible that the hour is right for a manifestation of His Holy presence once again? I pray that it is so.
Are you tired of all the empty prating of "great men" that drowns out
His
still small voice? Are you weary of the endless parade of
earthquake, wind and fire? I know I am. Will you turn
aside with me and see this Great Wonder, that bush that is engulfed in
flames, yet does not burn? Please join me in reverence before
Jesus our Lord and don't settle for anything else when you come
together as His saints.
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and
spoke, saying to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men bound into
the midst of the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "True, O
king."
25 "Look!" he answered, "I see four men loose, walking in the
midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth
is like the Son of
God." (Daniel 3:24-25, NKJV).