We keep saying that the world has changed, and indeed it has. But I am afraid that it has changed in ways that we are only now just beginning to see and understand. Sometimes things change and we don’t even know that there has been a change. I am beginning to think that that is the case with the missing Holy Spirit. Now I am not saying that the Holy Spirit has left this world, what I am saying is that I think His work is less and less effective today. I think I can say that as I have a more than 50-year perspective. So, I am going to reference things that I noticed from years ago that I don’t notice anymore.
One of the things I remember but don’t see anymore is the work of the Holy Spirit in illuminating truth to the hungry and thirsty believer. When I was first saved, I had the idea that God would speak to me every time I went to church. The pastors that filled the pulpit would bring the word of God but expect the Holy Spirit to make the application to the person in the pew. Today, preachers not only bring the message but also make the application for us, just make sure we all do the right thing. It also goes along with studying the Scriptures. It used to be that the person who would look into the Bible believed that the Holy Spirit was the only one who could make known the mind of the author. Today, many come to the Scriptures armed with study tools and techniques that only require human effort to wrest from the Scriptures their true meaning. Who needs the Holy Spirit when there is human effort and brain power.
Another thing I remember is the idea of witnessing. In order to share the gospel and have someone comprehend it, required the work of the Holy Spirit to open up a person’s understanding. Today, we only need to be trained and rehearsed in the technical arguments of how to overcome someone’s objections or differing opinion of spiritual things. Properly trained by today’s standards of witnessing will make every believer able to wade into the world arena and take down anyone and bring them intellectually to the Savior by sheer debate alone…or so it seems. Yet, without the work of the Holy Spirit, no one can understand the gospel, it is foolishness to them.
Another thing is about prayer. It used to be that Christians understood that God will answer prayer when and in any manner that He sees fit. Today, we don’t need the power of God, we only need an army of people to move God to action. The more people we can get praying, the more we can motivate God. We just need the numbers. Yet, the gates of Peter’s prison may have been opened not by the unbelieving prayer group, but by the faith of one little girl who came to the gate to let Peter in, for she believed it was he in answer to prayer.
One last thing might be our approach to church growth. Fifty years ago, pastors weren’t quite as concerned with how big their churches were. Today, we have every kind of statistic as to how to advertise or church, how to make it appealing to younger people, how to get the crowds in, how make your presence known in the community. We have the corporate “man plan”, we don’t really need the Holy Spirit, we just want Him to come and bless our frail and human efforts to our own glory because we know what to do to get people into our building…or so we think.
I think that if there is truth to a great falling away in the last days, it just might be that we have fallen away to replacing the Holy Spirit with human effort and ingenuity. We can do this for God, we can take his truths and make these principles work for us. In truth, we can do nothing without the work of the empowering Holy Spirit. I think the Spirit has simple stepped aside and let us do our own thing in our own power to our own glory, even if we claim it is all for Him. He is not fooled by our pretense.
Just my two cents worth, as I see it from the 50-year mark. It ain’t the same today…we have replaced His power with human effort I am afraid.
