T. Austin-Sparks · 1 of 4

The Way of Sovereignty

I thank you, dear friends, for the warmth of your welcome back again. In what our brother Harrison said about the link resulting in his being here, I wasn't quite sure as to whether I was to be blamed, or to be praised! I'm afraid I must leave that uncertainty with you, but he seemed to feel that it wasn't such a bad thing. I trust that it's working out that way, I believe it is.

Now without any further loss of time in that way, let us get to the Word. And I ask you, first of all, to look at a fragment in one of the best-known chapters in the Bible, in the gospel by John, chapter three. And the fragment that I'm lifting out of this so well-known story, is at verse 8: "The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

I want to bracket alongside of that three other fragments from the book of the Acts chapter 2, verse 2: "And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a rushing of a mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting." Chapter 11, verse 17: "If then, God gave unto them the like gift as He did also unto us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, that I should withstand God?" In chapter 15, verse 10: "Now therefore, why tempt ye God that ye should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers, nor we, were able to bear."

Back to our original fragment, John 3:8 "The wind bloweth where it listeth." Here the Lord is drawing a similarity between the wind and the Holy Spirit. He says, "the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit". This similarity between wind and the Spirit is not peculiar to this passage, as you know. There are other places where the two are brought together. For instance, in Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, "Come oh thou wind and breathe upon these bones..." and the Spirit entered into them.

Two Things: the Wind and the Spirit.

Everybody knows that on the day of Pentecost it was the day of the Holy Spirit coming as the sound of a mighty rushing wind. Now, the point that the Lord makes here is that of the absolute sovereignty vested in the Holy Spirit - His perfectly free and independent action. He says, "There are some things that you don't know - whence it cometh or whither it goeth, we know not". Some things you don't know, but as to the fact and the effect, there is no gainsaying that, there is no question about that. The wind... and we're not talking about a soft gentle breeze now, the wind is indisputable. Ability, or no ability to understand and explain, it makes no difference; it's the fact, that matters. Fundamentally it's the fact that matters, not whether you can explain the thing, or define this thing.

The greatest of all facts, dear friends, the greatest of all facts in relation to God and man, is the Holy Spirit. Everything, even Christ, even the work which He has done, all the meaning and value of His cross, and of His Person, of His incarnation, of His atonement, of His heavenly glory, and everything else, depends entirely upon the Holy Spirit, to become of any value to us. He said that, "It is expedient for you that I go away, if I go not away the Spirit will not come" clearly implying, "It is far more important that the Spirit should come, than that I should stay in the flesh".

Everything depends upon the Holy Spirit. There's no vital relationship with God apart from the Holy Spirit; no living Christian experience apart from the Holy Spirit; no knowledge or understanding of Divine things apart from the Holy Spirit; no fruitfulness in life or service apart from the Holy Spirit; no transformation into the likeness of Christ apart from the Holy Spirit.

Now I, of course, could stay for a week or more, speaking on the Holy Spirit, but that is not the message for this morning in general. The particular aspect of this matter for this present moment is that of the absolute sovereignty of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit's absolute demand to have His own way, to have His own way, which demand will be refused or resisted at the expense of your spiritual life. This is a life-or-death matter: the Spirit being sovereign, with all that that means. Well, that is clearly borne out by this very simile of the wind, the wind blowing.

When the wind really blows, and we hardly need to pause to say that there is nothing indefinite about the Holy Spirit, nothing uncertain about the Holy Spirit. If there is one thing that marks the Holy Spirit from the first reference to Him in Genesis 1:2, "the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the sea" to the last reference at the end of the book of the Revelation, "The Spirit saith come". If there's one thing about the Holy Spirit from beginning to end, it is: He's always positive, always positive, always very definite. And if you know anything about the wind really blowing, you know that the wind takes charge. It takes charge.

Have you ever really been in a hurricane? Have you ever really been at sea in a raging storm? Have you ever been in the presence of a strongly blowing wind? You know how futile it is to try to resist. The wind takes charge. "So is every one that is born of God", according to the Divine thought: taken charge of, taken over, taken out of their own hands, out of their own power, out of their own reason - taken over. Everything into His hands. Now, that's the New Testament teaching about the Holy Spirit, that is the very basis of a true Christian life and because that is not recognised, acknowledged and accepted by so many who bear the name of Christian, for that very reason there is so much that is indefinite, uncertain, unsure, wavering, vacillating, double-minded, undependable about so many Christians. Do you notice how meticulously careful the apostles were about this matter?

Look at the book of the Acts. Well, Philip went down to Samaria and preached Christ to them. The Spirit started moving, there's no doubt about it, and many came to the Lord; many came to the Lord. The apostles which were at Jerusalem heard of this, what did they do? Did they say, "Well, this is good news, this is fine! We rejoice in this!" No, they probably didn't say that, but they went down and when they were come down they looked into this thing and what happened? They did not just accept it as it was, "Then, then lay their hands upon them that they might receive the Holy Spirit". And do you notice that procedure was followed carefully, meticulously all the way through?

With Paul, he came to Ephesus and found certain disciples. Sensing a certain lack or weakness, he was perplexed perhaps, throws about in his mind: "Now, what's this? They are disciples, they are Christians, they know their Old Testament..." Apollos, that man mighty in the Scriptures, that's a good Old Testament foundation. That's the only Bible, of course, that existed, but there's something here... they've got the name, the profession, the Scriptures, but there's something here lacking. "Oh! Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" he asked. Can you believe? Can you believe without receiving the Holy Spirit? I leave you to answer that question.

Here's a case in point: there was a flaw in their foundation, we'll not deal with that, but here it is. How careful they were, "We have not so much as heard that the Holy Spirit is". He'd got his finger on them in this part, hadn't he, he had right discernment. Well, then he got busy on this situation and they received the Holy Spirit. He laid his hands upon them and they received the Spirit. Here is the complement of faith, the complement of said faith, the completion: the Holy Spirit.

My point is, how careful were the apostles about this matter, not just taking things at their face value, but making very sure, very sure, for anything short of this would be disastrous. Sooner or later it would be disastrous. Making sure about this, that these people had really received the Holy Spirit. Why? Why? For this one reason only, that when the Holy Spirit really is present within, the sovereignty of that life from centre to circumference is taken over by the Spirit of God and that individual is no longer in possession of themselves, no longer in their own sovereignty, no longer on the ground of their own rights; the Spirit has taken over everything. The Wind takes over. And if there's one thing about the wind, when it really gets going it demands submission, absolute submission. So is every one that is born of God!

A life under the aegis of the Holy Spirit is a committed life; it cannot be otherwise. You're not under the aegis of the Holy Spirit if you are not committed; a state of controversy will be going on between you and the Spirit of God until that point is reached where complete and utter submission is given to Him.

Look at the Lord Jesus. The Spirit came upon Him as He moved out into His life vocation. There was a point at which it is written of Him, "Jesus, from that day, set His face as a flint to go up to Jerusalem..." See what that meant? All that was involved in that we know and He knew, but He set His face steadfastly as a flint, to go up to Jerusalem. He is committed, He is committed, He is under the Spirit's government.

You know, when you travel by air, you travel a long distance by air, there is always a point at which the pilot knows to be the point from which there's no turning back. They've gone too far to turn back, it would be far more fatal to turn back if anything goes wrong than to go on. From this point, it's the only thing to do, whatever happens, is to go on, we're committed. Jesus went all the way, from the day when the Spirit came upon Him, in His heart He'd gone all the way. There was no turning back, He set His face steadfastly. I repeat, a life under the Holy Spirit's government, is a committed life from which there ought to be no turning back.