Inspire Ohio 2012

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Advent HOPE Kettering

Shane Anderson

How To Receive the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, Part 2:  Conquering the Obstacles

Just before I begin, I just want to encourage you again to pick up Froome's book, The Coming of the Comforter.

And again, I think it's 1 of the most powerful books written on the outpouring of the Spirit of God that has ever been written.

And so if you don't have it, The Coming of the Comforter by Leroy Froome, ABC has it, Amazon, etc.

Yesterday you may remember that I read this quote, Evangelism page 701, Evangelism page 701, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church is looked forward to as in the future, but it is the privilege of the church to have it now.

Seek for it, pray for it, believe for it.

We must have it and heaven is waiting to bestow it." Now on the 1 hand that's a tremendously encouraging text.

On the other hand, it's a little bit ominous.

The blessing of the Spirit is available now, but we don't appear to have it.

The church as a whole, the Adventist movement around the world, I mean, some people have said, well, we think that there are portions of the latter rain falling here.

I'm Not sure that I can necessarily argue with them, but certainly I think everybody can agree that if we're talking about the Advent movement in general on planet Earth, God's people on Earth have not yet received this final blessing of the latter reign of the Holy Spirit.

Something I think is standing in the way, and I'm sure that many of us, we could come up with what we think some of those things are.

I just want to focus on 2 things, 2 obstacles that I think are probably more common than others these days, 2 obstacles to receiving the outpouring of the latter reign of the Holy Spirit." And I just want to look at these here briefly this morning.

Number 1, we are too easily satisfied with too little of the Holy Spirit.

We are too easily satisfied with too little of the Holy Spirit.

You know, when the Holy Spirit initially works with somebody, or let's reverse it here, when we see the evidence of it.

When someone, for instance, is baptized, we know for certain that God's Spirit has been at work in that person's life.

I mean otherwise they wouldn't be taking that stand.

The people that I think about at my church recently that have been baptized, it's not a question.

We know that the Lord has been at work by His Holy Spirit in these dear people's lives.

Many times when someone becomes a believer, because the Holy Spirit has been at work in such a definite way in their lives, the former reign of the Spirit has been doing its work, they have what we call a first love experience.

Now, like we all know what that is, I mean, they're excited, they're on fire for the Lord, they're so pleased because of what God has done by His Spirit in their lives.

And then something often begins to happen.

If they're not careful, they will lose their enthusiasm, they start to feel a little disoriented, they may even begin to feel stale, and that first love experience, unless they do something to stop it from fading, will gradually fade away until at last they become an average Christian.

And they fade into the pew, and they may still show up, and they may still give money to the church, etc., etc.

But that first love experience and the passion of the Spirit brought to them is long, long gone.

It's not a requirement that you become an average Christian.

We talked about normal Christianity yesterday.

You don't have to become an average Christian.

You see so often we forget that the Spirit does not just fill us once and then we're done with it.

The Spirit leaks out, not because the Spirit wants to leak out, but because our selfishness rises up and we don't do anything about it.

And so the spirit leaks out, and as a consequence, we need to ask for more of the spirit, but that's the challenge, because we humans give up asking far too easily.

If you have your Bible, take a look at Luke 11.

I want to revisit something that we looked at yesterday, but this time take it a little further.

Luke chapter 11, verse 11, and let's reread what we read yesterday.

Jesus here teaching His disciples and He's going to talk here about receiving the Holy Spirit.

Luke 11, 11 it says, Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?

Or if he asks for an egg, we'll give him a scorpion.

If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" Now many people, again, when they read this, they have said, well this means that all I need to do is I need to ask.

It's kind of a one-time thing, or maybe, you know, every now and then if I think about it, I'll ask for the filling of the Spirit of God, and this will suffice.

This will take care of all that God wishes for me to have with regard to His Holy Spirit.

After all, it says, you ask and God will give His Holy Spirit.

And notice, He even plays on our heartstrings here, and rightly so.

He says, those of you that have children, you love your children, you want to take care of your children.

If your children are hungry, then you will give them something that is good for food.

When I was on my grandparents' farm in Oklahoma growing up, 1 time I got into bed and My grandmother there, I was visiting, she had made a bed on the floor, and I slipped inside and I felt this little sting on my foot.

And I thought, well, maybe it's a slight burr or something like that, and being adventurous, I said, well, I'll just stick my foot back down there and dislodge the little burr.

And then I got a much bigger sting and I threw back the covers and there was a scorpion inside my bed.

I don't know how you make a bed with a scorpion.

I would never, if my children were hungry, would say, why don't you try the scorpion instead?

And so again, the impression comes back, when we ask God for His Spirit, He will simply give it, we're filled and we can forget it thereafter.

If you read the context of Luke 11, 11 to 13, we come to a very different conclusion.

It says, Then He, Jesus, said to them, his disciples, suppose 1 of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, Friend, lend me 3 loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.

Then the 1 inside answers, don't bother me.

The door is already locked and my children are with me in bed.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs." Now, the word boldness there, some of your translations say what?

You know, the idea here is, I mean, it's pretty clear, the context, and boldness, importunity, is not a bad translation, but I would say it falls a little short of the true meaning of the word.

You know, the Greek here, the Greek word is anidion, and it should be read, if you were to put the full force in it, it ought to be translated, shameless insistence.

If somebody says something and you're like, wow, I can't believe they had the gall to say that.

I mean it's not just boldness, it's like incredible boldness in there for them to be able to do this shameless insistence and gall.

Now, here's what that means in the context of the story.

In other words, this guy who is having his door knocked upon, is not going to open the door just because this guy's his friend.

The only reason he's gonna open the door, now the story doesn't say this, but because of what the Greek word here means, shameless insistence and gall, he didn't just knock once, it's, hey, can I get some bread?

Gets out of bed, kids fall out on the floor, screaming, crying, but that guy at the door is gonna get his bread.

Not because he's his friend, but because of the shameless insistence and gall that he displays.

And immediately we come to a potentially troubling conclusion, because this is a parable.

We're not talking about 2 guys after midnight here.

Is this saying, then, that when we ask for the Holy Spirit, we should not merely be bold, that we should, but instead, we should have shameless insistence and persistence, even to the point of gall, when asking for the Holy Spirit of God, is that's what's being said here?

That's precisely what the text is saying.

And let's keep reading just to make sure that we understand this here.

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How To Receive the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, Part 2: Conquering the Obstacles

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