Worship in Spirit and Truth

“The Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.”* (Luke 16:14-16)

We are prejudiced against the virtue and merit that was in the religion of the Pharisees because we know from the New Testament record how it all came out: pride, self-righteousness, truth-fighters, even the crucifixion of the Son of God. We are also aware of the admonitions and rebukes of their inconsistencies that Jesus administered to them. There was much moral virtue and merit among them (as well as corruption), but their religion was one of the ways that the flesh of man can turn to religion in the name of God and truth.

Saul was drawn to the strictness and carefulness of the Pharisees for a reason. He wanted to live a virtuous life, a good life, a worthy life. His flesh was drawn to religion. There have always been people like that. Many people are not drawn in their flesh to religion, but there are a significant number who are. There are many people who know nothing of what it means to worship God in spirit, for even many who do worship God in truth (or at least a certain degree of truth) also worship Him in the flesh, instead of in the spirit. This worship (in flesh) is highly esteemed among men right now in this present gospel dispensation of time, but it is an abomination in the sight of God. There was a time when God accepted worship after the flesh if it was according to truth, for He knew that was all that men could do, but God has provided a way to worship Him in the spirit now. “Since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” That is the burden of this article. By God’s help, we want to examine the nature of worship in the spirit and contrast it with the previously acceptable worship in the flesh. We pray that the Lord will anoint this area of truth to your heart and open the Word of God to you on this subject.

It should be plain to you that God does not accept just any old thing that is devised by the fleshly wisdom of men. If you are not sure of this point, please read the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4:2-8. “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.”* (Genesis 4:4-5) Both of these men brought offerings to God, but one’s worship was accepted by the Almighty, while the other was not. Here is the question, then: Does God have respect unto our offering, or does He not? “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?”* (Genesis 4:7) This is the whole point, isn’t it? What does it mean in God’s sight to do well? What does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth?

Acceptable Worship Now Is Different from What Acceptable Worship Used to Be

We read in John 4:23, “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” You will note that there was a time when the true worshipers did not worship the Father in spirit. Yes, that’s right. The true worshipers did not worship the Father in spirit because they could not worship Him as He desired them to do so. “But the hour cometh, and now is,” Jesus said in Samaria to the woman at the well.

The worship of the old dispensation was not in spirit. “The law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.”* (Galatians 3:12) It was possible for an unconverted heart to set itself to keep the law. You did not have to be touched personally in your heart by the Spirit of God to worship God acceptably at that time. All you had to do was to keep the law. A man with a sinful nature (and everyone had it, from the most devout to the least) could worship acceptably to God at that time, for there was nothing better to be had. The hour had not come when there was something better.

There were many who desired the hour to come. There were many who sensed how God was not satisfied with the lack of worship in spirit. Of these we read, “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect [complete].”* (Hebrews 11:39-40) Again, we see the fulfillment of “the hour cometh and now is.” Better worship was possible because a better heart experience, i.e., in spirit, is and has been available since John the Baptist.

We come now to the ignorance of men in their fleshly ways concerning the new way of worship provided by God. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, all men had ever known was fleshly wisdom and thinking. The inspiration and abiding presence of the Holy Ghost was a temporary thing throughout the entire period of time previous to the New Testament. The holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, but that Presence did not dwell with them in their lives as we read of the New Testament brethren. King David was ignorant of the following condition: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”* (John 14:16-17) So also was Daniel, Elijah, Moses, Abraham, Elisha, etc. Jesus said, “Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”* (Matthew 11:11) None of these Old Testament brethren could worship in spirit and truth.

Not only was there the ignorance and inertia, the weight of centuries of fleshly worship in truth among the prior-to-New-Testament people of God, but the flesh itself exerted a blindness to spiritual things, a slowness of heart. It takes a continual quickening and renewal by the Holy Ghost to escape the influence of our own fleshly, natural ways, and this continual “abiding with you forever” was what the brethren of the old dispensation did not have. Sister Hannah Smith describes this purged, filled-with-the-Spirit-of-God life thus:

By rejoicing in Him, however, I do not mean rejoicing in ourselves, although I fear most people think this is really what is meant. It is their feelings or their revelations or their experiences that constitute the groundwork of their joy, and if none of these are satisfactory, they see no possibility of joy at all.

But the lesson the Lord is trying to teach us all the time is the lesson of self-effacement. He commands us to look away from self and all self’s experiences, to crucify self and count it dead, to cease to be interested in self, and to know nothing and be interested in nothing but God.

The reason for this is that God has destined us for a higher life than the self-life. That just as He has destined the caterpillar to become the butterfly, and therefore has appointed the caterpillar life to die, in order that the butterfly life may take its place, so He has appointed our self-life to die in order that the divine life may become ours instead. The caterpillar effaces itself in its grub form, that it may evolve or develop into its butterfly form. It dies that it may live. And just so must we.

Therefore, the one most essential thing in this stage of our existence must be the death to self and the resurrection to a life only in God. And it is for this reason that the lesson of joy in the Lord, and not in self, must be learned. Every advancing soul must come sooner or later to the place where it can trust God, the bare God, if I may be allowed the expression, simply and only because of what He is in Himself, and not because of His promises or His gifts. It must learn to have its joy in Him alone, and to rejoice in Him when all else in Heaven and earth shall seem to fail.

[Hannah W. Smith; The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, “‘Although’ and ‘Yet’”]

The old worship in flesh and truth had its ways that appealed to the flesh of Old Testament saints. The incense. The drama of the ritual. The appeal of the music to human sensibility. The impressive architecture of the temple. The sheer magnitude of butchered animals—the finest of the flocks and herds—consumed on the altar of sacrifice. Dimly and as through a glass, the fleshly mind of the Old Testament saints of God began to grasp the truth. “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”* (Micah 6:7) The fact was that God had something better for mankind, and He was patiently preparing for the hour when men could worship God in spirit and in truth.

Why did God accept all this fleshly worship before and not accept it now? The short answer would be, “God having provided some better thing for us,”* (Hebrews 11:40) but I submit to your thinking how difficult it was for the human mind to switch over from worship in the flesh to worship in the spirit. Unless the Spirit drew an individual to the better thing, the old way of worship looked good enough, even precious and dear. We get a glimpse of one man’s struggles with comprehending the better thing that was provided by God at that hour (and since) by reading of Nicodemus. Jesus is speaking of the invisible birth by the Spirit of God and the effects of that spiritual birth. He says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”* (John 3:6) But Nicodemus just didn’t get it. Spiritual worship by means of the spiritual birth was a mystery to him. So he replies, “How can these things be?”* (John 3:9) It just didn’t make sense to him. How could a person be so changed inside that they would worship God in spirit instead of in flesh, as men had always done up to that time?

The new birth, much more the baptism of the Holy Ghost, doesn’t make sense to our fleshly reasoning, for it is beyond our fleshly comprehension. And there are many people today who are “a master in Israel”* (John 3:10) who do not understand what is worship in spirit, either.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God…. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”* (1 Corinthians 2:9-10,12)

People Who Do Not Understand the Nature of Spiritual Worship

There are and were people who do not understand the nature of spiritual worship, i.e., worship in spirit. Their hearts are not taught of God to distinguish between worship in the spirit and pleasure in the natural, fleshly life of man, and much of their understanding arises out of their flesh. Again, we will state the spiritual condition in Sister Hannah Smith’s words, “By rejoicing in Him, however, I do not mean rejoicing in ourselves, although I fear most people think this is really what is meant.” A natural meal of fellowship, where people eat to satisfy hunger, seems a spiritual meal to those who do not know the nature of spiritual worship. Here the words of the apostle apply: “What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? What shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.”* (1 Corinthians 11:22) The man of God was greatly shocked that they did not distinguish between the normal, fleshly process of eating a meal together and the divinely-ordained, worship in spirit of the Lord’s Supper. “Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in?” He was greatly shocked because he himself was living on a higher plain than in his flesh, and he knew their (unrealized) privileges in the gospel. There are things that belong to our non-worship course of life and things that belong to worship in spirit and truth. There are other practices that do not belong to the worship services, but are perfectly permissible to do elsewhere. The Spirit of God within the apostle made it crystal clear what belonged to spiritual worship and what belonged to natural life.

People without this inner guide who are trying to worship God acceptably confuse the privileges of natural life with an idea of license to mix into worship service whatever they think is appropriate. And when some would demur, they can see no difference. “If I play the piano at home and sing gospel songs, why can I not do the same in public worship service?” they think. When the reply is given, “God is not worshiped with men’s hands” (Acts 17:25), then their fleshly response is, “Why not? If it is wrong to worship with men’s hands, then why is it not wrong to play the piano at all?” With this question comes an understanding that advocates that every detail of natural human life (the flesh) should be an act of worship to God. I should eat and drink as worship to God. I should make love to my wife as worship to God. I should go to the bathroom as worship to God. But there are things that belong to natural life that are not intended by God as worship to Him. It is true that all those things are to be dedicated to Him as part of my whole life belonging to Him. I am to break my bread in singleness of heart (Acts 2:46). I am to do all things to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). But they are not acts of worship. They are fleshly activities which I was created to do. They are to be distinguished from acts of worship. Observe the distinction in 1 Corinthians 7:5, “Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.” There is a place for the natural, the permissible fleshly part of man, but it has nothing to do with fasting and prayer.

Just as each of us is actually two kinds of person, flesh and spirit, there is a mixture of these two in our lives. But there is also distinguishment of the two, just as there is worship in spirit, different and distinguishable from worship in flesh. This discernment of the difference is only possible now because of the abiding presence of the Spirit of God in us.

People Who Understand the Form of Worship in Spirit, but Not the Power

And there are people who understand the form of worship in spirit because of their spiritual heritage, but they have not the Spirit of God working within them in all His power and glory, as He did in those before them. These people reverence the form and believe in it, but they substitute their reverence for the form for the inward life that true worship in spirit naturally produces. The fleshliness of their worship is revealed in their rules and policies to get and keep the form right. They would reduce the living presence of the Spirit of God in the hearts of true worshipers to doctrine and mental understanding. Their hearts are not taught of God, either, and much of their understanding arises out of their flesh, too.

These people do not want to lose sight of spiritual things, and this is why they cling ardently to the form. They do not realize that they have already lost it when they do not possess it in all of its fullness. We have observed many revered teachings and practices that are but empty shells. The brass serpent is still held before the people (Numbers 21:9), and much ado is made of how people were healed by looking to that thing ordained of God when they were bitten of serpents, but now it is Nehushtan, “a thing of brass,” and as did Hezekiah, we should break it in pieces and discredit it in our minds for the empty tradition that it is (2 Kings 18:4). We should seek the life that is in God according to His pattern, and reverence God, the Giver of that life with its great power and heavenly sap. Little good it does (and great harm) to keep proclaiming, “See our branch. This is just what God does. He makes a branch just like this. See how perfectly the leaves are formed. See what the sap has done.” Others looking on will justly observe, “This doesn’t seem to be connected to the Vine. It still has the form of a branch in the vine, but I do believe that it is withering. I don’t think I am interested in a withering vine.” Yes, the form defenders are headed for the bundles and the fire. We have heard the grim, tenacious attempts to hold the truth by those stubbornly persisting in the form of spiritual worship without demonstrating and holding before the people the inward power so necessary to really live a spiritual standard, and we are appalled by the damage done, the skepticism aroused, in the minds of men about worship in spirit and in truth. Little good it will do to just abstain from the medical profession in the name of trusting God exclusively with our bodies if we are not healed, greatly encouraged, and have all the blessings of God’s healing plan. Or worse yet, start doctoring ourselves, instead of trusting God. And little good it will do to carefully avoid entertainment, the showmanship of practiced performances, and the casual give and take of fleshly comradery in our public services if the absence of these things is not filled by a demonstration of the Spirit and power from on high. The form just doesn’t cut it, folks. Merely a remembrance of former blessings is not enough. It is good to have a godly heritage and that has its place, but we need freshness, current visitations, and right-now renewals from heaven. We need more than the wires; we need the power flowing through the wires. We are certainly not minded to cast away the wires, either, but the wires without the power are no good.

Those Who Worship in Spirit and in Truth

And there are people whose hearts are taught of God. These worship in spirit and in truth, and God greatly blesses them. The form is more than a doctrine to them. These people distrust their own fleshly reasoning and ways with a perception and insight constantly given by the indwelling Spirit of God. “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”* (Philippians 3:3) “Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is…. be filled with the Spirit.”* (Ephesians 5:17-18)

Now a man cannot disregard his own thinking and fleshly reasoning and feeling until he finds something better. As Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.”* (John 3:11) Jesus spoke of what it means for the Spirit of God to change a man and put him in contact with heaven. He spoke of what it means to have the Spirit of God poured upon us. “Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high….”* (Isaiah 32:15) He told the disciples (and us) to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high. “That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”* (1 Corinthians 2:12) It is the receiving of the Spirit from on high that spoils us for trusting in the ingenious reasoning of our fleshly minds in all kinds of things, and puts a healthy skepticism toward our own fleshly capabilities in the setting of our heart. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.”* (Jn. 16:13)

Until we are touched and subdued by the Spirit of God in this way, we cannot worship in spirit and truth, no matter what particular formula we follow. If you are not changed by the Spirit of God in your heart, then you cannot worship God in spirit, whether you use musical instruments or do not use them, whether you burn incense or do not burn it. You may carefully subdue the tendency of the flesh to practice and perform; you may carefully hem it in with rules and regulations; you may attempt to worship in spirit by many rules in the flesh; but you will fail to worship in spirit unless you are in spirit, i.e., assisted by the Spirit of God. And when you are assisted by the Spirit of God, much of what seemed important to your fleshly mind before will appear of little merit. This is why the New Testament saints left off all the Old Testament practices. They were not taught to do so by doctrine. They were not carefully disciplined by a ministry of profound understanding of the nature of the change in dispensations. They did not need to be. The reality of the superiority of the Holy Ghost within them was an anointing that taught them all they needed to know. And when a congregation of them at Galatia began to be seduced back to the old ways of worshiping God, the ministry of the New Testament was faithful to warn them that they were losing divine life and the things that belonged to divine life. They were losing worship in spirit, not just in truth.

It is a wonderful privilege to sit in a Holy-Ghost-controlled meeting. We might say with equal correctness and joy that it is wonderful to be among Holy-Ghost-controlled lives. Verily, it surpasses the form of Holy-Ghost-controlled meetings as daylight surpasses darkness. We have seen both. We have seen the traditions continued by those who lost the inspiration in their lives. Without fleshly entertainment of any kind, with only a sense of rightness that comes from “keeping the traditions,” it is as dry and dead a services as I have ever experienced. To a soul inspired by the Holy Ghost, there is nothing that communes with the soul, nothing that fires and inspires the inner life, only the husks and outer shells of divine truth. If such a soul steps out of his personal anointing and allows himself to be affected in his flesh, then there will be communion of a different kind than worship in spirit and in truth. Such a soul can receive zeal and enthusiasm to worship in flesh and truth. Such preaching and receiving of such preaching and other elements of such services will produce a corresponding change in the internal approach to God deep down in the soul.

But saints thrive on the manifestation of the Spirit of God in the services. Life communes with life. In a thousand ways, the underlying, beneath-the-surface life of the services speaks to the heart of the Spirit-controlled child of God. And the voice that speaks, speaks of God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”* (Matthew 5:8) The fleshly religious life may imitate the spiritual life in the emotions and reasoning of a human being, but it cannot bring the soul face to face with its Creator. Brother Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25—“But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.” Notice the effect of a spiritual meeting. The secrets of an unbeliever’s heart is made manifest, and he sees God. And not just of the preacher or someone who testifies only; he is convinced of all; he is judged (discerned) of all. There is more to the service than human agency, and this more-to-it is discernable by the unsaved.

I well remember a service I attended where a spiritual pastor had come to take up the burden of a congregation. There the truth had long been held as a form and tradition without anointing power. A woman in the congregation testified of how God dealt with her in the meeting. Over and over she said, “God spoke with me. He spoke with me.” This is a common experience in a spiritual congregation, but it had not happened to her before. She could scarcely get over it. She was a perfect stranger to worship in spirit and in truth. As to the form, she knew it perfectly and was greatly loyal to it.

The Author’s Personal Testimony

I am a musician who had ambitions at one time to be a professional soloist in classical music on the piano and violin. I thank God that He had mercy on me and helped me to abandon those ambitions. I have taught many students and am well acquainted with the ins and outs of performing high quality musical performances. I was delivered and am still delivered from the state of mind and heart that loves to perform, move, and inspire others through the powerful emotions aroused by beautiful, exhilarating compositions. I have the ability to play some of the most ingenious, lovely arrangements of gospel music I have ever found, and I find them inspiring in my flesh, very pleasant, soothing, and beneficial. I want to make it plain that as a natural man, I am a musician through and through. I deeply love the sound of melody and harmony. But I want to testify that these natural blessings and natural favorings, valuable and good as they are in their place, pale into complete insignificance with the inspiration of the Holy Ghost with this poor earthen vessel.

I also possess a certain ability as a speaker and can organize my thoughts coherently and systematically sufficiently to have made many business presentations over the years. But these natural, fleshly accomplishments, valuable and good as they were in their place, are completely dwarfed (as a grain of sand is dwarfed by the sun) by the power of the Spirit of God when it descends upon me (this unworthy earthen vessel) to preach the unspeakable works of God. There simply is no comparison. I marvel not at the brother who said it thus, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”* (1 Corinthians 2:1-5) There is nothing exaggerated about this testimony of Brother Paul’s. This is the effect of being filled with the Almighty Spirit of God. I would not dream of venturing out on my own to speak the gospel; I would not even remotely imagine that I could attempt to glorify God in public worship with my skill of hands on an instrument. The ministration of the Spirit is that glorious, that infinitely superior to all other ways. What an incredible thing that God would come down to a soul, clothed in flesh, and speak through that clay! “I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” All fleshly confidence evaporates before the glory of the Spirit and of power. Human skill and practice, preparation, mean precisely nothing. Therefore we read, “But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.”* (Mark 13:11) “But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit.”* (1 Corinthians 12:11) How infinitely valuable the working of the Holy Ghost, that one and selfsame Spirit! Behold, “man at his best state is altogether vanity”* (Psalm 39:5)!

Now this, too, as many other things, can be wrested by those who are not filled with the Spirit and who lean too much to their flesh. They will say, “But don’t you think beforehand about what you will say before you preach?” I will answer you. Usually there is a topic and some scriptures upon my heart and certain pressing burdens, but I certainly do not practice speaking before mirrors or spend any time premeditating the effect of what might be said upon the hearers. I am more interested in getting the burden right from God and pleasing Him. I leave everything to Him, trusting Him to manage my thoughts, my feelings, my ignorance, etc., to His glory. In other words, checking the “pipes” to be sure that there is nothing clogging or hindering the free flow of the Spirit of God that the Word of God might have free course.

Now this way (the way of worship in the spirit) has a profound effect on both the speaker and they who hear him. There is little to no rapport in the flesh between speaker and audience. Men and women filled with the Holy Ghost do not tell jokes to “break the ice.” They do not adopt a casual, “good old boy” relationship with the audience. Secular public speakers do these kinds of things and many other fleshly techniques all the time, but the Spirit of God will put something in you and in the spiritual in the audience that will cause the same reaction as there was to Jesus. “Never man spake like this man.”* (John 7:46) “Well,” you may say, “that was Jesus.” Yes, and that is what Jesus wants to do through you, child of God. He would give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist (Luke 21:15).

In addition to this, there is a great humbling process that occurs when God uses a human being to speak forth the mighty gospel to other human beings.

I have sat in congregations where musical instruments were employed in worship service, and I have earnestly prayed that I would understand the nature of what was happening. Nor have I prayed in vain. The eyes of my understanding have been opened wider than before. This is not the first time that this subject has come up in the centuries since Jesus first founded His church. I have not and I do not despise the earnest, sincere souls who I observed singing spiritual songs with instrumental accompaniment. Some of them were overcome with the profound meaning of what they were singing to the extent that they were unable to continue to sing, at times. I have talked with different ones of them, questioning and inquiring into the practice, listening to what they said, considering and pondering. I would not sit in the seat of the scorner with any, nor am I insensitive to the possibility of laying a rock of stumbling in the path of any of God’s little children. I want them to get to heaven, and I want to go, too. If they have received a different influence than the one taught by the Holy Ghost, it has and will do them harm, and I want to be their friend and please my Master who loves all, by humbly holding to the truth.

I have also been among the form-defenders, who are bent on holding “the standard” whether they are taught of God or not. Not only on the particular aspect of worship (musical instruments) I have just mentioned, but on trusting God for our bodies, dressing modestly, higher education, wives working out of the home, and many other areas of life, I see precious little evidence that the Holy Ghost is teaching their hearts. I am glad for what there is to see. This paucity of the Holy Ghost teaching the hearts, of course, is plain to the group that holds it is all right to worship God with men’s hands. They don’t see the Holy Ghost teaching the form-defenders, because He isn’t; but they also fail to see different signs that they are also being guided more by fleshly reasoning than by the Spirit of God.

I find all this very grievous, and it brings a great fear of God upon my heart. I don’t want to miss it, too. I don’t want to (1) throw in with either camp that is not taught of God (or anybody else not taught of God, either) and (2) I don’t want to be one of those human beings not taught the way of God by the Spirit of God. God forbid that I should introduce yet another fleshly creed of my own devising into this awful jungle of human thinking before us. O Lord, keep me subdued before Thy Spirit!

“Have No Confidence in the Flesh”

We observe that God has preempted the fleshly argument: “My flesh is more right than yours.” He has nullified flesh-to-flesh comparisons by providing something infinitely superior to your flesh or mine. And when we receive the Holy Ghost, we are deeply convicted of this truth: “The flesh profiteth nothing.”* (John 6:63)

God did this with the contentions of the sinful Israelites and the sinful Gentiles. “But the scripture hath concluded all under sin.”* (Galatians 3:22) “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”* (Romans 11:32)

And we find in Joshua 5:13-15 the story of Joshua’s encounter near the city of Jericho with an unknown man with a sword in his hand. Joshua wanted to know whether this man was on his side or on the side of the people of Jericho, but the man said, “Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come.”* (Joshua 5:14) I want to stress this “NAY.” Verily, God is not on one group’s side or another. NAY! You see, God has a side. He has a way. And there is only one appropriate response on our part, and Joshua took it immediately upon hearing the man’s reply. “And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?”* (Joshua 5:14) This is the way of escape from our fleshly reasoning and affections. It is the way of humility to God and opening our heart to complete obedience. And the first commandment of the angel of God to the humbled, worshiping Joshua was, “Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.”* (Joshua 5:15)

We need to get rid of our shoes at the angel’s direction. Our feet are tender, compared to the possible hazards of walking about, and we all recognize the need and desirability of protective footwear. We develop our ways of proceeding in life in the best wisdom that we have, and if we are sincere, we carefully use the best skill we can muster to do what seems right to us. Most of God’s children are a determined people, kind of hard-headed and not easily changed. They would never have started out on a pilgrimage to go to heaven and please God if they were wishy-washy and pulled about by every wind of doctrine. But whether our “shoes” are well-made or poorly constructed, when we stand before the angel of God, “Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy.” God does not mean for you to go bare-footed all the time, so to speak, but there is a time to bare your soul and say as Joshua, “What saith my lord unto his servant?”

There are too many people arguing about what is right with their shoes on. And all too few who are on holy ground with their shoes off and their flesh subdued.

We talk and think differently when we stand on holy ground before the angel with our shoes off. Joshua needed that experience, and we need it, too. Joshua tackled Jericho, that great walled-up city, differently than he would have otherwise. As he stood there with his shoes off and his flesh subdued, the angel told him to go about the destruction of the city in a way that made no sense militarily. This is perfectly ordinary with God. He is always doing things that make no sense to our natural thinking, until they are over, and we see that He is God indeed and is dealing with every aspect of things, including our flesh.

The great burden of the hour among the remnants of the great holiness reformation of 1880 is the need to take our shoes off and stand before the angel on holy ground. As a people overall, we are a disgrace and a reproach. We teach a thousand variations of doctrine; we exclude and include with our unwritten creeds; we labor endlessly and futilely to “get them to come over here” (Luke 17:20-21). Hardly anyone is getting the same depth of experience as we read about in the New Testament. All groups are full of “good” ministers, well-respected within the framework of that particular group, who have certain results against which there is no law. But much of this activity and these results take place within a fleshly framework that is greatly lacking in depth and power. There is altogether too much of people doing things for God in His name, and too little of God present in great power, doing things through believers. This will not be remedied by arguing about who is the most spiritual (i.e., the greatest) and the most right. Can you not see the great necessity of finding the place that Joshua found? Do you not feel the great necessity of it in your life, your congregation, your general meetings?

Nothing is going to change until you become afflicted and mourn and weep. “Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”* (James 4:9-10) Daniel repented for the children of Judah in Daniel 9:2-20, although he was not personally guilty of many of the things which he confessed to God. His “removing of his shoes” as he lay on his face before God brought favor from God. “Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. And he informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. At the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and I am come to show thee; for thou art greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.”* (Daniel 9:21-23)

Out of this touch from God came a blessing that proved to be part of the foundational understanding that led to the restoration of Jerusalem and the renewal of God-blessed, God-inspired Old Testament worship. Ezra and Nehemiah entered into Daniel’s labors, and they got back (paying the usual cost of buying the truth) to the blessing zone that God had provided for His people in that dispensation.

The Testimony of Others

When the Holy Spirit takes a soul down into the death of Jesus, and there that soul dies in the death of Christ, there will be a resurrection to a life of power that will stir the country for ten miles around. It did it at Pentecost and it will do it today. We see what are called conversions and sanctifications today, and they are so cold, tame, lifeless, that they create but little or no joy in the heart of the saints. There are those today who can look back to the time of their conversion or sanctification when they felt more like a creature of heaven than of earth. They lived in a heavenly realm. They walked in a spirit of prayer. They lived in constant communion with God. The word of God was a fire in their bones. Diseases were driven back, and sinners awed by their presence.

[Charles E. Orr; The Rule of a Saintly Life, “Saintly Living from the Heart”]

Musical instruments in celebrating the praises of God would be no more suitable than the burning of incense, the lighting up of lamps, and the restoration of the other shadows of the law. The papists, therefore, have foolishly borrowed this, as well as many other things, from the Jews. Men who are fond of outward pomp may delight in that noise; but the simplicity which God recommends to us by the apostle is far more pleasing to Him.

[a reformer of the 1530 Protestant Reformation]

Praise the Lord with the harp. Israel was at school, and used childish things to help her to learn; but in these days when Jesus gives us spiritual food, one can make melody without strings and pipes. We do not need them [musical instruments]. They would hinder rather than help our praise. Sing unto Him. This is the sweetest and best music. There is no instrument like the human voice. What a degradation to supplant the intelligent song of the whole congregation by the theatrical prettiness of a quartet, the refined niceties of a choir, or the blowing off of wind from inanimate bellows and pipes! We might as well pray by machinery as praise by it.

[Charles H. Spurgeon; Comments on Psalm 42:4]

We include these testimonies to highlight the lack of confidence in the flesh that is a direct effect of being filled with the reality of the Holy Ghost. This powerful infilling is altogether too rare today. It is because of the scarcity of this depth of experience that we have these grievous lacks in all that we have encountered among these two groups of people. This situation will only be resolved rightly by individual after individual getting this experience that produces such confidence in God and such a lack of confidence in everything that is not of God.

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

“On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.”*

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