“Revelation”
Finding our way
A revelation is a word, a phrase or a vision. All come unexpected. They are not from the mind, they come from the spirit. The makeup of man is; the outer man which is the body, the inner man, which is the soul, the mind, will, and emotions and then there is the spirit. The organ that makes us aware of God is the spirit. Only in the spirit can we hear and really know Him. Our bodies and soul are rejuvenated through baptism in repentance and water. Only baptism of the spirit can rejuvenate our spirit to know the person God. Spirit bears witness to spirit. Our communication with God is through the spirit. We worship God in spirit and truth. The word truth means, reality or real.
I knew a man once that would get mad when God would reveal things to others and not to him. He would say, “Why is God only speaking things to others and not to me”? The truth of the matter is that he was the only man in the room that had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit. His belief was that when baptized in repentance and water, that he got all three. Not so. This is the revealed order. First is to be baptized in repentance for forgiveness, then baptized in water as a statement of death and resurrection and then baptized in the Holy Spirit. Any Christian can baptize someone in repentance and in water, but only Jesus can baptize someone in the Holy Spirit. He alone can authorize this. The Holy Spirit came down on Jesus as a dove; it came down on the disciples as tongues of fire. The disciples now communicated and heard from God and spoke it to all humanity. The Holy Spirit is our personal communicator and interpreter with God, to hear and to know Him. To leave out any of these three instructions is very serious. This is the beginning of the normal Christian life. To argue this point is like someone who has just bought a new car, you must put fresh oil in the engine and keep it fresh. He has the will to believe you or not. If he does not, the engine will stop eventually with a terrible outcome. The engine won’t just stop, it will tear apart inside. The man we talked about above, was being torn apart inside with anger, because he thought the oil in his engine was changed replaced at repentance and water baptism and didn’t need refreshing.
I build houses. Any builder knowns, that the foundation is its strength. If this is neglected, the house will not just move in the wind, it’s in danger of falling. There are many that disagree with this, to their detriment.
We live near many hiking trails here in Tennessee, all have a trail head, a starting point, and there are signs on them all. Each has a name, a destination and the mileage. If we don’t read them carefully, getting lost in 76 miles of the park is a real possibility and could be deadly. We got born again because we were hopelessly lost and knew it. To be separated from the Holy Spirit because we wouldn’t read the trail head sign is to assure us that we will be lost in the spiritual realm also. Hopefully, not hopelessly, if we along the trail find that we are lost, we can follow our tracks back to the trail head, read carefully, follow the instructions and set out again. Only those who won’t admit that they are wrong are destined repeat and get lost again. The trail head sign is nonnegotiable. We didn’t write it. The person with the knowhow and experience did. For the hiker to be a know it all and not need good instructions is to be prideful to a fault and it is dangerous. To know a trail before we walk it is foolishness. This trail of God’s we are on is the only trail we will ever be on in this life. Don’t get lost on it. If we can’t hear a word, a phrase or see a vision, we are lost already. Stop, turn around, and go back to the trail head, read the signs, act on them and get back on the trail. There is great joy on the trail and great reward at the end.
By the way, there are a lot of people looking at you, following you and want to be sure that you know where you are going. I have been lost in the woods before. I stopped for the call of nature. When I left, I went in the wrong direction. I made a big circle and came back to that same spot. How did I know it was the same spot? Remember the call of nature thing, enough said. At that moment great disorientation set in. How did I get there? To be lost in such a large forest is unnerving enough, but how you got there is something disorientating. The only way I got out of there was to backtrack to my starting point.
I have a friend who will never admit he is wrong about anything. One who won’t admit he is wrong and on the wrong trail, is lost and cannot find his way? If he won’t read the sign and will not take advice from another hiker he meets, he is hopelessly lost. When things get bad enough, he will backtrack and get back on the right trail.
To misunderstand the basic Christian instructions is a very serious matter. It is a life and death issue. By the way, in the upper room at Pentecost; the instructions were played out for all people to see. This was an example of normal Christianity. It was our starting point.
We all have a trail to walk. We all have to hear the instructor’s words. We all need revolution in the form of visions, word phrases. Why? Because, we will get lost without them.
David McClary
“A Voice From The Mountain”
