(John 3:8)
�The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.�
Our first thought upon reading this verse is that the wind speaks of the Spirit. I believe this is a correct assumption. But, specifically, the wind is the action of the Spirit working upon the one who is born again.
To me, it seems that the teaching is that the Spirit moves upon the heart of a sinner and brings him to a place of repentance. This is a consistent theme when compared to Scriptures like Romans 3:11 which present the unsaved as a person who would not consider a relationship with God. Not to be discounted from this construct is that the believer is called to be the means by which, humanly speaking, that Wind is carried from generation to generation.
When these verses are considered in context with Proverbs 21:4, where even the most elemental activities of humanity are said to be conducted in the state of sin, we are given a picture of what theologians like to call �original sin.� That is, every human being born into this world is born with a nature which is disposed toward sin.
Ephesians 2:8-9 will also carry this theme that salvation is not something that the unsaved man had anything to do with as far as initiating the dialogue with God. This is an important theme to realize as we live our Christian lives upon this earth. The world at large is not attuned to our Christian lifestyle or culture. We can never change the world into a Christian enclave by our petition to �Christian values.� Changing laws, in an attempt to change culture, is an exercise foreign to the concept of Christian witnessing.
Our charge, as given in the Great Commission, is to change the world one soul at a time by introducing each of them to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. The major problem, from our standpoint, is that we can not do this. It is an impossible task to teach the people of the world, locked into a physical and time centric existence, the things of the Spirit and of eternity.
Beyond this, the general attitude of humanity is to be opposed to the things of God. The inborn predisposition toward sin makes this attitude a reality. Therefore, the truth is that we are given a command from God to do that which we cannot accomplish.
Therein are we reminded that we have an ability of which the world cannot conceive. �I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me.� (Philippians 4:13)
We are called to carry out our duties to the Lord, and to our fellow man, in the power of the Spirit of God. Such a construct demands that we be much in the Scripture, so we will be able to access the Wisdom of God as given in that inspired and preserved Book, and the Power of the Spirit to do His Own work upon the souls of those to whom we do witness.
Properly considered, our witness is not of ourselves. It is of God. It is true that we will use that from the Scripture which we have learned. It is true that we will rely upon the guidance of the Spirit as to when to and what to say. But, our total reliance is upon the Spirit of God to change the souls of men.
In this the Spirit is pleased to use us, as is stated by the Great Commission as given at the end of Matthew�s Gospel. God has given us, as Christians, a part in this Holy Work. The Spirit of God is desirous that we do our part in the spreading of this Wind of the Gospel.
To that end we need to be in prayer, by name whenever possible, for those to whom we witness. And, we need to extend this prayer even toward those to whom we might possibly witness for we never know when the Lord will desire to use us as a tool to engage a soul for the interests of eternity.
The first thing I�d like to notice in this verse is the path of the wind. �The wind bloweth where it listeth��
The Bible says that we are indwelled with the Holy Spirit as Christians. �What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God�s� (I Corinthians 6:19-20)
The popular religious opinion, popularized by the Pentecostal and some Holiness people, is that the Christian must actively seek the �filling� of the Holy Spirit before the Spirit becomes a reality within his life.
We can discuss the degree�s to which any individual Christian is either aware of, or yielded to, the Holy Spirit, but the Bible picture is that the Spirit begins to dwell with us as a condition of salvation. Upon the remission of our sins by faith in the shed Blood of Jesus, we are given the gift of the Spirit, ��the Holy Ghost which in in you��
By �condition� I do not mean that this is a part of salvation in the sense of being a prerequisite to salvation. Salvation is based only upon the acceptance of faith in Jesus, His sacrifice at Calvary for our sins. By �condition� I mean that this is the state of the person who has been saved. At salvation the Spirit indwells the believer.
In a real and spiritual sense we carry the Spirit of God with us in our daily walk as Christians. This realization ought to make us more mindful of our responsibilities. Do you know that the normal Christian will be happily engaged in soul winning, the study of the Scripture and prayer directed to the Throne of Grace? The normal Christian will live above the sin soaked culture of the world at large. The normal Christian will live a life of spiritual victory in Jesus Christ, his Lord.
Sadly, most of us are not normal. We are average. While the normal Christian will walk in the Spirit, striving to live to his fullest for God, the average Christian will tend to walk in the ways of the world.
I once got a 47% on a test in college. I was quite upset and approached the teacher. He said, �It might help your ego to know that yours was the third highest grade of all my classes.� My spirits perked up a bit. The instructor, seeing my pleasure, said, �Don�t get too proud. Remember, you still got more wrong than right!� Thankfully, this college professor did grade on the �curve.�
I have heard of �bell curves;� this curve more resembled a pear. It was mighty small at the top and really crowded at the bottom!
God does not grade on a curve. He expects obedience. He has a right to expect obedience. We, the �average� Christian, do tend to give Him our obedience. The only problem is that we don�t give this obedience very often!
If we do actually live for God we will see that the path of the wind drenches with rain. Hosea 10:12 tells us to live for God so that we can expect blessing. �Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.�
I was in the kitchen a few hours ago. One look at me and you�ll know I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. No; I am not fat. I used to be fat but I�ve gained a whole lot of weight since then!
I was in the kitchen doing dishes. I use a sponge when I do dishes. It gets so full of water that anything I place it on is drenched. You just can�t lay a wet sponge down and not get whatever you laid it on wet!
The Spirit wants us to be sponges filled with His love and message. We ought to just ooze out the message of God because we are so filled with the reality of the fact that Jesus Christ died in time so that others could live in eternity.
The Wind of the Spirit calls us to walk in concert with Him so that there will be drenching rain of the blessing of God into the world about us.
I live with my son�s family right now. Suppose there were a fire in the house. My sleeping quarters are near a back door. If I saw a fire I could quickly run out of the house and be safe.
There seems to be something I�ve forgotten in the above scenario. What is it? Right; I didn�t mention anything about warning my son�s family about the fire. That ain�t a real good thing, is it? Why do any of us consider it a good thing that we are going to Heaven and yet allow friends and family around us to continue on to Hell without warning them of sin and salvation?
The latter is much more serious, eternally serious, than is the former.
Let us send the Water of the Spirit so those flames of perdition can be doused in the lives of others! Isn�t this a reasonable service to both God and man?
Throughout history man has also seen that the path of the wind has delivered goods and services. Ships were powered from port to port on the strength of oars, to be sure. But, mostly, and especially over long distances, it was the power of the wind on the sail of the ship which brought those goods and services from afar.
God desires to send the message of the good service of salvation from sin in the Person of Jesus Christ. He desires that this message go throughout the world from city to farm, from nomad to trader, from king to peasant. We are the sails with which He had determined to work.
When a ship was out at sea, far from land, and a really bad storm would come up, what would the sailors do? They would strike the sails. This means that they would lower the sails so that the wind would not toss them about. Often they would even drop their anchor so that the ship would be stabilized.
The Wind of the Spirit is not an unruly gale bringing death and destruction. The Wind of the Spirit is a life giving breeze which leads to the shores of Glory. This being so, why do we �strike the sails� of our witness. We are called to move out into the �highways and hedges� with the message of sin and salvation. Instead, we are more apt to drop an anchor of unyieldedness and just �stick in the mud� rather than moving onward for God and man with the message that Jesus Christ died in time so that others might live in eternity!
The path of the wind is determined by God. Most of us can quote John 3:16. The very next verse says, �For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.� (John 3:17)
How often we attempt to thwart the will of God because we refuse to move with the Wind of the Spirit. All we need to do, really, is simply go along. The power comes from Him. The results come from Him. He simply asks that we be the carriage upon which the grace of the Father is carried out into the world.
We need to realize the power of the wind. ��and thou hearest the sound thereof��
The power of the wind can cause chaos. I recall an incident which happened when I was still a young boy. A tornado touched down in a town about sixteen miles from where I lived. My father, a licensed tree surgeon, was employed by the local power company. Even though he was on vacation when the tornado hit, he was called back to work so the �high lines� could be cleared of branches and such.
The storm had caused electrical outages in a wide area. Those power company crews�, including my father�s, had to work sixteen, and more, hour days for several days in order to restore the electrical power to those people.
We had a wind storm here just a few months ago. Remembering that this is an upper Midwest area, we were hit with nearly eighty miles and hour winds. This is the equivalent of a small hurricane in wind force. �Small� it might have been, but it sure seemed �large� to us because this is not an area subject to such winds. I am sixty one years old and can recall nothing of this magnitude in this area.
Trees were downed, along with some power lines. Some homes, and many automobiles, were demolished by the falling trees and limbs. A cinder block store building which had stood since before I was born was nearly leveled with both the South and the North ends of the building, and the roof of course, removed. Nothing was left inside the building except the cement �floating floor.�
The city crews took nearly a month to remove the downed limbs and trees. This, after the property owners had been forced to cut the debris to size and stack it at the curbs of their properties.
Winds can cause great devastation. This is exactly what God has in mind for the works of Satan. God wishes us to storm the citadels of Satan and take the captives free. Jesus supplies the power. We are only asked to deliver the message of emancipation from sin.
The power of the wind can also cool us on a hot summer day.
The temperature was fairly high yesterday. My son asked me to take him to the local grocery store on his way to work. I stayed in the car listening to a sermon audio tape.
It was hot in that van! I rolled my window down as far as I could. Still too hot! I reached over and rolled down Ethan�s window. Still too hot! Then I looked at the trees near the parking lot. Not a leaf was moving. It doesn�t do a large amount of good to roll down the van window if there is no breeze.
Once Ethan came back to the van, and we were on our way, the breeze created by the moving van was able to cool me off. When I was younger this was called �4 x 40 air conditioning:� Four windows down and traveling at forty miles an hour.
Back in the Great Depression (Don�t know why it is called the �Great Depression.� From what I understand no one really thought it all that �Great!�), or so I am told, people used to move their sleeping quarters to the front porch. It was cooler at night to lie outside in the breeze in those days of no air conditioning and very few fans.
As an aside: This is the reason that we always see porches on the older homes but not always on the newer homes. The front porch was for sitting outside in �the cool of the evening.� These porches were the perfect place for entertaining guests that might drop by after they�d been served an evening meal. The porches were a place of comfort and conviviality.
This is what God has in mind with the wind of the Spirit energizing the Christian. Since we, as a race of man, were created to have fellowship with the Creator, we are at the zenith of our true humanity when we are working with the Lord. This, then, gives us a soul comfort that can not be experienced by any other means.
The conviviality is two-fold. First, there is that important fellowship with the Lord. We need this, as humans. It is a wonderful experience.
I�ve heard people say that all the Christian is interested in is �pie in the sky in the sweet by and by.� I gotta admit that ain�t a bad benefit for having my sins forgiven. There is no other way to obtain that sweet comfort. We don�t die as Christians; we graduate to our rewards. Or, as a military man might describe it, we don�t die, we merely move on to our next duty station.
Those rewards are sweet. We are removed from all the toil and pain which racks our physical bodies. We get to rejoin those loved one�s who have gone before. The best thing is that we are in even deeper fellowship with the God Who created and loves us! Even that dreaded word �death� is removed from our vocabularies. In its place we inherit eternal life.
But, those rewards here are pretty sweet as well. A purpose in life as we work with the Master. The great dignity afforded us a child of the King. The fellowship, unending in light of Heaven, of like minded brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Try and top that! You can�t!
This conviviality also extends to other human beings. It is a real act of love to reach out to others with the message that Jesus Christ died in time so that they might live in eternity.
Many will refuse to accept the Lord. That is a sad reality. Some will persecute us for our faithfulness to God. All of this is really unimportant in one sense: We can still love those sinners, in spite of their sin, and pray for them - by name - that the Lord would call them in His Own love.
The glorious truth is that the power of the Wind of the Spirit can change the environment. That little wind storm we had here a few months ago certainly changed the environment locally. There are fewer trees, cars, building, bushes, etc.
But, the power of the Wind of the Spirit can change the soul environment of individuals. Gone is the sin nature which separated from God. Gone is the despair which burdens down a person who sees life as meaningless. Gone is the feeling that life is �70 and out!�
In the place of those inducements to despair are the blessings of a fellowship with the Creator. In the place of those inducements to despair is the knowledge that one is engaged in an eternal work with the Creator of the Universe. In the place of those inducements to despair is the certain knowledge of an eternal home in Heaven.
What a welcome change!
We also must consider the Paraclete of the Wind. ��but canst not tell whence it cometh��
The Paraclete is a theological term which means the Holy Spirit. The word is drawn from the Greek and means �One who consoles, intercedes on our behalf, an advocate, and a comforter.� Essentially, the word is a near description of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Since one of the primary meanings of our text verse is that the Spirit can lead, or convey, the Christian in the transmission of the Gospel message, it might be good if we considered the work of the Spirit in the life of the Christian.
The Holy Spirit can lift a soul. I know that I just said we would consider the work of the Spirit as pertains to the Christian, but we would be amiss if we did not consider that the Spirit�s leading and conviction can lift the soul of a nonbeliever into the fellowship of Jesus as the fact of sin is brought to bear upon the nonbeliever�s heart. This realization of sin will cause the nonbeliever to long for, and accept, the salvation for which the Lord died to provide.
It is only through this activity on the part of the Spirit that the miracle of the new birth is caused to take place in the heart of the nonbeliever. This is why it is necessary for the Christian to pray, by name whenever possible, for the soul of those to whom the Gospel is presented. This is Scripturally true. This is also, as we are engaged in spiritual realities when we presume to witness, a complete and utter necessity.
The battle is not ours. We are but the tools which God has chosen to employ. Considering the great majesty of God, it is greatly ennobling to us, the creature, that the Creator desires that we assist Him in His Own work!
The Spirit can also lift the soul of the Christian. When we are despondent He alone can cause us to gain the victory over Satan�s attempt to bring our souls to the depths of sadness and depression. Satan will cause us to linger our thoughts on failure; the Spirit will ensure us of victory.
The Holy Spirit can lead a soul.
As we follow the guidance of God we will tend to go to the place where God asks that we go. I, for instance, was recently offered a position at a new Bible college being started in a near by city. I really wanted to do this. But, circumstances made this impossibility. I could have bemoaned my inability to do what I wanted. Or, I could have just began to do the job, even though I believed this to be out of God�s will at this time.
Either would have been wrong. As I submit myself to God and His plans for my life, I am content in the knowledge that I am right where He wants me to be. There is no greater peace or contentment than knowing this is so.
God will use Scripture, so we must be in the study of the Sacred Words often, to lead us. God will use our prayer life, so we must be in an attitude of prayer often, to lead us. God will use circumstance, sometimes even personal preferences, to guide us into His will. Sometimes God will even use that �still, small voice� to lead us into His will.
About that last sentence, we must be very prayerful. Sometimes Satan will act as a ventriloquist. We must confirm, by prayer and the Word, the leading of God. Often this will involve group prayer among the members of the local assembly.
There is more to the concept of the local church than most of us realize. The idea of a corporate body of believers was instituted by Jesus Christ. The Spirit has used the churches of Jesus down through the ages. A local church, led by the Words of God and grounded in Him is indispensable to the spiritual life of every single Christian. To argue otherwise is to argue against that which Jesus instituted.
The Holy Spirit can loose a soul from bondage. We�ve noted this, above, as it pertains to the nonbeliever as the Spirit spreads conviction upon the heart. But, this also applies to the Christian. Often we are under bondage to our own personal despondency; the Spirit can release us from this bondage.
Sometimes the bondage is ecclesiastical. I made the caveat above that a local church should be led by the Words of God and grounded in Him. There are churches that are churches in name only. As not all people who claim the Name of Christ are actually washed in the Blood, so are not all churches actually repositories of the Glory of God. Some are anathema to His leadership.
From all such turn away. Find, attend, and support a local church where the Blood of Christ is preached from the Book of God. This will help to �unlock,� as it were, the blessing of the Spirit upon our lives and work.
Even some churches which began with revival, a movement of the Spirit, have moved from His presence. It�s not the church doctrinal statement only which should be true to God, so must the church body.
We need to consider the passing of the wind. ��and whither it goeth��
The Wind of the Spirit is not bound by the whim of man.
We really can not stand in the way of God by refusing to do His bidding. Last Sunday we studied the story of Peter and Cornelius from the Book of Acts. As we reviewed the passage, in Chapter Ten, where God displayed to Peter much �unclean� food, we noted that this was an inducement for Peter to go to the house of a Gentile with the message of sin and salvation.
I was asked, �What if Peter had refused to go?� My answer was somewhat flippant. I said, �Then God would have tapped Philip on the shoulder and said, �I�ve got a little job for you.�
Flippant, but essentially true. We do not stand in God�s way. But, we often loose the blessings of obedience. How sad.
In the movie sequel to �Back to the Future,� Michael J. Fox�s character reads that a certain baseball team has won the World Series. A man standing nearby says that before the season had begun this team was considered a very long shot to do this. He wished, he said, that he had bet a lot of money on them before the season had started.
We�ve all had things in our life that, had we known what the future held, we would have done differently. I just read a story about a man who bought a house for one dollar. The house was going to be condemned. It sounded like a very good deal. The contractor didn�t have to pay the demolition costs and the man got the house for less than the cost of a bottle of soda pop.
The man who bought the house for one dollar then spent $100,000.00 in moving the house (a condition of the sale) and paying for all the taxes, fees, necessary repairs, and the cost of land upon which to place the moved house. I wonder if he considered that he might have saved his dollar!
When we follow the revealed will of God for our lives there is no regret. There is only blessing in knowing that we have been in the will of God.
We notice that the wind is not beneath man.
There are probably two ways to understand that above sentence. I know of those who consider that they are above the concept of God. They feel that they have �evolved� beyond the �need� to hold to �outmoded superstition and fable.�
What they do not understand is that the true reality of existence is that God Is! He is the Creator and Ultimate Controller of time and circumstance. Because He does know the end from before the beginning, because He does love humanity and desire only the best be made available for them, He sent His Son into the world so that the world, through Him, might be saved.
What a deep regret for such as these skeptics above when they traverse the �Valley of the Shadow� and find the results of their pride and willful ignorance.
The sentence use of the word �beneath� could also simply point out the truth that God has the highest plan for our lives. Not only is it not His plan that any should eternally perish, it is within His plan that all should live life to even the fullest human extent possible. We cannot be fully human, with all the glories and dignity this implies, unless we are born again and have that relationship with God, broken in the Fall of Adam, restored to our lives.
We see the evidence of the cooling breeze as we gaze at the leaves of the trees. We find the true evidence of the Wind of the Spirit as we gaze at the Face of God.
But, the wind is not beholden to man.
When I was sitting in my van with the heat of the day burdening me, the wind of breeze was still. I could have called for it. That would have done no good. The wind actually, as Jesus said, blows where it pleases to blow.
Likewise does the Wind of the Spirit. God breathes His breath of conviction upon a soul. The soul has the need to respond when God calls. God is not obligated to call ever again. The Holiness groups have a doctrine that a man can sin away his day of grace. It is possible for a person to refuse the call of the Spirit. It is possible that such a man will not again be invited.
In the days before the flood humanity had become wicked - exceedingly wicked. Humanity had also forgotten, or chose to ignore, the realities of God. In Genesis 6:3 God says, ��My spirit shall not always strive with man��
Romans 1:24 also speaks of the propensity of man to sin and to oppose God. �Wherefore God also gave them up��
To the sinner, to society at large, those ought to be sobering words. I�m not one to look at every natural disaster and claim that this is the judgement of God upon modern culture. Nonetheless, I believe that there are times when this is so. As we look at the disintegrating culture around us we should take heed.
�Say not ye; There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.� (John 4:35)
The world stands, whether the people thereof understand the fact or not, in need of a great revival of churches committed to the inspired and preserved Words of God. Alongside this, the world stands, whether they understand the fact or not, in need of a great revival of Christians committed to do their duty unto God and man.
The Wind is not beholden to man. But, we - as Christians! - are beholden to do our duty to both man and God. God wants the world to hear, and the world needs to hear, the sublime fact that Jesus Christ died in time so that others could live in eternity.
Finally, may we consider the pardoned of the wind. ��so is every one that is born of the Spirit.�
We, the Christian - those born of the Spirit, are portrayed as picturing the Spirit. This is because we are to bear along the Spirit with the word of our testimony. We become, effectively, the Spirit of God to others as we march with Him, His power, and His message. Don�t misunderstand, God does not need us. It is us who needs Him. But, He has given the task to the Christian of relating the story of Jesus
We talked above about Peter and Cornelius. It was an angelic visitation which led Cornelius to send for Peter. An angel would have had knowledge of the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Still, it was the God appointed task of Peter, as it is of us in this day!, to relate the news that Jesus Christ had died in time so that Cornelius and his household could live in eternity.
We can�t, of course, speak with Cornelius. We can speak to those with whom we do come in contact.
I live on a corner lot. There are a couple of school bus stops across the street. Two of the city buses have stops on the corner I live. There are two taverns, each three blocks in differing directions from my home. My neighbor to the South has a chain link fence the length of our shared property. Not being the �corner lot� I reap the �benefit� of the stopping power of his fence.
I know that the wind brings things to us. I also know that many of the �gifts� bestowed upon this yard are borne near us by human instruments.
Also, living in a town raft with vigilantes who traverse our streets in hopes of finding a property which offends their sight and sensibilities, I know there are �benefits� to the assumption of such clutter.
Meanwhile, we who hold the message of eternal salvation, and are under obligation to our Lord to share that message, tend to go nowhere with our message.
The wind also removes things from us. We have some large plastic refuse containers. We fill these with trash and set them at the curb on Thursday evenings so that the cities refuse removal trucks can take the trash inside them to the local landfill on Friday morning..
Sometimes the trash collectors come by very early in the morning. This is good in that it allows them to pick up the rubbish before the wind will further scatter the litter around town. Sometimes, with the trash removed, our containers are light enough to be picked up by some strong winds and deposited in the yards of people who live some distance from us.
Generally, when this happens I get into my van and go to �round up� my errant trash cans.
This is what God wants to do. He knows that the full knowledge of Him, the fellowship with Him, and the understanding of His love, has been removed from humanity due to the sin nature. God goes out to seek and to save those who are lost in their sins. He sends the �van� of the Christian out as the vehicle used to scour the earth in search of souls for His kingdom.
My trash cans do not understand that they have roamed far from home and need to be retrieved. They might be comfortable nestled into a neighbor�s rose bush. But, if that separation continues they might be uncomfortable in the middle of a street. They may be lost in a stream, or in a forest of trees. The trash cans are blithely unaware of any of this. They are content to be where they are.
So, I go out in my van to search for that which was lost and return it to its home. I don�t put the trash can into a storage room so it will never roam again. I retrieve it so it can be returned to the service for which it was intended.
So it is that God calls sinners to repentance. He does not save them so they can hide from all human contact. He calls them so that they may carry the same message of sin and salvation which retrieved them from wandering in sin.
The wind can change our situation.
I live in an area where there are frequent tornados. A tornado can make a remarkable change in the property value of a home. It can do so in an instant.
The Wind of the Spirit can make a remarkable change in the value of your life. It can do so for all eternity. Why not experience the power of Jesus in your own life. Do it today. He can give you peace with God and salvation from your sins.
He can do it in an instant.