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Supernatural
Biblical Guidance 3
The
Holy Spirit, Your Inner Umpire, Part Two
by
Pastor John Hamel
“...let the peace
(soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (ACT AS UMPIRE CONTINUALLY) in
your hearts [DECIDING AND SETTLING WITH FINALITY ALL QUESTIONS THAT ARISE IN
YOUR MINDS] ...” (Colossians 3:15 Amplified Bible)
Let me take you
back to lesson one of
this fifteen part series on “Supernatural Biblical Guidance.” We
talked about being created in the image of God. We saw that God is a
Spirit and that every human being ever birthed into the Earth is also a
spirit. Man is not a body. Man is not a soul. Man is a
spirit.
God is not a
body. God is not a soul. God is a Spirit. God does not
contact man through man’s body because the body lives in the physical realm
and God lives in the spirit realm. God does not contact man through
his soul because man’s soul is the intellectual realm and God does not live
in the intellectual realm. God contacts man through man’s spirit
because the spirit realm is where God lives. We gave you ample
Scriptural support for these Bible facts.
In our last lesson we studied the primary way
that the Holy Spirit communicates with man through the spirit realm.
It would be good to review here.
The Holy Spirit is Our “Inner” Umpire
The Apostle Paul
made reference to his “perception” that the journey he was embarking upon
was to be with much damage and loss. (Acts 27) He was absolutely
right, of course. He was “picking up” signals from the Holy Spirit
within. Paul also referred to this inner perception as the
“Umpire.” Everyone knows what an umpire does. He keeps an eye
on the players, making sure that they stay within certain safe
parameters.
We talked about the
inner gyroscope commonly used in the maritime and aviation
industries. Pilots train for years enabling themselves to develop a
greater trust in their instruments than what their bodies are telling them,
particularly the inner ear. Override the instruments and it spells
trouble every time.
We talked about the
importance of not taking the path of least resistance, allowing others to
guide us when the Holy Spirit wants to guide us directly.
We also saw the
importance of not insisting on more spectacular forms of supernatural
guidance as Biblical as they are. The “Inner Witness” is the primary
way the Holy Spirit wants us to train ourselves to be led.
Putting the Holy Spirit in Position to
Answer You
We must be very
careful to not be led by “open doors.” Satan is the god of this world
and he can open doors as easily as God can. (2Corinthians 4:4) Many
well meaning Pastors have accepted Pastorates that were not the will of God
for them, simply because “the door was open.” Not only does the
Pastor get out of the will of God by doing this, but the people who follow
him also end up missing God and being robbed of His blessings.
It is so important
to never be led by outward circumstances, pressing needs, pay increases,
well-meaning counselors, etc. I used the illustration of Maine and Idaho potatoes.
How off course it would be for me to tell the Holy Spirit, “I’m going to
the grocery store. If they have Maine potatoes, I’m
moving to Maine. If they
have Idaho potatoes, I’m
moving to Idaho.” That might
work for Mr. Potato Head but it will never work for true Believers.
I gave the
illustration of making my own decision to move to either Maine or Idaho. Let us just
say Maine in this
case. I inform the Holy Spirit of my decision and then I wait until I
get “peace” or “unrest,” the “green light” or the “red light,” an inner
perception of “Yes” or an inner perception of “No.” Then I act on
what I perceive from within and it leads me to success.
I always put the
Holy Spirit in position to where He only has to bear witness with my spirit
as to whether I am making a right or a wrong decision. If I think He
is prompting me to do something, I tell Him so. I’ll say, “I’m
impressed that You are telling me to do thus and such. I am making
the decision to do so. Now I’m going to give it some time and I’m
going to see exactly how You bear witness with my spirit. If I have
unrest it was not You. If I have absolute, total peace, I know You
are speaking to me. I will obey You and by doing so, I will
prosper.” This is so simple even a
child can do it. Problem is, too
many Believers don’t want to do it.
You Must “Let” the Holy Spirit Guide You
The Apostle Paul
said, “Let the peace … act as Umpire continually … deciding and settling
with finality all questions that arise in your minds.” (Colossians 3:15,
Amplified Bible)
We must make the
decision to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in this way. He will
not force us. He will simply “impress” us. Even if He should
choose to use higher forms of supernatural guidance with us such as His
inner voice, His
audible voice, dreams, visions, prophecy or Angelic visitation, we must always
have peace about them. If any of these forms of guidance should come
to you and it is not in line with the Written Word of God and you have
unrest in your spirit, do not listen to it. It was not the Holy
Spirit.
Someone once said,
“The Holy Spirit told me to divorce my wife and to believe Him for Bro. So
and So’s wife to come to me.” We would have
to say that was not the Holy Spirit. The Bible says God hates
divorce. (Malachi 2:16) Therefore, that guidance is not in line with
the Written Word of God and if the individual were sensitive to the Holy
Spirit at all, they would know down in their spirit, or
in their “gut” as the world says, that there is something seriously
wrong with such flaky demonic guidance.
Inner Peace Vs. Relief in the Flesh
We studied how baby
Christians often make wrong, unscriptural decisions thinking they are
actually being led by the Holy Spirit. By the way, you can be saved
and sixty and still be a baby Christian. We gave you the illustration
of the individual who becomes convicted by the Pastor preaching the strong
meat of God’s Word, so they bail out looking for another Church where the
Pastor is serving up stone soup. They use the excuse “I had peace
about leaving that Church,” when really they should be saying, “I come
under such strong conviction by that Pastor’s preaching against sin that I
couldn’t stand it because I didn’t want to change. He makes my
disobedient flesh crawl. As soon as I left that Holy man's presence
my flesh stopped bothering me and I feel good again.”
There is a major
difference between the peace of the Holy Spirit guiding you and relief in
the flesh guiding you. The Holy Spirit always leads us out of
trouble. The flesh always leads us into trouble. (Galatians
6:8) This completes our review. Let us now move on to some
personal illustration that will bring further clarity to how the inner
witness works.
Personal Experiences with the Inner Witness
I could give
endless illustrations of the Holy Spirit guiding me through inner
perceptions from within my spirit. One such illustration that comes
to mind is the following. I have a younger brother who is an avid
motorcycle enthusiast. I would often borrow a motorcycle from him for
the express purpose of riding and praying in tongues to keep my spirit
sensitive. One day after a rainfall in Southern
California, I took one of his motorcycles up into the Santa Ynez Mountain Range in Santa Barbara. As I got to
the top of the mountain range, the road twisted and turned. There
were some mudslides to traverse as a result of the recent rain, yet the
road was mostly dry and safe.
Suddenly I began to
have complete unrest about continuing any further. Deep down inside,
almost behind my belly button for lack of better description, I began to
feel a knot being tied. It was the inner Umpire, the Holy Spirit
telling me something was wrong. I had “unrest” about
continuing. On the inside I suddenly went from a green light to a red
light and I knew I was to pull over immediately.
Outwardly there were no indications of any danger or problem. The sun
was shining. The road was dry but there was a mudslide just ahead of
me blocking my side of the road. The mudslide did not go all the way
across the road and my intention was to drive on the opposite side of the
road carefully to avoid the mudslide. As I approached the mudslide my
inner perception of impending danger increased to the point where I pulled
over, directly in front of the mudslide, in a little recess, and just sat there.
At the very same
moment that I stopped, a vehicle came speeding
around the mudslide. The driver had his head back, drinking a can of
beer and was obviously intoxicated, judging by his rate of speed on the
tricky mountain road. He sped past me never even noticing that I was
sitting there by the mudslide. Had I proceeded with my plan to
carefully drive around the mudslide on the wrong side of the road, I would
not be sharing this illustration with you today. Had I continued on
in spite of the inner witness telling me not to do so, I would have had a
head on collision with a drunk driver within a matter of seconds. I
would not be a Pastor today. I would be a hood ornament and a dead
one at that.
This is how serious
a matter it is to always listen to the inner perceptions of the Holy Spirit
no matter how perfect things appear to be outwardly. He knows things
we do not know. We must have so much more confidence in the inner
witness of the Holy Spirit than we have had in the past as a Body. He
will never lead us into trouble. He will only lead us out of trouble and
into the perfect will of God.
We have all watched
many “big name” Ministries collapse in past years. As a result,
untold thousands have quit on God and stopped supporting all Ministry
outreaches, crying, “You just can’t trust anyone anymore.” Yes, you
can. You can trust the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.
I am thinking right
now of three very large television Ministries that collapsed during the
1980’s and 1990’s. I was actually Born Again and supernaturally
delivered from drug and alcohol addiction under one of these
Ministries. In all three cases, prior to any outward hint of a
problem with any one of them, the Holy Spirit began to bear witness with my
spirit that I was to separate myself from each of these Ministries.
He never did tell me why. He only continued to bear witness with my
spirit that something was wrong. Every time I listened to them or
moved to support them I knew not to do so. I had continual unrest
about involvement with each of them. Every time one of them came on
the television, I would get unrest on the inside. Only once I shut
the television off did peace return. I knew something was
wrong.
Sure enough, one at
a time each of them fell as a result of financial, sexual or pride
problems. This did not happen because I am some sort of spiritual
giant. I am not. I began to pick this up in my spirit simply
because I have disciplined myself for decades to pray in the Spirit
regularly. This has kept my spirit sensitized and it will keep your
spirit sensitized, as well. The people who turned away from God and
from supporting all Ministries as a result of the fall of these brothers
have only revealed their insensitivity to the Holy Spirit and their
ignorance of God’s primary form of supernatural guidance. Whenever
you put on the television, a DVD, turn on the radio, go to the Internet or
pick up a book, tape or CD and anxiety or unrest comes into your spirit,
shut it off or put it down. There is something there that will hurt
you. The Holy Spirit is trying to protect you.
For whatever reason
the Holy Spirit might be guiding you through the inner witness, we want to
encourage you to obey Him at all costs. Maybe He is trying to protect
your life. Maybe He is trying to keep you from marrying the wrong
person. Maybe He is trying to lead you into prosperity.
Possibly He is guiding you into a major change of direction in your
life. Do not allow outward obstacles to keep you from trusting
Him. He can remove every obstacle, even supernaturally.
Possibly He has been impressing you for months or
even years that something specific is coming into your life. Just
relax and let Him work out the details. He will remove every
obstacle.
Presently I am
trusting God to work out something that He began to impress upon my spirit
well over two decades ago as of the time of this writing. Outwardly
it seems that it will never happen. The obstacles appear to be
insurmountable. But I have learned from past experiences with the
inner witness of the Holy Spirit that as I continue to seek Him for wisdom, obeying Him every step of the way,
obstacles will be removed and I will soon be rejoicing that I
trusted Him. I am going to continue to pray out the will
of God in other Tongues in this matter. (Romans 8:26-28) I refuse to
ignore the Holy Spirit’s promptings no matter how impossible the situation
appears, no matter how many millions of dollars it is going to take.
If I do that I will grieve Him and He will stop dealing with me about the
matter. Then I really will miss the will of God for my life and that
is never a good thing.
Let me say in
closing, before moving on to some of the more spectacular forms of
guidance, that we must never tell the Holy Spirit how to guide us. We
must never insist on a cloud by day and a fire by night just because that
is how Israel was led
in the wilderness. They did not have the Holy Spirit dwelling within
them. This is why the Holy Spirit
appeared to them as a cloud by day and as fire by night.
If you are Born
Again, the Holy Spirit lives within you to a degree. If you have
received the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, He lives
in you in His fullness. The cloud and the fire now live on the inside
of you. (1Corinthians 3:16; 2Corinthians 6:16; John 16:13)
If you perceive the
Holy Spirit is telling you to do something, put Him in position to where He
only has to answer you “Yes” or “No.” You do this by making a
decision and not moving out on it until He tells you that you have made a
right decision. Keep in mind “peace” is His “Yes,” and “unrest” is
His “No.”
Someone said,
“That’s just too simple.” To which I say, “Simple indeed, yet very
profound. Not very spectacular, yet very supernatural.
Remember, Adam and Eve got into trouble by overriding the simplicity of
God’s instruction and here we all are today.” (2Corinthians 11:3)
Be Blessed ... John and Barbara
Hamel
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