This message from the eighth chapter of the book of Romans has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit in those who come forth as manifested sons of God in this end time. The book of Acts speaks a great deal of the work of the Holy Spirit. No reference to the Old Testament is as sharp and pointed as in the second chapter of Acts where Peter refers to the outpouring of the Spirit that occurred on the day of Pentecost. As we keep the Feast of Pentecost, we’re not concerned as much with Old Testament observances as we are with the New Testament fulfillment of them at the coming of the Holy Spirit.
In Acts 2, Peter quoted the Old Testament reference in Joel to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit: But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit … Then Peter goes on to quote how the Lord would show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour (columns) of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable (awesome) day of the Lord come. Acts 2:16–20.
This was a fantastic prophecy. Of course, we know that it was not all fulfilled on the day of Pentecost because there were no wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. There were cloven tongues of fire upon them, but that was not a fulfillment of what Joel prophesied. I want to call your attention to a great truth (even the book of James refers to this): that the Lord will give the former and the latter rain in order that the precious fruit, of the earth can be brought to maturity. The husbandman of the earth will wait until that takes place (James 5:7).
Although through the study of historians, they talk about wonders in the heavens and some of these other signs, at the destruction of the Old Covenant, the temple and the city of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., I am still looking for a fulfillment of this in the future. I believe in the dual fulfillment of scripture, although I have many examples from scripture, I will not go into detail in this message.
This passage of Scripture (Acts 2) indicates that even as Christ has two comings, the Holy Spirit has two comings. Christ came the first time and lived among men and blessed them; then He returned to the Father and He sent the Holy Spirit, the advent of the Holy Spirit. And the scripture says He is coming again to set up his kingdom physically on planet earth, so there are two main comings of the Lord Jesus. Actually, I have now found six comings of the Lord, in Scripture. A message I have on my website.
Recently in a group on Facebook, I am involved with, in the comment section, I mentioned that I am continually editing my website and I have some messages on there, that seem contradictory. I keep all my old messages on there and eventually edit them. Word Press updated my theme(platform) a week ago and now I cannot underline or delete posts, on my website. I was actually trying to delete one yesterday to replace the new one I wrote. The only benefit I have found is that I can put a message in a new category without having to go to the dashboard.
Some Christians cannot figure me out, I receive progressive revelation, there are layers and layers of revelation hidden in the Bible, it is a concealed revelation. There is no other book like it in the world because it is inspired by God, and I am in the word day and night, I love it. I also go through a process called deconstruction. Some of the encounters I have with God are contrary to my belief system, the things I have been taught in church, and the things I have taught, so the Holy Spirit has to deconstruct, the structure of what I once believed, it is a difficult process to go through.
The Holy Spirit speaks to us on the spiritual level we are on. Jesus and Paul said there are many things I would like to speak to you (speaking about their disciples) about, but you could not bear it. They would not be able to receive it as a word from God and hang onto it, so that it would change their life and ministry.
This prophecy in Acts reminds me of the prophecies of the Lord when He first came. In Luke 4, Jesus quoted Isaiah 61:1, 2: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor … He continued reading up to … the day of vengeance of our God, but He stopped before that phrase, closed the scroll, gave it back to the head of the synagogue and said, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Luke 4:18–21.
The prophecies in the Old Testament about our Lord coming were very similar to the prophecy in Acts 2 about the Holy Spirit; they often mingled together the two phases of His coming, and we can see in the wisdom of God why it was so. The Old Testament prophecies about our Lord speak of some things that took place two thousand years ago and other things that may take place tomorrow, all mixed together in one prophetic word.
In a sense, though Christ is at the right hand of the Father, yet He said, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. Matthew 28:20. So Christ went away in one sense, and yet in another sense, His presence lingers specially with every believer to the end of the age.
The Holy Spirit came in a special sense on the day of Pentecost, and yet in a sense, the Holy Spirit has lingered with every believer all the way through.
Even as Christ will have another return, an advent (even though He is present with us, He is coming again), so also, although the Holy Spirit is present with us, we can expect a special coming of the Holy Spirit in these latter days.
A great unlimited outpouring upon men and women again, called the latter rain of the Holy Spirit, it will prepare the precious fruit of the earth for the Lord to come and take it to Himself.
We are concerned then about what the Holy Spirit will do. Why is He coming again? “Well,” you say, “is that really the truth?” Yes, though the Holy Spirit has remained in the church, there has been a greater manifestation of the Holy Spirit “in the last fifty to seventy years” than in all the other two thousand years right back to the early church.
So, in a sense, the Holy Spirit is making known His presence in an unparalleled way, and I look for a Pentecost greater than the first one recorded in the book of Acts. If there is to be a second coming of the Holy Spirit, God help us to be ready for it, to have our ground tilled and ready for that outpouring of the Spirit to fall upon us in unlimited measure.
Why did the Holy Spirit come the first time? Jesus said, “It is to your advantage that I go away for if I go not away, the Holy Spirit will not come” (John 16:7). So we know that it was essential for Jesus to leave because the Holy Spirit can make the presence of Christ and the ministry of Christ more real to us than if Christ had remained on earth as He was. The ministry still would have been localized in one individual. Now it is diversified and universalized in a many-membered Christ, of which we are all partaking members through the agency of the Holy Spirit.
We understand that the Spirit’s first coming opened up what I call the Church age (because there 30,000 plus denominations today) the ministries and the presence of Christ to the church throughout all these centuries. Why will He come the second time? The sons and daughters will prophesy, and He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, but the Scripture goes on to say that something else will come.
One of the basic purposes for which the Holy Spirit was to come was to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment—of judgment because the prince of this world is judged (John 16:8, 11).
In the hour of judgment upon this whole earth and upon Satan, the second coming of the Holy Spirit turns loose (1) prophecy upon the sons and daughters, and it also turns loose (2) the amazing signs of judgment that Joel prophesied: the sun turned into darkness, the moon into blood, blood and fire and columns of smoke. All that you read of in the book of Revelation is going to come, but it is the agency of the Holy Spirit in this end-time remnant that brings it to pass, which very few people understand.
So the second coming of the Holy Spirit is as much a ministry of judgment as it is a ministry to bring forth the last great witness this present age will ever hear. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions—and all of the signs and wonders of judgment will come.
Peter had wisely by the Holy Spirit included all of those prophecies. None of those latter prophecies were fulfilled at the first coming of the Holy Spirit, but they will be fulfilled at the second coming of the Holy Spirit. Now we see why we keep the Feast of Pentecost: we’re looking for another Pentecost.
Originally, Pentecost was a feast of first fruits in which the priests took the grain, made two loaves and waved them before the Lord. The book of Romans talks about our having received the first fruits of the Spirit. You must understand this principle of first fruits in the Feast of Pentecost because it works two ways.
God received on the day of Pentecost the thousands that believed. In a sense they were a first fruits of the church to come forth, but they received from God the first fruits of the Holy Spirit.
We, too, as the book of Romans teaches us, have received the first fruits of the Spirit.
The feast of first fruits is when we feast upon the first taste that God brings of the endless store house of provision, of ample supply, of change, of miracles, of the infusion of His own self in to our lives.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit brings the first fruits of it, the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:14.
Why is the Holy Spirit going to be poured out again? Why at the end of this age do we look for such a great moving of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is already moving in unparalleled ways.
Never in the history of the universe has the Holy Spirit been so present and so manifest as He is in this present time. Consequently, we can expect the total number of apostles, prophets, ministries, elders, and local churches to be greater than ever before. The signs and wonders and even miracles will be greater than what Christ performed. “Greater works than these shall ye do”; we can expect it because the Holy Spirit is being poured out upon all flesh.
The modernists and even some fundamentalists say that the day of miracles is past but I have news for them: it is just starting! Scripturally, the day of miracles is just starting, and it will not be just a day of mystifying signs that the false prophets will bring to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect.
Why will Satan bring false prophets and signs in the end time? Because he will have to do something to discredit all of the real prophets! He will never produce false Christ’s, false apostles and false prophets until there is a reason for him to counterfeit the prevalence of the real thing.
What is the Holy Spirit going to do in this end time? He will continue as the agent of generation and development of the divine nature within us.
This company that will be coming forth will be very much the Christ Company, the Body of Christ. To that end, the Holy Spirit is constantly bringing greater and greater manifestations of the Christ life within us.
If we are in the days of the Parousia when the presence of the Lord is real, how much more are we in the days of the presence of the Spirit and His indwelling, His infilling, the prophesying and all the other manifestations that take place. Oh, we must walk fully in this hour. We must not just partake in a little manner, because the prophecy of Joel says, … the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. Joel 2:24. Lord, we need that wine and oil of the Spirit!
Let’s consider what the Holy Spirit will be doing within us. The key in Romans 8 is sonship, and the Spirit’s work is to bring us into sonship.
For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace; because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you. Romans 8:5–11.
This passage is talking about a whole process of the Spirit of God quickening these mortal bodies.
The lag in our redemption is not in a generated spirit brought forth by God; it is not in a soul life that is being brought into redemption; but it is in our bodies, which are trailing way behind. We are contending to see God help us catch up by the Spirit of God, the Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwelling in our mortal bodies, to quicken them and make them alive with divine health.
That is why we groan within ourselves, as Romans 8 tells us, waiting for the redemption of our bodies. The other phases of redemption have moved ahead, but the redemption of our bodies lingers behind. So we are under an obligation not to think after the flesh, for it is corruption, but if we dwell upon the things of the Holy Spirit, it will be life to us.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, (catch this) not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12, 13.
The Holy Spirit is coming within us, not just for judgment out in the world, but the Holy Spirit comes to help us judge the flesh still remaining in us.
Secretly, most of you pamper it, and while you condemn it outwardly, yet secretly in your minds you want to keep it; you want to hide it, hoping nobody will know it is there. You won’t give it to the Lord. The mind has to be transformed so that our brain no longer runs the programs that have been programmed into it through the acts of our body independent of the Lord.
Then the Holy Spirit takes over, so that we can put the flesh to death. Crucify it! Mortify it! Put away all of it! Those are the scriptural terms, and you can’t accomplish them in yourself.
The flesh is like a yo-yo. You say, “I’m going to throw it away,” but it comes right back. Only by the Holy Spirit can you get rid of it.
By the Spirit of the Lord, we are putting to death the deeds of the body. Then we will live. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. It has been the timeless work but now is coming forth a purer thing. It will be less a discipline of willpower, less corrupted by energies that come by the flesh. The flesh cannot put to death the flesh because it can’t get the leverage; this is why some of us cannot get it to die. It is by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the flesh. We are coming into that glorious, glorious work of the Spirit to bring judgment upon us.
Let’s move on to the next step. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Verses 14–16.
Now we have completely left the subject of what we’re doing to the flesh and to the carnal mind, and we are reaching into the positive side, the coming forth of the divine nature. The work of the Holy Spirit as He comes to us is dual: it deals with the death of the flesh, but it also deals with the generation and development of the spirit life within us. We can’t be satisfied with just the death of one, but we must have the cultivation and bringing forth of the other.
The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Verses 16–23.
This passage speaks of what the Holy Spirit is doing within you. It is by the Holy Spirit that you are able to cry “Abba! Father!” It is by the Holy Spirit that you even have contact with the Father, that you have a sense of adoption. It is by the Holy Spirit that you sense that you are really a child of God; He bears witness to your spirit. It is by the Holy Spirit that you are made conscious that you are an heir of God and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. And there is that leading of the Spirit: For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Verse 14.
The Scripture goes on to describe how creation is groaning, waiting for these sons to come to full manifestation. Can you believe that creation is so in travail now? All creation is in travail. What convinces me of how much the sons of God will influence the area in which they will operate, is that every area is already in travail.
When we come into perfect love the creation responds to us and works with us.
Every realm of science, every realm of finances, every realm of politics, every level and strata of life, all civilizations, all peoples, everything that they touch—all of it—is reaching into a place of travail and turmoil.
In the past ecology was never mentioned and very little was said about conservation of resources. But suddenly, we are aware that this world is grinding to a halt; we’re going to die in our garbage. This is the conclusion; this is the finish. We are ready to go out with a mess, all of us. Our air and water are polluted. The scientists and the wise men shake their heads for there is no answer. What’s the matter? Creation is in travail. In everything, we have reached a point where we have to give birth to another age. The kingdom of God established on the earth as it is in heaven’
The Holy Spirit is bringing all of creation into travail, but I do not look upon these things as a bad sign. If I didn’t know the Kingdom was coming, I would be a very unhappy man, but God is bringing forth something in the lives of people. We are not a group of morbid people who cry, “What’s going to happen? Oh, we pray we’ll hold out until the end. I wish the Lord would come. I wish that trumpet would sound and catch us away.” That’s wishful thinking. A lot of things must take place before the last trump, but no one wants to listen to those preceding trumps yet. Read about those other trumpets in the book of Revelation and you won’t be excited about their sounding yet. There are several trumpets and I can’t say that I’m praying for any of them to sound. But when the dead in Christ come forth at the last trump, many events will have transpired first.
Some people have the idea that I do not believe in a rapture. I do not believe in it as an escape, but I do believe in the coming of the Lord, and the trumpet sounding and catching away the saints. I have always believed it because it is in the Word, but I will not allow myself to miss everything that God is going to do in the earth by having my eye on the last thing to take place. I’m going to be ready for it; I’m going to walk with the Lord. I may not walk; I may limp or drag a leg, but I want to keep right on going into the Kingdom. I can’t see anything worthy of stopping us.
We are seeing the conclusion of one whole age, so we are groaning in ourselves. Why are we groaning? We’re waiting for the Lord to come, moved by His Spirit upon us, manifesting by His Spirit the sonship that He is bringing forth.
And in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should (I’m convinced of that more every day), but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (the Holy Spirit is interceding according to the will of God). And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Romans 8:26–29.
Christ was to be the first-born among many brethren. If you see the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an end in itself, you miss everything that the Gospels are trying to tell you. He was the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Corinthians 15:20) and He came forth to be the first-born among many brethren. That is why the Holy Spirit continues His work … whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified. Romans 8:30.
Why does it say that He predestined, called, glorified and justified them, in the past tense? Because that was the provision of the Lord.
Seeing it is in the past tense, where do we come in? In yielding to the work of the Spirit. That makes what God provided and God declared to be ours, a reality in our lives. We have been predestined, called, justified, and glorified. He did all of this for me, and in the name of the Lord, I’m going to walk in it and manifest it.
The key, then, of the manifestation of the sons of God is that God was in Christ not only reconciling the world unto Himself, but making this full provision for all believers: that Christ coming forth, even to be glorified at the right hand of the Father, would just be the first-born of many brethren who would go through the same process of new life, being exalted, being glorified at the right hand of God also, even as the only begotten Son was. We have thrones in heaven. You cannot rule and reign “with Jesus Christ “unless you have a throne This is the story of the manifestation of the sons of God; that is what God is bringing us into, so the work of the Holy Spirit is moving in that direction. In your life, don’t just settle for deliverance from a little habit. The Holy Spirit will help you put to death the deeds of the flesh. Go out further. Believe God not only to put them to death, but also to bring forth in you all the marvelous things that He ordained for you to have.
You are not on the defensive; you are aggressively reaching into all that God has for you. You are not only crucifying the flesh and putting it to death, but you are seeing, by the Holy Spirit, a whole new life of God generated, developed and perfected within you. God, let this second coming of the Holy Spirit be so rich and great upon our lives that it will far exceed Acts 2.