The Uses of Scripture

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews, and all of you who are in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.  These men are not drunk, as you suppose.  It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy;

your young men will see visions,

your old men will dream dreasm.

Even on my servants, both men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy" (Acts 1:14-16).

 

One of the many uses of Scripture is to give us the explanation and understanding of what God is doing in our lives.  So many times, God is moving, but we have no way to understand what is happening to us.  Without Scripture, we would be lost; we would feel adrift in the sea without a rudder or direction.  But past experience, knowing our spiritual history, is a light on the present and a guide to the future. 

 

When Peter stood up that Pentecost Sunday, he said, "this is what was spoken...."  God is He who acts -- in the past,in the present, and in the future.  But He speaks ahead of time to foretell what He is doing so that when it happens, we may know that it is His hand, His Spirit, at work in us.  We can have confidence in what we are experiencing because it has already been revealed in Scripture.

 

When I first experienced 'the baptism of the Holy Spirit' in my doctor's office, I did not understand the experience at all, though I knew beyond any doubt that God had moved powerfully and surely in my life.  I had never before experienced such deep and interior joy and peace and confidence -- but, not having read much Scripture, I could not have told anyone what was happening to me.  A few months later, I once again experienced the power and Presence of God after someone in the hospital prayed for me -- and this time, God's gracious Presence led me to pick up a Bible lying close by.  The pages opened almost by themselves to the Acts of the Apostles, and I began reading there -- though I could not have told anyone why at the time.  I knew something was completely different with me at the time, but I did not understand why.  I had gone in one moment from being fearful, worried, and entirely consumed with my own problems to being confident, prayerful, and concerned about others.  The former me was afraid to say the name "Jesus" out loud, for fear of what others might think--that I was a fanatic, for example---to someone who confidently told others that Jesus loved them and that God would do for them what He had done for me. 

 

Who was this new and very strange person that I had become overnight?  The Acts of the Apostles told me:  This is what was spoken of by the prophet Joel.....  I doubt that ten years of 'discipline' and practice could have done for me on the inside what happened to me when my doctor and then a young girl both prayed over me.  Once I saw that Scripture could explain what I was experiencing, I could not get enough of it.  I read non-stop for the next few weeks, and I have not stopped reading and discovering since 1977. 

 

In the same way, a woman who I had never before seen appeared one night in our small prayer group.  During the prayer and worship segment of the meeting, I 'saw' or experienced somehow the power and Presence of God fall on her.  When I asked her about the experience, she said, "I felt something, but did not know what it was."  The Lord spoke to me and said, "Stay close and teach her."  I later discovered that for several months, she had been looking for someone who could explain to her what she was experiencing in her life.  Because by this time I was reading -- devouring-- Scripture, I could explain to her what was going on. 

 

The Holy Spirit is not dependent on our upbringing, knowledge, or previous experience.  He blows where He wills and does whatever He chooses -- and fortunately, we have been told ahead of time that He will descend upon all those who listen to God and are drawn to Him.  Once we discover that Scripture is not times past, but times present and future, it becomes our story, our own history with God.  And then we are hooked; the pages come alive when we see that the very same Lord and God who delivered the slaves from Egypt is now delivering us 'from the empty way of life handed down to us by our fathers."  And we are glad indeed!

 

To those who have not experienced the Spirit of God moving in their lives, the Scriptures remain closed, a dusty book of past history.  But Hebrews tells us: the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart (4:12). 

 

Once the 'sword of the Spirit' becomes living and active in our lives, we experience some kind of surgical procedure that makes us whole new creatures in Christ Jesus; the old has gone, and the new has come.  Thank God we are not limited forever to whatever we inherited or was done to us in the past, for all of us have been slaves in Egypt until we are delivered by the Spirit and the Word of the Lord.