CHAPTER SIX

Words of Wisdom and Knowledge

"A WORD OF WISDOM" then is given by God to His people when they are faced with a problem beyond their power to solve by themselves. There is a good example of it in Joshua 8, where a defeated and humbled Israel is shown by the Lord what tactics to use against Ai, or in 2 Kings 3, when Elisha is enabled to tell the godly King Jehoshaphat what to do when the armies had no water to drink. So, too, in John 8, when Our Lord was cornered by the Pharisees over the woman taken in adultery He received a word of wisdom which put them to flight, even as Solomon had been enabled to solve the riddle of the two harlots by the wisdom of God (1 Kings 3:16-28). In the same way Paul, when he was perplexed about his next step, was directed by the Lord to go, not to Asia, which he was to visit later, but to Europe, which was ready for his message (Acts 16:6-10). Again, in Acts 15 when the Church was faced with a particularly grave problem, after all their disputing and coming to a decision, the Holy Ghost intervened (v. 28) and corroborated their findings with His own word of wisdom. It was this divine corroboration, "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us", which the Apostles put first in their message to the Gentiles. So also it was the Holy Ghost who showed Philip to contact the

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Eunuch of Ethiopia (Acts 8) and so to found a Christian Church which has lasted till today; who showed the praying leaders at Antioch the next step to take in world Evangelization (Acts 13); who equipped Peter to meet the new situation at Caesarea (Acts 10), and showed Our Lord whom to choose as His Apostles after a night of prayer (Luke 6:12-13).

       A quite modern example of this gift is of a sister in one of our Assemblies, who had prayed for a certain old lady for over two years without seeing her or having any idea how to deal with her. One day, however, as she was praying the Lord told her to go and visit her. So, having asked her pastor to accompany her, she knocked at the old lady's door. When the old lady came and saw her she asked what she wanted, and, on being told that the Lord had sent her, related to this sister how she had asked God to send her someone to tell her how to be saved from Hell. She had given God a month in which to do this, after which she would trouble no more; and this was the last day of the month! As a consequence of this word of wisdom not only was the old lady saved herself, but also some old men who lodged in her house! The Lord knew how to solve our sister's problem and give her the guidance she needed; and the old lady was brought to a saving faith by the dramatic message from God at what He, and He alone, knew was the very last moment!

       There has, however, arisen amongst us a prejudice against seeking for, or accepting a word of wisdom from God in our deliberations, and a preference for depending upon the vote of the majority. So strong is this feeling that when from

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time to time the Holy Spirit has attempted to intervene He has been completely disregarded, as if there were something out of order in the matter! Yet Joshua was blamed for not seeking counsel of the Lord (Joshua 9:14; cf Num. 27:21), and the Early Church was not content with their own decision but required it to be ratified by the agreement of the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:28, cf. 13.2). There can be no question that in the history of Israel and of the Early Church the Holy Ghost came at the beginning as Leader (Joshua 5:14; John 16:7-13) with all the manifestations of His Presence to ensure the victory of God's people. And in both cases the history of God's people was a progressive unwillingness, and then inability, to believe or trust in the supernatural manifestations of the Holy Ghost, which led in the one case to the defeat and captivity of Israel, and in the other to the impotence and unbelief of the Middle Ages. This has been the downfall of every Revival which has begun with an outpouring of the Spirit and ended in the formation of an unsupernatural Denomination. It is natural to men to prefer to rely upon their own abilities rather than trust in an unseen God who gives aid but also demands obedience (1 Sam. 8:19, 20). A denomination tends to desire no master but itself: God's Church is meant to be under obedience to the Spirit, who has plans of His own, and the ability to bring them to a successful conclusion. History has shown that even a Pentecostal Church can desire the power of God to bring its own plans to pass, instead of asking the Spirit to reveal His plans; and so those who have begun in blessing have ended up in failure. God does indeed desire shafts, but they must be polished

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shafts (Isa. 49:2), whose aim is to find and do the will of the Heavenly Bowman, who shot Elijah into Mt. Carmel not Mt. Horeb, (1 Kings 19:9), and Jehu against Baal, but then found him worshipping Jeroboam's calves, not Himself, (2 Kings 10:31).

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