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