LED BY THE
SPIRIT- YOU ARE THE SONS OF GOD. ROMANS 8:14
‘As many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’ (8:14)
Samuel
illustrated this even as a child. 1 Samuel 3: 3. When the Father first called,
Samuel replied, ‘Here I am.’ With broken sleep, Eli discouraged him. God repeated the call in v 4 , and called
again in v 6. Even as Priest, Eli was insensitive to the heavenly
voice. In Verse 10, the child
responded, ’Speak, Lord; your servant hears‘. Consider that a child often is
more responsive to a heavenly call, than adults.
Eliezer, meaning God is my Help, was
Isaac’s faithful servant, was sent to
Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac. Genesis 24:7,8 ‘He will send His angel before you, and you shall take a wife for
your son from there.’ My beloved
childhood Pastor often showed this as a Type of Christ seeking a heavenly
bride. Eliezer cried out for guidance. Vv13,14
‘By this I shall know you have shown kindness to my master.’ He profoundly spoke, ‘I being in the way,
the Lord led me,’ climaxing in v 48,’The God of my master has led me in the way
of truth.’ I, being in the way, the Lord led me. ’Trust our Lord, who leads in our crucial, often daily
decisions.
Joseph knew the Lord’s direction even in
his imprisonment. ’So the advice was good in the eyes of Pharoah, and in the
eyes of all his servants. And Pharoah
said to his servants,’ Can we find such as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of
God.’ Even a heathen ruler observed the presence of the Comforter in Joseph.
Gen (41:37,38.)
As Prime
Minister of Egypt, second only to Pharoah, God led Joseph as a son.
In Genesis 7,
the Lord decreed ’Come into the ark, you and all your house-hold, because I
have seen you are righteous before me in this generation.’ (v1) Degenerate men
and women taunted Noah and his family during 120 years of building the ark . ‘God remembered Noah,’
(8:1). while the remaining population perished under the judgment of a holy
God. Noah was a faithful son of his
God.
David hastened to and ran towards the
army to meet the Philistine.’then David put his hand in his bag and took a
stone; and struck the Philistine and killed him. 1 Samuel 17.‘all this assembly
shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is
the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.’ (v47) There was no sword in the hand of David.’ ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My
Spirit.’ saith the Lord. God calls
teenagers. Maybe your own.
God showed Nehemiah he must go to
Jerusalem. Nehemiah 2:2-7. ‘I prayed to the God of heaven.’ The Spirit led the governor even though a heathen king. ’If it pleases the
king, and if your servant has found pleasure in your sight, I ask that you send
me to Judah, to the city of my father’s
tombs, that I may rebuild it. It
pleased the king to send me., and I set him a time.’ God led a Governor to obey HIM.
In Daniel 2:11, heathen astrologers refuted the
possibility that anyone, except the gods could interpret the king’s dream. Daniel glorified his God, claiming ,
‘He reveals
deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness.’(v22) after Daniel
had disclosed the dream and the historical four kingdoms, Nebuchadnezzar was
compelled to exclaim, ’Truly, your God is the god of gods, the Lord of kings,
and a revealer of secrets‘ (v47). Prime
Minster Daniel impressed an ungodly
emperor , having been led by the Spirit of God. Do you motivate ungodly leaders?
This reality
applies equally to womanhood. Queen
Esther knew that the people of Israel, from whom the Messiah, our Lord Jesus
Christ, would come, would be wiped out with the diabolical plan of Haman.
Mordecai begged the queen to ask the King for mercy Her immortal comment, ‘If I perish, I perish’ told of her
courageous, sacrificial stand. The King
favoured her when she approached him unsolicited. He granted her request. Haman’s devilry was exposed; he hung on his
own gallows.
Israel was
free. Esther was a true daughter of the
eternal One; and led of the Lord.
Our Lord ‘ was full of and led by the
Holy Spirit into the wilderness. being tempted of the devil over forty days. ’
Luke 4:1) Our Lord triumphed in the
three areas of warfare, spirit, soul and body by wielding the sword of the
Spirit. He quoted from the one book of Deuteronomy. Truly HE was the SON OF
GOD.
‘At night, an angel of the Lord opened
the prison doors and brought them out, ‘Go, stand in the temple, and speak to
the people all the words of this life.’ (Acts 5:19-20 ) They obeyed, ‘entering into the temple early
in the morning and teaching.’ As sons of God, they were divinely led.
Peter was imprisoned (Acts 12:5-11),
’when the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shone in the prison.
’Arise. Get up quickly. His chains fell off. ’They passed the first and second
gates, and the iron gate opened to them of its own accord.’ Our Lord honoured
his responsive, vibrant faith. He led them.
Early in the WW11, I read Matthew 25;
’Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren (
hungry;and fed them; thirsty and gave them drink; naked and clothed them; in
prison and visited them; a stranger and took them in ’), you have done it to
Me. When the news of the bombing of civilian Coventry reached our shores, the
horror compelled me to enlist without delay. God led me from banking into the newly-formed second ninth
Australian general hospital,
Ten years
later, I graduated from medicine after serving in the hospital, in Egypt,
Israel, and Papua New guinea. Later
years in Indonesia were rich in discovering God’s mighty redeeming power. Then
a generation of family medicine, so planting
a local christian fellowship. I
praise God for HIS leading as a child of the King.
When you
surrender your life to the Spirit of God, HE gives the inner witness that you
are the sons of God. Oh, what an
inheritance- and such limitless riches!