The Power of the Holy Spirit of God — Ian Paisley

Zechariah's Vision and the Power of the Spirit

You will find an authorized version of the Holy Scriptures in the English tongue before you in the pew. Pick up that Bible and turn with me to the last book but one in the Old Testament, the book of the prophecy of Zechariah, and we are reading at chapter four of that chapter.

Zechariah chapter four, reading at verse one. It's page nine hundred and thirty-two in that Bible if you've taken up from the pew. We read together, taking your time from me please. And the angel that talked with me came again and wakened me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep and said unto me, What seethest thou?

And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold with a bowl upon the top of it, and the seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are upon the top thereon, and two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the other upon the left side thereon.

So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord.

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.

Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.

For who hath despised the day of small things? For they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven. They are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole earth.

Then answered I and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right hand of the candlestick, and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes enter the golden oil out of themselves?

And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord. Then said he, These are the two anointed ones that stand by the Lord of the whole earth. Ending our reading at verse 18, and God shall stamp this reading from His infallible Word.

The Final Authority of God's Word

Amen and Amen. Turn with me in your Bible to this fourth chapter of Zechariah. And we are reading at the verse 6. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of hosts. Zechariah chapter 4 and verse 6.

The Word of God is the final of all finalities. God cannot and will not go back upon His own most precious and holy Word. The Word of God refuses to go back on God's revealed laws and declarations. The Word of God declares to those who read it, who are the friends of God and who are the enemies of God.

God's Word refuses to compromise with sin. It never accommodates the world. It knows no alteration to what God has revealed. We remember when Pilate wrote above Christ's cross, and he said, What I have written, I have written.

But long before Pilate was ever heard of, God said, What I have written, I have written. What God has written forevermore, it changes not. Joseph, when he was in Egypt, refused to make a league with any kind of evil.

God's Word long before Joseph declared that with evil there can be no truck or no alliance. When the Ark of God was exiled in Philistine country, it was more than a match for all the false gods and for all the false armies of the uncircumcised Philistines.

So the Word of God makes stumps of all God's enemies, just the same way as the Ark of God made a stump of the Philistines greatest of all gods. The Word of God is more than a match for the devil and all his united hordes.

It is the sword of the Spirit. It causes the devil to tremble. Every friend of the world is stumped before it. I was thinking this week that the Book of God, the Word of God, is a book of double begetting.

It was begotten in God's heart from all eternity. And then it was begotten in the writer's hearts on earth when the Spirit of God revealed it to them and gave them the very words to speak. For does not this Scripture tell us, Holy Man of God, speak as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

What a word this Book of God is. It wins all. It triumphs over all. The heavens and earth will have their time and one day disappear. But God's Word is as eternal as His everlasting person. And it shall never, never pass away.

Heaven and earth said the Lord Jesus will pass away. But My Word shall never pass away. The Word of God cannot be outmoded, cannot be outmarched, cannot be outmatched and unchangeable forevermore. Remember, the Spirit of God who brought it into the world is in the world today.

He continues to use His Word and make it living and powerful. The Word of God is alive. The Word of God giveth life. The Word of God is powerful. It slays all its enemies. So it's not by night, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.

The Holy Spirit as the Person of God's Power

The other night I awoke very suddenly. And I awoke with these words ringing in my ears. It's not by night, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord. And like a flash, seven points came into my mind.

I switched on the light. I took a sheet of paper and I wrote them down. Because I knew in the morning I would have forgotten every one of them. And I wanted to keep them. And I saw first of all that this verse does not put emphasis on natural power or natural might.

But by My Spirit, saith the Lord. So it's not by natural power or natural might. It's by God's Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. It is the Holy Spirit Himself. The third person of the Trinity. It's not the Spirit's manifest of His power.

It's not the Spirit's operation of His power. It is this power in His person. The emphasis of this text is on the person of the Holy Ghost. It is not the manifestation of His majesty. It is the manifestation of Himself.

It's not the manifestation of the strength that He creates in the heart of the child of God. But it is the power of His uncreators. He came and He abides. Forevermore the same. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

All blessed is His name. No change does the Holy Spirit ever know. He abides forevermore in the hearts of all the people washed in the Savior's blood. Now all the attributes of God are common to each member of the Trinity.

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He, the Holy Spirit, is like the Father and like the Son. Like the Holy Father and the Holy Son. He is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His wisdom. Power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

The Spirit of Wisdom Beyond Human Knowledge

So remember, the emphasis is not on His operation. The emphasis is upon Him, Himself. Secondly, I noted that it was not by might of accumulated wisdom or the power of multiplied knowledge. But it was by the Spirit of wisdom Himself.

The Holy Spirit Himself is the Spirit of all wisdom. It is not in one of His attributes that His might and power rests. It's in His entire person. It has been well said. If you want to teach a child the meaning of sweetness, words will be of no avail.

So the best thing to do is give the child a teaspoonful of honey. And that child will always remember what sweetness is. He will have learned what sweetness tastes like. You might tell your child about the wonder of the Alps, which in their loftiness seem to pierce the clouds with their snow-capped peaks.

But he will not understand. But take that child to the foot of one great mountain in the range and tell him to look at it. And that look will make him understand forever the wonder of those mountains.

So it is with the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God sheds abroad in our heart. It causes us to taste of the wisdom of God. The wisdom of might, the might of God. The wisdom of power, the power of God. He does not read us a lecture on the wisdom of God.

The Poor Wise Man and the Wisdom of God

But in our heart, He teaches us the secrets of the wisdom of God. Thirdly, I noted that it was not by the might of human cleverness, nor by the power of human craft. But it was by my Spirit, the Lord of Hosts.

The wisest king in all the world was Solomon. You should read his books. And do not forget to read the book of Ecclesiastes, where the king turns preacher and preaches great sermons. And he says in that book, This wisdom have I seen under the sun, and it seemed great unto me.

There was a little city, and few men were in it, and there came a great king against him. And he besieged that city and built great bulwarks against it. Neither was found in it a poor wise man. And he by his wisdom delivered the city, yet no man remembered that poor man.

Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless, the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard. The words of wise men are heard and quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. But one sinner destroyeth much good. Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verses 14 to 18. That history of the poor wise man is worth pondering and is worth remembering. It was Gernot the great curate and writer who said, None are so blind and so ignorant, whose eyes his spirit cannot open.

He who by his incubation upon the waters at the creation, hatched that rude mass into the beautiful form we now see. And out of that dark chaos made the glorious heavens, garnished them with so many stars.

He alone can move upon your dark soul and enlighten it. Though now it be as void of knowledge as the beginning of the world's first day was of light. Sometimes the schoolmaster sends home the child, and bids the child's father to put it to another trade, because not able with all his heart can he make a scholar of that child.

But if the spirit of God be the master, Gernot says, you shall learn though you start as a dunce. How true it is. A man starts with no knowledge of God. He plunges into life a life of sin and misery. But one day the Holy Spirit opens his eyes.

And he that was a fool becomes a wise man. And he that sought the pathway of folly, now seeks the pathway of everlasting life. Why? Because he has been taught of the Holy Ghost. All the strength of nature is impotent compared to the strength of the person of the Spirit of God.

His is the might and His is the power that always brings the victory. Away with the might and cleverness of man. Away with the power of the craft of evil man. Give me instead the wisdom of that poor wise man who delivered this.

The Holy Spirit as Our Guide

He was powerless by the standards of the world. He was wise by the standards God had given him. The inward wisdom of the Spirit of God. By the Spirit's help he became more than a conqueror. Fourthly, I know that it is not by the might of human energy, nor by the power of human effort.

But it is by the omniscient energy and omnipotent effort of the Spirit of God and the Spirit of God alone. To quote another Puritan, Richard Sims, he says, The Holy Ghost is our guide. Who will displease this guide?

A sweet and comfortable guide he is. He leads us through the wilderness of the world. As the cloud before the Israelites by day and the pillar of fire by night. He conducts us to the heavenly kingdom.

If we grieve our guide, he leads us to ourselves and how miserable we are and become. The Israelites could not go a step farther until God by his angel went before them. It is mean for us to move toward heaven without this blessed guide.

What you need, my friend, is not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. O Spirit of God, come down, reveal the things of God, and make to us salvation known, and witness with the blind.

No man can truly say that Jesus is the Lord unless thou take the veil away and breathe the living word. Then only then we feel our interest in his blood and cry with joy unspeakable, Thou art my Lord, my God.

The Cross Before Pentecostal Power

Let us note that it is not by the might of any human intervention, nor by the power of any human force, but it is by the intervention and power of the Holy Spirit alone. A faithful man always gets in the way of God.

Man's pride, man's knowledge, man's strength, man's ideas, man's experience, man's wisdom are not helps, they are hindrances. The flesh of man must be kneeled to the cross of Christ. Man must be crucified with Christ before he can rise in resurrection power.

The way to Pentecost was via the cross. If we want to know the Pentecostal power, we need to know the death of the cross. Our cry needs to be the cry of the great apostle, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after, that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind, and reaching forth to those things that are before, I press towards the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

The Spirit's Direction and Remembrance

Philippians 3, 10 -14. We need a monitor to stir us up in diligence, watchfulness, and earnest endeavors. The old prophet wrote the words, And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.

When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left, the cares and business of this world so often thrive a sense of beauty from our minds. One great end of God's Spirit is to put us in remembrance, to revive within our hearts the truth as we have learned it.

Abandoning Ourselves to the Holy Spirit

Our ship may never be so well rigged, but we need a pilot. We need a pilot to put us in mind of our journey. That pilot must be God, the Holy Ghost. And seventhly, I note it, that it is not the might of our maximum dedication, nor by the power of our total commitment.

It is only by abandoning ourselves, body, soul, and spirit to the Holy Ghost. Mr. Spurgeon, in one of his great sermons said, In early days, when people sold land, the owner cut a turn from the green sword, and he put it into the cap of the purchaser as a token that this land was his.

Or he tore off the branch of a tree and put it into the new owner's hand to show that he was entitled to all the products of the soil. And when the purchaser of a house received possession, the key of the door or a bundle of thatch plucked from the roof signified that the building now was his.

The God of all grace has given to his people all the perfections of heaven to be their heritage forever. And the earnest of his spirit is to them the blessed token that all things are theirs. The Spirit's work of comfort and sanctification is a part of heaven's covenant blessing.

It is a turn from the soil of Canaan, a twig from the tree of life. It's the key to the mansion in the skies. If we possess the earnest of the Spirit, doubtless we shall possess heaven itself. If you're a child of God, you have the earnest of the Spirit.

You know what we need to do? We need to pray now that we have got the earnest, that we may have the fullness of the Holy Ghost. The need of the hour among the people of God is that they should be filled with the Spirit of God.

It is not by might. It is not by power. It's by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Oh, that the Spirit of God may come upon us all, and that the Spirit of God may fill us all with His power for Jesus' sake.