Holy Spirit ...shy

I am currently reading this book. In It the suggestion is that the Holy Spirit is Shy!

More

MacRae spoke at one meeting of the Free Church Stornoway on the:

Unusual features of the present religious movement in Lewis.
He was convinced there was a revival in Lewis and a work of God. But he wanted people to consider some of the peculiar features of it.

In particular MacRae wished the meeting to consider that in Park... convulsive fits.
Grimshader ...Trembling or tremors...With crying.
At Point and Shader trances and women praying and exhorting ( ...and a good deal of disorder).
He noted further
Those or some could not give an explanation to what was happening. Rather than looking for the work of the Holy Spirit people were disappointed if there was no manifestations.
Secondly MacRae saw a sense of superior order of Christians taking hold with those who had experienced some of the manifestations.
He felt that matters might lead to unscriptural extravagances.
He also talked and reported on other happenings in the country, quoting Kilsyth and Cambuslang.
He concluded that the manifestations were neither good or evil but hysteria.

He quoted the medical observations for hysteria.

Highly strung people mainly young women
Infectious
Associated with convulsions tremors and trances
Attacks are always in an audience never alone.
Those effected say they could not help themselves.
If wanted to those effected could have controlled themselves.
Delusions and hallucinations
Consciousness not lost.

MacRae was concluding that mass hysteria was happening in Lewis and his concern was separating it from the work of the Holy Spirit.
Hi did specifically acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit at that time.
Quoting the action of McChenye from Dundee. He was supporting the need to have religious meetings closed by 11.00 pm. "Lest Good be evil spoken".

It is clear from MacRae there is a need to discern what is of God and a work of the Holy Spirit and what is not. While he saw the Lewis revival as of God, not all was his making. It is easy to be tricked in times of revival to assume all phenomena are in connection with the spirit of God, and to question it is to hinder that Revival. There is a more discerning Church today- but a good warning nevertheless.

Why is it?

Why is it..?
I have noticed some things over the years.
One is that people look for the easy route!
The path of least resistance is the one that many knowingly or without noticing take.
Now before you go off looking at the Bible and stories about the blessing of the smooth road and how God has blessed many with a trouble free journey, before you look at all the references quoted for prosperity theology- a doubtful theology until the late eighties- are we not to take our lot as it happens?
Has strict Calvinism got it right ?
Why is it?
Stay with it.
Are some, to find that their road is tougher than others.
So in our subconscious are we looking for the blessing sign be looking for the path of least resistance? It is easy to do this.When I read Michael Faraday's biography its not like that. Bruce and the spider story is not about that either! (No its not in the Bible).
Why is it?
Esther's road was not plain sailing and she spent a whole year preparing for one day with the King! Is it a wrong way to travel the broad road looking for the easy bit and collate that, as the narrow way fit for King servants?
The narrow way may be less broad by definition but it is more than likely a more troublesome way than the “broad way”.
Why is it then?
Because we are lazy be human nature?
Because we want all “nice” things to come our way!
Perhaps we need to redefine “Good things that come our way”-
As the things that God purposely puts our way to improve our relation with Him- Be it a new car or a broken leg!
The culture of today is about success measured by accumulation of wealth seen in goods and the ability to buy goods at any cost, modern or post modern.
Yet the real success is the ability to be in a strong relation with the Father and the ability to worship him...at what costs? Preparing for the oneday to be with the King.
Seeking the Kingdom first is becoming more obscure to the society we live in.
The behaviour of “pleasing” the neighbour at the expense of one self's destiny/Zoe life/walk/seeking God's will, is as strong as before.
So how are you going to be determined to walk the talk of the glorious journey set out before you ( and maybe made before you!) The choice is there in a strict Calvinistic way!
If nothing is going to separate you from God then that is a struggle worth winning.
So seek the narrow way whatever that means and be aware that it may mean struggle rather than the stream that seeks the easy path through the hard ground to the river, to the sea.

re awakening III

In an age where doctrine and understanding had primarily been handed over or handed down through Divinity Colleges, questioning the stance of the establishment was seen as weak faith or ungodly. Irwing, Erskine and Campbell, continued to debate the person of Christ, the nature and scope of Atonement, election and eternal punishment, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is evident that many churchmen seeking the closer spiritual life saw something in Irwing that appealed to them, yet their education and influence did not allow them to enter in.
Around 50 people were meeting in Henry Drummond's house at Albury, to study the prophetic books of the Bible. Out of these meeting came, in time, the Catholic Apostolic Church. Two things that were in the forefront of concern at these meetings in Albury, were:

• Gifts of the Holy Spirit as seen at Pentecost.

• Expectation of the second Coming, in the near future.

During these years to 1830 "phenomena began to appear in Scotland".
Mary Campbell, an invalid, in Row, Gairloch,Port Glasgow one Sunday in March, of 1830, broke out into speaking in tongues of an unknown language for about an hour. Margaret Macdonald, an acquaintance, was aided to health by her brothers, James and George Macdonald, of Port Glasgow. They wrote to Mary Campbell and the same thing happened to her. Erskine and friends, Robert Story, and Macleod Campbell, Ministers in the Gairloch area, went to check out Mary Campbell's circumstances. Erskine, convinced, for the time being, put to paper "the gifts of the Holy Spirit" at the end of that same year. Erskine, later retracted his conviction that these happenings were identical to those mentioned in the book of Acts. Most interestingly, he did say "I still continue to think, that to anyone whose expectations are formed by, and founded on the declaration of the New Testament, the disappearance of these gifts from the Church, must be a greater difficulty than their reappearance could be". Here we have an acknowledgement of a loss to some of the Christian practice of the New Testament and recognition that it was still required. He concluded more difficult to comprehend the loss of the gifts than the reappearing of them.

Ann Lee ..who she? Shake, rattle, and roll...

Ann Lee

Ann Lee is one of interest to us in this quest, despite having no direct connection to Scotland or its Church.
Born 29 February 1736 in Toad Lane Manchester, to the blacksmith father John lee she lived with him until she embarked for America.
At the age of 23 she joined a group lead by James and Jane Wardley known as “"Shakers" ”an off shoot of the Quakers order.




Shakers... more than just kitchens and checked aprons.



This group was known for its moral discipline strictness blameless deportment and "“swiftness of their testimony against sin"”. From an early age she received visions and divine revelations.
In 1774 she moved to New York but before hand in 1770 she had been imprisoned with some of her followers for blasphemy, a charge that was far from the truth. Yes she had danced yes he had spoken in a strange tongue. She had confounded church scholars examining her, by speaking in 72 separate tongues.
One of her visions was of a burning tree , her call to a new church, and to take the church to America.
Her church growth was slow until 1789 when "“Charismatic"” new light Baptists appeared.
She was beaten several times and in 1784 as a result of beatings died.
There survives to this day groups of Shaker dissenters from the Quakers.
As a mother of spiritual things mother Ann was often testifying with a delivery of mighty power. Her conversation would quicken the hearers. She had suffered from those who were ignorant and one of the many stoning in which she was caught.
"“ While they throwing the stones I felt myself surrounded by the presence of god, and my soul was filled with love. I knew they would not kill me for my work was not done..."

The reason I make mention of her is that at the time society could not comprehend her or the Shakers and as a result turned to violence.

Today it would seem we are more tolerant and accept that her "“style"” was different, but of God.


Now think of this coming soon

Would your Church allow David to play the Harp!?