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<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER">“<b>TWO
ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><b>Jim
& Marie Watt</b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><b>Tel:
253-517-9195 - Email: <a href="mailto:jmbetter@gmail.com">jmbetter@gmail.com</a></b></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><b>Web:
<a href="http://www.2rbetter.org/">www.2rbetter.org</a></b></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER">December 8, 2011</p>
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<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><u>“<font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b style="">THE
HOLY SPIRIT” </b></font></u><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>(From
“Disciples Indeed”)</b></font><u><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b style=""> – Oswald Chambers</b></font></u><span style="text-decoration: none;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>
- 2011.10.21</b></font></span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><b>(From "The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers -</b> Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, 2000)<br></font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br>
</p><p></p><div>
</div><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2">These
21 lectures were given to students in the sermon class at the Bible
Training College, in London, between 1911 and 1915.</font></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2">Oswald
Chambers’ sermon class at the Bible Training College was a
combination of lecture and practical experience. Since each student
had to prepare and present a sermon before the other members of the
class, no visitors were permitted. Oswald wanted everyone to be on an
equal footing, as well as being sympathetic listeners, knowing their
turn to speak was coming. </font>
</p><p></p><div>
</div><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br>
</p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2">Because
of the give and take nature of the class, Oswald’s lectures were
short and practical. Rather than giving a detailed process to follow
in sermon preparation, he sought to motivate students to think,
study, and prepare. He often stressed that the behavior and words of
the person who preaches are inseparable.</font></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br>
</p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"></p><p style="margin-top: 0.01in; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2">From
the “BTC Journal” articles, Mrs. Chambers selected thoughts on
twenty-one topics and published them as “Disciples Indeed”. There
is a surprising amount of material that appears here and nowhere else
in the books by Oswald Chambers. (Some 50 books)</font></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">
</div><font size="2"><br></font><div style="text-align: center;">
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.08in</style><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><u><b>THE
HOLY SPIRIT</b></u></font></div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> It
is not what we feel, or what we know, but ever what we RECEIVE from
God – and a fool can receive a gift. “If you then, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more shall
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”
(Luke 11:13). It is so simple that everyone who is not simple misses
it.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Beware
of telling people they must be worthy to receive the Holy Spirit; you
can’t be worthy, you must know you are unworthy; then you will ask
for the gift – “If you then, BEING EVIL….”</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
biggest blessing in your life was when you came to the end of trying
to be a Christian, the end of reliance on natural devotion, and were
willing to come as a pauper and receive the Holy Spirit. The
humiliation is that we have to be quite sure we need him; so many of
us are quite sure we don’t need Him.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> It
is extraordinary how things fall off from a man like autumn leaves
once he comes to the place where there is no rule but that of the
personal domination of the Holy Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> We
continually want to substitute our transactions with God for the
great mystic powerful work of the Holy Spirit. “The wind blows
where it desires, and you hear its sound, but do not know from where
it comes, nor where it goes: SO IS EVERY ONE THAT IS BORN OF THE
SPIRIT” (John 3:8).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> By
regeneration we are put into right relationship with God; then we
have the same human nature, working on the same lines, but with a
different driving power expressing itself, so that the “members”
which were used for the wrong are now used for the good (see Romans
6:17-21).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
strenuous effort of the saint is not to produce holiness, but to
express in actual circumstances the disposition of the Son of God
which is imparted to him by the Holy Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Beware
of seeking power rather than the personal relationship to Jesus
Christ which is the grand avenue through which the Holy Spirit comes
in His working power. “But you shall receive power, when the Holy
Spirit is come upon you: ‘and you shall be my witnesses’”.
(Acts 1:8).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
message of Pentecost is an emphasis, not on the Holy Spirit, but on
the Risen and Ascended Christ (see John 16:13-15).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
Holy Spirit takes care that we fix our attention on Jesus Christ;
then He will look after the presentation given of our Lord through
us.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><i><b>DEVOTION
TO JESUS IS
THE EXPRESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S WORK IN ME</b></i></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
Holy Spirit is concerned only with glorifying Jesus; not with
glorifying our human generosities.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><font style="font-size: 8pt;" size="1"> </font>The
deep and engrossing need of those of us who name the Name of Christ
is reliance on the Holy Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Jesus
Christ reinstates us to the position lost through sin (see Romans
5:12a); we came at this knowledge experimentally, but it is never our
understanding of salvation that leads to salvation. Salvation is
EXPERIENCED first; then to understand it needs the work of the Holy
Spirit, which is surprising and incalculable.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> We
“become partakers of the divine nature” by receiving the Holy
Spirit, who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Romans 5:5),
and the oneness is manifested in a life of abandon and obedience –
both unconscious.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> If
you are being checked by the Holy Spirit over a wrong thing you are
allowing in yourself, beware of only captiously seeing the
limitations in other people; you will diverge further away from God
if you don’t recognize that it is the still small voice of God to
you.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> There
is nothing so still and gentle as the checks of the Holy Spirit if
they are yielded to: emancipation is the result; but let them be
trifled with, and there will come a hardening of the life away from
God. Don’t quench the Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> There
is no room for harsh judgment on the part of a child of God. Harsh
judgment is based, not on the sternness of the Holy Spirit, but on my
refusal to bear someone else’s burden.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Beware
of everything in which you have to justify yourself, because the
underlying fact is that you have cajoled yourself into taking a
decision born of temperamental convictions, instead of in entire
reliance on the Holy Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not an impulse to make me act, but
to enable me to interpret God’s meaning; if I do act on the impulse
of the inspiration, it is a mere physical reaction in myself. Impulse
is God’s knock at my door that He might come in, not for me to open
the door and go out.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
salvation of Jesus Christ makes a man’s personality intense; very
few of us are real until the Holy Spirit gets hold of us.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
Holy Spirit does not obliterate a man’s personality; He lifts it to
its highest use, viz., for the portrayal of the Mind of God.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Beware
of the “show business” – “I want to be baptized with the Holy
Spirit so that I may do wonderful works.” God never allows anyone
to do wonderful works: HE does them, and the baptism of the Holy
Spirit prevents my seeing them in order to glory in them.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> “When
He ascended on high … He gave gifts unto men” (Ephesians 4:8; cf.
Acts 2:33). The only sign that a particular gift is from the Ascended
Christ is that it edifies the Church. Much of our Christian work
today is built on what the Apostle pleads it should not be built on,
viz., the excellencies of the natural virtues.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Be
careful to notice the difference between an offended personal
prejudice which makes you feel ruffled and huffy, and the intuitive
sense of bondage produced by the Holy Spirit when you are listening
to something that is not God’s truth.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> We
must distinguish between the bewilderment arising from conviction of
sin and the bewilderment arising from confusion in thinking; the
latter is the inevitable result in a traditionally Christian mind on
first receiving the Holy Spirit; but a curious thing to note is that
a heathen mind experiences no such bewilderment on receiving the Holy
Spirit, because there are no preconceived notions to be got rid of.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
mind that is not produced by obedience to the Holy Spirit in the
final issue hates God.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> If
you are in danger of building on the natural virtues, which are a
remnant of the former creation, the Holy Spirit will throw a
searchlight and show you things that cause you to shudder. He will
reveal a vindictiveness, a maliciousness, you never knew before.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Let
God bring you through some midnight, when the Holy Spirit reminds you
of what you once were, of your religious hypocrisies – the things
the devil whispers you should forget; let God bring you to the dust
before Him. This experience will always come in the path of those God
is going to take up into His purposes.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
baptism of the Holy Spirit means the extinction of life-fires that
are not of God, and everything becomes instinct with the life of God.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
Holy Spirit is the One who regenerates us into the Family to which
Jesus Christ belongs; until by the eternal efficacy of the Cross we
are made partakers of the Divine nature.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
Holy Spirit is not a substitute for Jesus. The Holy Spirit is all
that Jesus was, made real in personal experience NOW.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> There
is one thing we cannot imitate: we cannot imitate being full of the
Holy Spirit.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
mark of the Holy Spirit in a man’s life is that he has gone to his
own funeral, and the thought of himself never enters.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
sign that the Holy Spirit is being obeyed by me is that I am not
dominated by my sensualities. “And they that are of Christ Jesus
have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof”
(Galatians 5:24). Sensualities are not gross only; they can be very
refined.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> “What?
Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which
is in you….?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). The indwelling of the Holy
Spirit is the climax of Redemption.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
great impelling power of the Holy Spirit is seen in its most
fundamental working whenever an issue of will is pushed. It is
pleasanter to listen to poetical discourses, more agreeable to have
your affinities appealed to, but it is not good enough; it leaves you
exactly as you were. The Gospel appeal comes with a stinging grip –
“Will you?” or, “Won’t you?” “I will accept,” or, “I’ll
put it off” – both are decisions, remember.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> We
have to distinguish between acquiring and receiving. We ACQUIRE
habits of prayer and Bible reading and we RECEIVE our salvation, we
RECEIVE the Holy Spirit, we RECEIVE the grace of God. We give more
attention to the things we acquire; all God pays attention to is what
we receive. Those things we receive can never be taken from us
because God holds those who receive His gifts.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> The
fruit of pseudo-evangelism is different from “the fruit of the
Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"> Guard
as your greatest gift the anointing of the Holy Spirit, viz., the
right of access to God for yourself. “And as for you, the anointing
which you received from Him abides in you” (1 John 2:27).</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><i><b>IT
IS THE FINE ART OF THE HOLY SPIRIT</b></i></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="CENTER"><font style="font-size: 11pt;" size="2"><i><b>TO
BE ALONE WITH GOD</b></i></font></p>
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