The Spirit of Might

RV78-01

At that time, when we come into heaven, all theological questions will be answered, so the Bible will be clearly understood. All false systems will be exposed. All areas that we have of question and some confusion will be clarified and straightened out. No doubt, we'll look at some of those things, and we'll say, "That was simple. Why in the world didn't I see that? I wonder why I was so confused about that."

Differences of viewpoints and of attitudes, that we as Christians have between ourselves, will be settled, as to who is right and who is wrong. That will be rather refreshing – to find these differences of viewpoints and attitudes resolved.

We will be overwhelmed with the emotion of joy, and a tremendous sense of well-being as we stand in the third heaven. That is true of all of us – not just some of us. We will all be overwhelmed with joy, even the worst of us. The heaven which we now accept by faith in God's word, will, of course, at that time be seen in reality. It will no longer be a matter of faith. We will know that heaven as it really exists. We will see the place which has been prepared by the Lord Jesus Christ as our eternal residence in heaven.

We will meet our bridegroom, Jesus Christ, in order to be married to Him. We will talk to Him. We will hear His voice. We will observe His physical appearance. We will notice His short hair, and that His ears show around his haircut. We will be very clearly aware of His manliness and His maleness. We will experience, best of all, total compatibility with His Holiness. There will be no barrier and no friction between us.

We have seen in John's vision of heaven that we shall not only see God the Father. We shall not only be aware of God the Father on His throne, and of Jesus Christ, the Lamb, but we will also find God the Holy Spirit, who has been our Helper, and is our helper now on earth. John the apostle has a preview of the vision of the Holy Spirit in heaven. He sees Him there, as the Holy Spirit is seen in Scripture, under a symbol. This time, it's a symbol of seven flaming torches. These torches, which we've been studying, symbolize the tremendous ministries of God the Holy Spirit to the humanity of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, as Isaiah 11:2 explains. This ministry of the Holy Spirit is also conveyed to all church-age believers. As He served the humanity of the Son, so today that Spirit serves our humanity.

The Seven Flaming Torches

The Torch of Might

For example, in 2 Chronicles 20:6, He is so described for us: "And said, 'O Lord God (O Jehovah Elohim) of our fathers. Aren't you God in heaven, and don't you rule over all the kingdoms of the nations, and in your hand isn't there "geburah" (isn't there power) and might, so that none is able to withstand You?" That's an excellent use of the word: "In your hand isn't there might so that nobody is able to resist Your will?" That is basically at the heart of this word – the capacity to enforce your will.

In Psalm 65:6, we read, "Who by His strength set fast the mountains, being girded with power." There again is the concept of God having power as the Creator.

In Psalm 145:6, this word is used again: "And men shall speak of the might of Your awe-inspiring acts. And I will declare Your greatness." And the word "might" there is the word "geburah." God is seen as the One who cannot be stopped. His will is inexorable.

This word is used for the first time in the Bible in Exodus, which also gives us another indication of what it connotes. In Exodus 32:18, we have it used for the first time. Moses is coming down from the mountain. The ten principles of human freedom have been decreed, and he's coming down. In the meantime, you know what happened back in the camp. The people turned back to idolatrous practice. When the Bible says, "They rose up to play," it means that they rose up to be sexually immoral. In Exodus 32:18, as Moses comes down, he hears all the racket going on back in the camp, and Joshua is with him. Moses, when he first hears the noise, says, "There is a noise of war in the camp." He thinks all the shouting and screaming and the noise that he hears is the noise of an attack. He thinks that somebody is attacking the camp. Joshua says, "It is not the voice of them who shout for mastery." There you have this Hebrew word, "geburah." It is not the voice of them who shout for "geburah." Here, you see that the connotation is "Who shout for military victory." This word is used in that connotation of conveying the idea of enforcing your will as one does in a military victory. It has a military connotation.

So, it is a very interesting thing that the Lord uses this word as one of the ministries of God the Holy Spirit. He gives us the capacity to enforce that which is good and right to which He calls us in our personal life in service. The idea of capacity that is represented by this word "might" (the idea of power) is conveyed also by the fact that this is how a horse is described. In Psalm 147:10, we read "He does not delight in the strength (the "geburah") of the horse. He doesn't take pleasure in the legs of men." There it is used to convey the idea of tremendous power as the power that a horse has.

This word is derived from a root in the Hebrew which is associated with warfare, and therefore it has to do with the strength and vitality of the successful warrior. The word "geburah" was used to describe men who are militarily successful.

For example, we have this illustrated again in 1 Chronicles 11:15-19. This idea of the word "might" conveys the concept of military capacity. It is used here in the case of David, who has three mighty men (three men of "geburah") who break through the Philistine lines (the military perimeter of the Philistines) in order to bring water to David from Bethlehem, for David has expressed the yearning (the taste) – how he would just love to have a drink from those delightful wells in Bethlehem:

"Now three of the 30 captains went down to the rock to David, into the Cave of Adullam. And the host of the Philistines encamped in the Valley of Rephaim. And David was then in the stronghold, and the Philistine garrison was then at Bethlehem. And David longed and said, 'O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate.' And the three broke through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well at Bethlehem that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David. But David would not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord as a libation (as an offering), and said, 'My God forbid me that I should do this thing. Shall I drink the blood of these men who put their lives in jeopardy? For with the jeopardy of their lives, they have brought it.' Therefore, he would not drink it. These 'geburah' men did these things" (these three mighty men). Here the word is used of these three soldiers in terms of their military powers – that they were able to pull a commando raid through the Philistine lines; get the water; and, get it back to David.

This is a very fitting word, consequently, to describe what is true of God the Holy Spirit's ministry to the Christian, because, as you know, the Christian is engaged every moment of his life in an angelic warfare. He is engaged in this angelic warfare as a soldier of Jesus Christ. This is one of the most prominent analogies made to the Christian life that we have in the Bible. And it is one that, all too frequently, we forget as believers. In 2 Timothy 2:3, the apostle Paul says, "You, therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." That is the ministry to which we are called – the ministry of soldiering. And soldiering is a hard ministry.

In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul says, "Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life unto which you are also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses." Be ready to act as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Be ready to fight the good fight of faith. Well, if we're going to be engaged in this kind of an angelic conflict with the host of Satan, then we need the warrior's might that God the Holy Spirit can provide us for victory. It is a fitting analogy. That is what is, in part, behind this word. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of might. It makes us victorious soldiers for the Lord.

The word "might" is also used as a technical term for men of nobility who bore arms for their king. It's not only that they were soldiers, but they also had the fantastic quality that they were men who, while being soldiers, were, themselves, nobility. So, again we have this word used in that connotation.

If you'll turn to Ruth 2, you'll discover that we have that used in the same way: "And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech, and his name was Boaz." Boaz was described here as a mighty man. Boaz, as you know, was a nobleman, but as a member of the nobility, he is described by this word "geburah," which describes him as a man who bore arms as a member of the royal family. This indicates nobility in bearing arms for the king.

In 1 Samuel 9:1, you have this used again: "And there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power." What this means ("a mighty man of power") is that he was nobility who was acting as a soldier. This, again, is a fitting analogy for the Christian. Not only are we soldiers for the Lord, and thus need the might to enforce our will in executing God's will. Not only do we need the might to enforce and to achieve a victory as soldiers, but we are soldiers who are members of the royal family of God.

1 Peter 2:9 says, "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." We are a royal priesthood because we are members of God's royal family. So, the Christians also bear the quality of being royal soldiers in the angelic conflict, and we are men and women of might in that respect.

It is the indwelling Holy Spirit who gives us this might as believers. In Acts 1:8, the very opening of the book of Acts, this ministry of the Holy Spirit is set before us: "But you shall receive power." There it is: this Old Testament concept of "geburah" – a noble person who is a soldier in behalf of the King: "But you (as Christian nobility, and as soldiers in the angelic conflict) shall receive the power after the Holy Spirit is come upon you." Then he describes the consequences of their witnessing under that power.

In Ephesians 3:16, we have another reference to this concept: "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man." Here one of Paul's prayers for the Ephesians was that they would experience the might of God the Holy Spirit, for which He was given to them, to provide them with this might. Christians, as royal soldiers, have the indwelling Holy Spirit providing them with the might to perform and to execute in the field of combat.

The supreme person of might in all the universe is God Himself. Deuteronomy 3:24 makes that clear. It says, "O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what God is there in heaven or in earth who can do according to Your works, and according to Your might?" This particular verse is in Deuteronomy, which happens to be the final statement that Moses made to the Jewish people before God was going to lead him up the mountain, and to take him home to heaven. So, this is a book which is reviewing something that these people need to know, which is tremendously important to the Israelites who are about to go into the land that would surround them with nations who were immersed in tremendous human viewpoint degeneration.

So, it is a great thing for Moses to say, "I want to remind you that the God that we serve is the God who has the mighty hand. He is the "geburah" God. He is the God above Whom there is no greater power in all the universe." This was because Moses knew that they were going to go into this land, and that they were going to see some impressive sights from these pagans, and they were going to seek to accept the pagans' ways. This is why the Ten Commandments were given to them. If they accepted the ways of the pagans, they would soon be slaves again. He had just led them out of slavery. If they did not realize how different their God was, and the principles upon which He functioned, compared to the fertility cults, and the Baal worship, and everything they were going to find among the Canaanites, they would get right back into slavery.

So, Moses makes it clear to them (which many of them had forgotten) that there is no one more powerful than their God. It is a simple thing to say, but it is something else to live accordingly, and to act upon it. It is something else to come to the crises, and the problems, and the issues of life, and say, "Listen, there's nobody more powerful than my God, and He's acting in My behalf. There is nobody more powerful that I can appeal to for assistance in this matter than my God. None. No one, including the devil himself.

The supreme person of might in the universe is the God who indwells us and who provides us with that might. Therefore, the works that are accomplished by God's might are absolutely unequaled anywhere. The Bible loves to describe these unequaled works of God. The psalmists love to do that. An example is in Psalm 106:8: "Nevertheless, He saved them for His namesake (the people of Israel), that He might make His mighty power to be known to them." How did He make His mighty power to be known to Israel? Verse 9 says that He rebuked the Red Sea: "Also, that it was dried up. So, he led them through the depths as through the wilderness." This incident at the Red Sea became the standard of power (the standard of God's "geburah") in dealing with Israel throughout the centuries. Every time Israel wanted to think about how powerful God was, they always went back to the parting of the waters of the Red Sea as the demonstration of the power of God. That incident demonstrated that there was nobody in all the universe greater or more powerful than the God that they served, who could cause the mighty waters of that sea to pass before them; and, not only that, but He made it dry enough for them to walk through dry shod.

Psalm 145: 4 says this: "One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts." There you have again this word. One generation of Jews is going to remind the next one of the mighty works of their God.

Drop down to Psalm 145:11-12: "They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your 'geburah,' to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom." In your time, talk about the great things that God has done. Go back in the history of the Old Testament, and go back in the history of the New Testament, and remember how God, in time and space, demonstrated His tremendous power. That power is working in our behalf.

Consider the greatest of human might – whatever power a human being may have. And we've had people on the face of the earth who have been very powerful people. But the greatest of human might is ultimately always limited by God. The power of man is always limited by God. The arrogance of the sin nature gets into a lot of trouble because it thinks that there is no limitation upon its power. Therefore, in Psalm 33:16, the psalmist says, "There is no king saved by the multitude of a host. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength." That can get downright discouraging. There is no king saved by a multitude of hosts. There is no ruler over human government that is going to be preserved in his position by the strength of his army. It will only go so far. Military history is filled with examples of battles that have been fought by forces so superior that they absolutely could not lose. And yet, they lost. Inferior forces overwhelmed them simply because God limits the exercise of human power and of human might. The psalmist said that a person of great personal strength is also limited by what the power that God is willing to restrain. A mighty man is not delivered by his own capacity.

Psalm 90:10 also speaks about this limitation that human beings should realize against their own capacities and powers: "The years of our life are 70 years. So, the Bible says that God's normal life span is 70 years for everybody born into the human race in this post-Noahic era. If you have less than 70 years, there is a reason for it. The Bible also warns against certain acts of sin. It says, "Why should you die before your time? Why should years of your life be short? And why should you be short-changed of the 70 allotted?" "The years of our life are 70." However, God says that there are also some who, because of one kind of "geburah" capacity or another, move past the 70 mark: "And if, by reason of strength, they be 80 years, yet is their strength, labor, and sorrow, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."

So, the Lord says, "What if it goes to 80? What if it goes more than 70?" Just remember that, someplace along the line, your capacity is going to be cut off. And that's a good thing to remember. When everybody is feeling good; when everybody is in health; when everybody is in good capacity and strength, we think we can do anything. We think there is no limitation. We get very arrogant, and we don't consult with what the Lord has for us to do. We don't need to do anything but move ahead. We do that in the physical realm, and we do that in the financial realm. When we are well supplied with material things, we can just barrel ahead with all the arrogance that we're capable of, completely ignoring the fact that there is a God up in heaven who is keeping an eye, and who is going to jerk the rug right out from under us at the appropriate time. Do not permit your sin nature to overwhelm you with the arrogance to think that you have a capacity of might which is unlimited. Sometimes God prospers us in such a way that it seems that there is no end to what we can do, and that there is no end to our capacities and our own personal might.

In Ecclesiastes 9:11, Solomon says, "I returned, and I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift; nor the battle to the strong; neither yet bread to the wise; nor yet riches to men of understanding; nor yet favor to men of skill, but time and chance happens to them all." Solomon, in his human viewpoint disorientation, would say that where you thought you had it made, you suddenly found that you didn't have it. You suddenly found that you were left holding the bag. And Solomon, because he was operating out of temporal fellowship, found himself holding the bag again and again.

You want to take Ecclesiastes 9:11 with a grain of salt. You must remember that this is a man who is out of touch with God. He's saying things as they appear to him: that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Many times the race is to the swift, but sometimes some no-good tortoise comes along and wins, because something has changed what the normal order should have been. And sometimes the battle is not to the strong. Sometimes that is true. But many times, the battle is indeed to the strong; bread does go to the wise; riches do go to men of understanding; and, favor does go to people who show that they have abilities. It's not all just time and chance, as Solomon is trying to tell us. But Solomon does remember that God steps in, and He undercuts our arrogance. So, the only person with ultimate might in your life is the living God. You may have a great deal of personal power, but it is always limited by that God. And at the time that you think you're at the epitome of capacity, that God steps in and cuts it down. The man who, in the arrogance of his own might, pits himself against the warrior God will be destroyed.

We'll not take time to read Psalm 52, but you would find that an interesting psalm to read in connection with that –the man of arrogance pitting himself against the warrior God. The only result will be your self-destruction.

So, man's might has to be tempered with the fact of his limitations and of his need to trust in God's might. That's what the Scriptures are trying to tell us. We have capacities. We have certain areas of power that God delivers to us, but they are areas which must be exercised with divine direction if we are to enjoy them.

1 Samuel 2:9 says, "He will keep the feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness, for by strength shall no man prevail." By your own capacity, you will not prevail against evil people. But God will keep your feet on a safe path.

In Proverbs 16:32, we have this same concept of looking to the Lord to enable you to exercise your power. Remember that the word "power" means "to enforce your will: "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and, He who rules his spirit, than he who takes a city." What a great piece of divine viewpoint!

When I was in Officer Candidate School in the Marine Corps, I fell into friendship with a guy with tremendous physical capacity. Once in a while, they would have what they call in the Naval Service "smokers," because everybody smoked then. One of the things they would do at the smokers was to have prizefights. The Navy would pick their best man, and the Marines would pick their best man, and they would get into the ring at this evening of entertainment. We could never put this man into the ring with anybody from the Navy, and have a fight go longer than 30 seconds at the most. He was a tremendous figure. He was a man of "geburah." He was a man of power and might. We happened to be roommates, and we struck it off as buddies. But he had one serious problem, and that was that he was short-tempered. He could not rule his spirit. And he kept getting into trouble. He kept getting on report.

So, one day I took him aside, said, "Listen, I want to show you something out of the Bible. It's going to do you in if you don't pay attention to it. He had been to Baylor University, and we had that common ground. That's one reason that we fell in together. I showed him Proverbs 16:32: "A man slow to anger is better than the mighty." If there is anybody who thinks they're mighty, you know that it's the Marine Corps: "And he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city." If there's anybody who thinks they're good at taking cities, it's the Marine Corps. And I said, "If you don't straight out, you're going to lose the capacity you have."

In short time, he was washed out. He went one step too far, and our commanding officer, when he signed his paper, sending him back to boot camp, and out of Office Candidate School, said, "Of all the men we have in this particular class, the staff of our officers viewed you as the most promising of the lot. And I'm really sorry to have to do this to you." He was sent back down to the ranks, and off into the wonderful world of being a private, because he did not know how to rule the spirit. He did not know how to take the might and the capacity that he had on the physical level, and transform that into effective leadership among men, that he could have done if he had followed the biblical principle of recognizing that it's more than his own personal capacity. Because he had that personal capacity, he could push anybody around. He could bowl anybody over. He could be fast in anger. He could be short-tempered, and he could bolt his way through. Nobody could stand in his way. He found that the God who had warned him is the God who cut him down.

So, Proverbs is a book of great wisdom. Proverbs 21:22: "A wise man scales the city of the mighty, and casts down the strength of the confidence thereof." A wise man is the man who follows God's principles of righteousness, and the man who looks to God for the capacity of might that he needs to guide his mind. The one who has the Spirit of God guiding his might is the man who scales the city and throws down the mighty. How often that has happened in human experience.

Psalm 40:4 says, "Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust, and doesn't respect the proud, or such as turn aside to lies." This is the man who makes the Lord his trust for his capacity.

So, the claim of the truly strong man or woman is to be found stated in Micah 3:8: "But truly I am full of power ('geburah') by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgressions, and to Israel his sin." Here he has the capacity because the Spirit of the Lord has given it to him. The truly powerful Christian man or woman is the one with the capacity to enforce his will as it is compatible with the will of God. That's what it takes in Christian warfare. Christian warfare is imposing your will upon the enemy. And when our will is the will of God, that is a powerful force. And that is what God the Holy Spirit is here to do – to enable you to successfully execute the battle at any point to which he has called you. Micah 3:8 is the claim of the truly strong man or woman.

So, the church-age believer enjoys the power of God the Holy Spirit providing victory in the angelic conflict daily. It is the Holy Spirit who strengthens the believer with divine power. This is pointed out to us in Colossians 1:11: "Strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long suffering with joyfulness:" strengthened by His might.

The measure of the power of Israel, we pointed out, was the parting of the Red Sea. The measure of the power to the church-age believer is the power that was involved in raising Jesus Christ from the dead. The Christian asks: what is the degree of power that God provides for me? What is the power by which God uses me – by which I operate? To what degree does He give me power? The Bible says that the power of the Spirit of God gives us is to be compared to the power that it took the Father to raise the Son back to life, and to place Him in heaven at the Father's right hand. That is the measure of power for those of us in the church age.

So, that's a torch that is a very exciting one to contemplate. We Christians sometimes view ourselves as a very weak group of people. We are weak folk because of the onslaughts of the world around us. It behooves us to remember that the Spirit of God is there to give you the power, as a noble soldier of Jesus Christ, to have the capacity for victory to enforce your will upon Satan's enemy, and upon all of Satan's holds, and to enjoy victory in the angelic conflict. Christians are not losers. Christians do not act like governments do in trying to fight no-win wars. Christians always fight to win. When your path is the path that God has for you, you can't help but be a winner if you're permitting the Spirit of God to exercise this torch of ministry – of providing you with the might and power that it took to raise Christ from the dead. That's at your disposal. You're going to have to think about that for a while, because that is staggering to the human imagination. That is almost impossible for us to grasp.

We have two more torches. This one, the torch of might, is related to the torch of counsel, in that those two torches have to do with our experience. The first two torches that we studied, the two torches of wisdom and understanding (putting those together) – those have to do with your mind; that is, the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to your mentality. But when you come to counsel and might, you have torches that deal with your daily experience. This is not something that's out in the world that you don't live in. When God says, "I'm going to give you divine counsel," He means it day-by-day and step-by-step. When He says, "I'm going to give you might (I'm going to give you power), He means step-by-step. He's not talking about someday when you're going to be up in glory with Him – that you're going to have great counsel, and that you're going to have great power and might. He's talking about now that He has this kind of counsel. Now He has this kind of capacity to give you.

This is where some Christians make the mistake, when they read 1 Corinthians 2:9, for example: "But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard; neither have entered into the heart of man (the mentality of man) the things which God has prepared for them that love Him." We read that verse, and we say, "That's talking about heaven. We just can't imagine. It hasn't entered our mind. We can't enter into what God has prepared for us." No, that is not what He's talking about. He's talking about your experience – the torch of counsel, and the torch of giving you information right now: "God has revealed them unto us by His spirit." It is something for now, not the future.

The same thing goes with this one on might. This is not something such that someday you are going to have tremendous power, and in the millennium, you're going to be a ruler and administrator with Jesus Christ. All of that is true, but what He's talking about is that you Christians are not weaklings, and you need not go around acting as weaklings. You don't have to be anybody's doormat, especially to the world. You need not walk around in the world's contempt.

Those of you who watch the Academy Awards, several of you mentioned you were delighted to see that Chariots of Fire was the best movie. As I pointed out to the folks at prayer meeting, the applause that night was continuous, enthusiastic, and tremendous on every account. They continually applauded for all kinds of things. As I mentioned in prayer meeting, if somebody had gotten up at the Academy Awards and said, "Dr. Danish is a swell guy," they would have all thundered with applause and gone crazy that night. They would have applauded even for that – anything.

However, then Loretta Young got up, and made a comment. And this is a good point for you to remember. It was incisive wisdom on her part. She said, "Reality is not only obscenity, and that which is degrading, and that which is immoral; but reality is also that which is ennobling, and that which is fine, and that which is elevating." Then she put the zinger in there and said, "And some producers, I'm happy to say, have apparently begun to recognize that about reality." This group, which had been applauding like crazy, sat there in stony silence. There was not even one guy to go show a little enthusiasm. It was just stony silence.

Then that man got up and observed that the first script to the human race had been given on Mount Sinai, and that if they had not rewritten the script, we would all be better off, and there were three guys out there that applauded. That was all. Didn't this speak worlds about all the high and mighty of the Academy Awards? They were insulted by what these two people said. They did not accept their counsel. But God the Holy Spirit, in a strange way, reminds the world. And maybe both of these people were Christians, and maybe that's why He was speaking to them. He was giving them the counsel that preserves us in liberty and in happiness. He gives us the counsel that makes us winners.

Chariots of Fire was a tremendous testimony to the devotion of a Christian man to his beliefs in Christian principles, and what the Word of God had to say as he understood it? Why should we go around with our tail between our legs like we are the dogs of humanity? You people carry the counsel of God in your experience. You're already smarter than everybody else, as long as the information is coming through. And you carry the torch of God's might. You're more powerful than anybody else. That's why the Bible says, "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us, and gave Himself for us." Grab those torches. Hold them high. Use them in your experience. You have His counsel, and you certainly have His power.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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