The Communion of the Holy Spirit (14 page)

All who wish to be true servants of God need first to recognize falsehood in themselves. Some are deceived by others because they have become pretentious and dishonest themselves. In order to deal with other people, the would-be worker of God must first learn to judge all falsehood in his own self. All that is fabrication without inward initiation must be purified out. Only after he has dealt with his own falsehood can his spirit become quite clean and sensitive. He can then detect falsehood in others as soon as he encounters it. For his spirit will now react to all falsehood with discomfort, even anger, because it defiles him.

As your spirit touches people, the more scrupulous the touch the better. You must discover the condition of their spirit. The spirit of some seems to be timid; it withdraws as soon as it comes forth. If your spirit is clean, you can touch this timid spirit. You will encourage him a little in your talk with him. Or perhaps the spirit of someone has been wounded. This may be the case because in former days he may have had a family problem or he may have been misunderstood or ill-treated. When you find out about such a condition, you must seek how to help him. You may need as it were to pour wine and oil upon him. He should be assured of what you are doing. With someone else, however, you may need to “strike” him and intensify his wound in order for your assistance to be of any profit to him. On the other hand, there may be someone else who would be completely crushed if he were hurt or wounded further. But then again, another person’s so-called wound may be only superficial, requiring you in this case to “strike” again. In dealing with people, you yourself must have the conviction as to whom wine and oil should be applied and upon whom deeper wounds need to be inflicted. In the case of some, you should comfort with the word of the Lord. In the case of others, you need to reprove with severe words. And in the case of still others, you must awaken their slumbering spirit. First find out his actual condition; then decide what treatment, whether light or heavy, to use. The spirit of some is in slumber; the spirit of others appears to be under heavy pressure. Some seem to be crushed; others appear to be unconcerned. Each condition is different.

To sum up, then, before you can deal with people, you need to learn the condition and cause of their spirit’s situation. You must be clear about the one with whom you deal: you should not be vague. A worker must be so objective as to be able to discern man’s spirit. A worker who uses his mind and mental knowledge to help people produces no spiritual value. What is the use of parroting some form of words? In short, God’s worker must himself be dealt with in order to deal with and give help to others.

In dealing with people you will come to see that the six kinds of condition mentioned above relative to their spirit are comparatively common. Yet beyond these six conditions, there exists another kind. This is the unknown spirit, which is hard to decipher. As you listen to a person talk or give testimony, you sense he is not well, yet you cannot tell where his spiritual illness lies. The state of his spirit does not seem to fit any of the above six kinds of condition. You cannot pinpoint his problem. You sense there is something wrong, but only vaguely. Such a condition is usually the result of some unknown sin, most likely of some hidden sin; or else the result of something far more serious than sin, it perhaps being the result of even the work or attack of the devil. It may be due to some unexplained sin that gives Satan ground to work in him. The one who is experienced in the Lord is able to detect and decipher this peculiar condition. You should learn to use your spirit to touch this unspeakable condition.

Now in fellowshiping with brothers and sisters, if you as God’s worker are able to recognize these seven kinds of condition in their spirit, you can apprehend almost all their problems. This I would say especially in reference to the experienced ones among us.

I would now raise a fundamental question for our consideration together. How do you use your spirit to touch another’s spirit? How do you judge with your spirit? Let me say at the very outset that for anyone to be able to judge with his spirit, his outward man must be broken. There is no shortcut. He must be dealt with by God, learn all his lessons, and have his outward man broken. Then his spirit can naturally be used. Without the breaking of the outward man his spirit is unusable. The reason why his spirit is unusable is because it is affected by outside influence. His outward man is so strong that his spirit cannot freely launch out. His spirit is bound either by thought or emotion or volition. The outward man is so strong that the spirit of God’s children is laid under siege. Therefore, our outward self must be broken. Only after the outward shell is cracked open can the spirit be released. Between you and the other party there is the outward man. In order to touch the other’s spirit with your spirit, that outward man of
yours
has to be broken. Then are you able to know the other’s spirit. Without the release of our spirit we lack the basic instrument by which to know others.
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]

Let us understand that there is an affinity between spirit and spirit. But the outward man is blocking the way. With the breaking of the outward man, though, your spirit can have a greater nearness to God and can have close contact with the spirit of others. It then becomes reasonably easy for your spirit to go forth and help those others. Only those whose outward man is broken can learn to judge with their spirit the feeling and condition of others.

As you listen to people, the first thing to be done is to exercise the spirit. When you are fellowshiping with brothers and sisters and listening to them, you must bring your whole being to a restful calm (this is
not
passivity). It can be likened to reining in tens of thousands of horses, so as to be able to hearken quietly to people’s words. You do not first of all use your mind; you instead use your spirit. For thought is but an auxiliary instrument. If the condition of your spirit is clean, tender and gentle, whatever people say will just naturally touch your spirit. The spirit of the other person will leave an impression on your spirit, causing you to feel either defiled or clean, either resistant or able to be entreated. Your spirit may touch his subjectivity, his emotion or his thought. Your spirit must therefore be altogether quiet, gentle, and clean in order to touch his spirit. Do not use your mind to think; rather, use the spirit to touch. Such kind of knowing is far more dependable than listening with your mind to a two-hour report by a brother. Knowing by the spirit is the spiritual way.

In this kind of spiritual work we all need to learn humbly and slowly. I do not expect any of us to graduate in a short period. It will require at least three to five years for us to learn. But let us realize and never forget that our thought is not the
primary
factor here. We cannot put our trust in man’s mind for this kind of service. We will go far off the mark if we engage our mind as the primary instrument. And let us never forget, too, that learning to use our spirit in this way is not for our knowledge nor is it for enabling us to pick at people’s faults or to criticize them. No, no, no! Such learning is only for the purpose of building up, of helping, and of service. It must in no way be used for tearing down, or for finding out people’s faults. To the contrary, in coming to know how to use the spirit to touch the spirit of others, we can render much help to them.

We have already discussed the principles of judgment, the way to discern people’s various conditions, and how to use the spirit to touch others in need. We have also pointed out the absolute necessity of our being dealt with before God. Today we intend to inquire into two more things.

Upon using your spirit to sense another’s condition, whether that be in his mind or in his spirit, it does not mean you are now able to diagnose and even heal. Touching man’s spirit is one thing; diagnosing is another. Touching man’s spirit only gives you the knowledge about the condition of his spirit. How will you interpret his condition as to whether his spirit is right or wrong? How will you know? After you have touched a person’s mind and even the spirit behind the mind, how will you diagnose? This is not so easy. You need to have sufficient, comprehensive learning before you can diagnose his sickness. For instance, as you listen to a brother you sense he is one who can quickly lose his temper. But without sufficient experience and learning, you will not be able to tell where the cause of his losing of temper lies. Those who are experienced know that man’s temper comes from pride. A quick-tempered man cannot stand any disobedience to his words; he cannot tolerate an unkind word. He looks down upon others. There you touch his pride. It is because there is pride within that he loses his temper. The inexperienced in such matters will not know that loss of temper is but a symptom, not the cause, of a spiritual disease. If a person realizes that loss of temper is but a symptom, he will then try to find its cause in order to heal. But if he does not have sufficient learning, he will fail to pinpoint the cause.

Touching people’s spirit with the spirit can be likened to the use of a thermometer in measuring body temperature to determine if any fever is present. Yet you will still need to discover the cause of the fever, since it is but a symptom. The same will be true with the loss of temper. The failure to get to the root cause of bad temper renders healing impossible. What is the use of advising an ill-tempered person to be more patient? Such will be useless for he will simply lose his temper again. If you are ever to know the cause of quick temper in another person, you must learn to know the cause of your own loss of temper. If you are knowledgeable as to your own condition, you will begin to understand that other people are not that much different from you. If you have been able to learn from both yourself and other people, you come to recognize that pride is the cause of bad temper. You may also have discovered that subjectivity, too, may cause the loss of temper: a person may explode if his opinion is not accepted; or if his expectation is not reached, he likewise loses control over his temper.

Brother T. Austin-Sparks once said, “Be observant.” We need to learn to observe. In assisting people we must find out the cause of their spiritual sickness before we can help them to go to God and be dealt with. We need to be able to explain both the symptoms and the cause of sickness. Whenever we are faced with a particular issue in brothers and sisters, we should pray to God and examine these brethren. Take crying, for example. You may meet one sister who cries quite easily but another sister who never cries. Your spirit may have already sensed the difference, but what can you do if you fail to judge the cause? You must know by learning that to cry or not to cry is but a symptom. You need to ferret out the cause. Which is correct: to cry or not to cry? Will you encourage people to cry or not to cry? This person’s crying is wrong, so you exhort him not to cry. But that other person is wrong in
not
crying, so you should admonish him
to
cry. The giving of such counsel has come about because you have come to know by experience where the cause of crying or not crying lies. You have learned this knowledge by first looking at yourself.

Oftentimes you yourself are the best teacher, for you can ask yourself, When did I cry and why? The answer to your inquiry as to why, simply put, came down to the fact that there are two reasons for crying: the first is a crying due to self-love; the second is due to having been dealt with and stricken by God. As to the first reason, a person loves himself so much that he pities himself and cannot deny himself. Such a one will think of himself as too good to incur such trouble as has come his way. The more he muses, the more bitterly he cries. He cannot see himself suffer. And hence, his current trouble stirs up his self-love. And so he cries. Man’s self-love often lies in a state of slumber until it is awakened by whatever trouble befalls him. We see, then, how self-love is the first reason. The second reason for crying is as the result of being overthrown by God. At the outset a particular person was not easy to change, he having been hard and unconcerned. He could not be shaken, he not being prone to cry
or
to laugh. Now having been stricken by God through repeated circumstances of His allowance, the person finds himself unable to overcome God; therefore, he cries.

There are, then, at least these two reasons for crying. If later you see someone crying, you can check his cry against these two reasons in determining why he cried. Crying is not necessarily right, but one who has been stricken by God definitely will cry. Though crying may not always be good, even so, a person who has never cried evidences the fact that he has never been overthrown by God. If someone boasts that he has never cried, that one is undoubtedly a very hard person.

Incredibly, one who is very stubborn before God may pass through many trials and be stricken many times by God and still remain ignorant of any spiritual knowledge as to why all this has been happening. Another person, on the other hand, seems to be soft, and he, too, may go through trials and learn nothing. Normally speaking, many trials and many disciplines of the Holy Spirit should result in many learnings. Yet these people have not learned anything. Why is it that these two persons-one hard in nature and the other one soft-have undergone similar happenings resulting in both having failed to learn any spiritual lesson? We need to find out the cause. We must know not only their symptoms but their causes as well.

Let us review the cases of these two people again. On the one hand, here we have a person who is stubborn and hard before God and reaps no spiritual fruit when under trials. His trials bring in no spiritual blessing from lessons having been learned, only painful experiences. He quarrels with God, is dissatisfied with God’s dealing, and disobeys His discipline. He steadfastly believes it is wrong for people to ride above
his
head; instead, he wants God to make it possible for
him
to ride over
other people’s
heads. Furthermore, while still under discipline, he lets off steam: he feels misunderstood and considers God to be wrong and he himself to be right. Such a person will never submit himself under God’s discipline. He learns absolutely nothing about the place of thanksgiving and praise. Due to the hardness of heart, he learns nothing. On the other hand, here we have another person who, just the opposite, is unusually soft. He too has undergone many trials, having experienced the discipline of the Holy Spirit; and yet he also has garnered for himself no spiritual learning and no spiritual knowledge from his painful experience. The discipline of the Holy Spirit is ineffective in his life as well. Why is this so? In his case it is because he lacks the supply of the ministry of God’s word.