When the Spirit Moves

Jesus, in reference to the person who is born again, made this statement in John 3:8, NKJV: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Often, we focus on the person born of the Spirit, and we should, for that is what Jesus was referencing in His statement. Yet, underneath His overt statement is a hidden truth. What is that hidden truth? That the Spirit of God moves. And that’s what I’d like to talk about in this post. 

In the book of Genesis, we meet the person of the Holy Spirit. The very first action of the Holy Spirit? He moved. In Genesis 1:2, KJV,  “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Did you hear that? I mean really hear it? The Spirit of God moved. That’s how everything began. Everything! The Holy Spirit moved. When He moved creation happened. 

The Lord, through prophet Zechariah, in referencing the person of the Holy Spirit, said, “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.” Zechariah 4:2, KJV.  In context, the prophet Zechariah had an elaborate vision. He saw “a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.”  Zechariah 4:2, 3, KJV.

The vision the prophet Zechariah had relates to the moving of the Holy Spirit. There is ONE candlestick (lamp stand), all of gold. Then, there’s ONE bowl. What does the bowl contain? Oil. In this case, olive oil. There are TWO olive trees that feed the bowl of oil. And there are SEVEN pipes that lead to SEVEN lamps. This passage is dripping with reference to how the Holy Spirit moves. Yes, there is a way in which the Holy Spirit moves. And it’s easy to miss if we don’t pay attention to what is being said here. As such, let’s make sure to pay attention to what is being said. 

The one lamp stand is the Menorah. Yet, it’s also a reference to the Church. The Church has the light of the Holy Spirit inside us. We carry the oil of the Holy Spirit. The lamp stand is of pure gold (representing the divinity of God). The two olive trees represent “two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.”  Zechariah 4:14 KJV.  They feed the bowl that carries the oil for the lamps to shine on the lamp stand. The two olive trees supply oil to the lamp stand. Here, we have a picture of the foundation ministries of apostle and prophet releasing oil to the lamp stand — the Church.

Jesus, in Revelation 1:20, NLT, states, “As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” Christ connects the lamp stand to each of the seven churches identified in the book of Revelation: the church in “Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.” Revelation 1:11, NLT. Those churches were located in Asia. When the Apostle John wrote that, the Holy Spirit was moving among the believers in those churches. Jesus was speaking to each of them. Of the seven churches, only Smyrna and Philadelphia did not receive any correction. That’s significant. 

One of the issues with the modern church is the lack of correction. What that lack of correction reveals is our lack of oil. I must question if the Holy Spirit is actually moving. That begs the question: Are we pretending that the Holy Spirit is moving? Are we falsely advertising what we lack — a genuine move of the Holy Spirit. I see this all the time. Ads like, “come and experience the move of God”, or “come and join us in the move of God”, or “experience the move of the Holy Spirit”, or “join the revival”. What if we don’t have it, and we falsely advertise what we don’t have, isn’t that wrong? It’s one thing to have faith. It’s quite a different thing to have a move of the Holy Spirit. We need the move of the Holy Spirit.

I don’t know about you, but I want a move of the Holy Spirit. I want the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself in His power and His correction. Yes, the New Testament Church experienced correction from the Holy Spirit. Where? In Acts 5:3, NLT, we read of a move of the Holy Spirit in the early Church, “Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself.” Edification? No. Exhortation? No. Comfort? No. Some might say, “But that’s what I thought the Holy Spirit was confined to doing.” No. Here’s correction and immediate judgment. Yes, in the New Testament, God struck Ananias dead. Dead!And the move of the Holy Spirit continued.

                                    “It takes holy, priestly hands to carry the ark.                                                                      No equivocation. God demanded it then.                                                                                        And He still demands it now.”—Scott Wallis

God considers His work important. God places His work above anything we give. Ananias gave more than many church members give today. He sold his land and donated part of what he sold to the church. Yet, it wasn’t what he gave that got him in trouble with the Holy Spirit. No, it is what he withheld. He promised the Holy Spirit he would give the whole price of the land he sold. He didn’t. He kept some of the sale proceeds for himself. What’s wrong with that? Nothing. But he broke his promise to the Holy Spirit. Similar to the Old Testament Achan, who took a few garments and gold when he wasn’t supposed to do that, and he stopped the move of God at AI by his sin, Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, through their sin, were interfering in the move of the Holy Spirit by introducing lying to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit didn’t allow it. The move of the Holy Spirit continued. 

When a train is moving and gaining momentum, it’s foolish to stretch your hand to steady the train. Uzzah  learned that out the hard way when he stretched out his hand to steady the ark. And he was struck down by God’s hand. Yes, God struck him down for putting his hand on the ark. Uzzah should have known better. King David should have known better. It’s dangerous to handle the ark of the covenant like the Philistines do. The ark was never meant to be carried by an ox cart. Never. That the Philistines were allowed to use an ox cart speaks of the mercy of God to fallen men and women. But God expected, yes demanded, more from His own people. What did God expect? That we would handle the ark with great care, as He taught us to do. 

The move of the Holy Spirit must be handled with great care. It takes holy, priestly hands to carry the ark. No equivocation. God demanded it then. And He still demands it now. Notice, I said demands not asks. Why such strong language? Because it places us in the right frame of mind — the creation serving the Creator. Yes, God is loving, kind, and merciful. But He’s also righteous, holy, and just. To see the loving side of God and miss the holiness of God leads to a failure of understanding regarding who God is. Who God is, is important. We must understand what John the Baptist understood, “[H]e who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.” Matthew 3:11, ESV. 

We are unworthy to carry the move of the Holy Spirit. Yet God invites us to carry His sandals, as He moves by His Spirit. As the Apostle Paul said, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7 KJV. Not that the treasure is of us. No. It’s been placed inside us and we have the great privilege of carrying it. And we should be grateful, as John the Baptist was, to carry the move of the Holy Spirit forward. Although we carry His shoes, He’s actually the One who’s carrying us. As the song says, “He’s got the whole world in His hands.” Yet, we often trust ourselves over Him. We have faith in ourselves, but we don’t trust the Holy Spirit? Hasn’t the Holy Spirit given us reason to trust Him over ourselves? Yes!!! The Holy Spirit has given us reason to trust Him. 

By the way, concerning the Holy Spirit, I do mean Him not it or she. There are too many fallacies concerning the Holy Spirit popping up. Those fallacies should grieve us. One ascribes to Him the feminine. Untrue. The other describes Him as an impersonal it. That’s also untrue. The Holy Spirit is not an it or a she. No, He is a He. And we see Him in Ezekiel 3:23, NASB, “So I got up and went out to the plain; and behold, the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory that I saw by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face.” What did the glory of the Lord (the Holy Spirit) look like by the river Chebar? “[U]pon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire”. Ezekiel 1:26, 27 KJV.  Notice, Him not it or she.

Ezekiel saw the Holy Spirit on a throne. My question to you: Do we? When do I think we’ll see a move of the Holy Spirit? When we see Him on a throne like Ezekiel. For now, I keep waiting to see Him. As the late Kathryn Kuhlman would tell often say, “O how I need you, Holy Spirit!” Or as the late Lonnie Frisbie said to start what became the Vineyard Movement, “Come, Holy Spirit!” Yes, I think we need a move of the Holy Spirit. How about you?

Let us pray!

— Scott Wallis