The Spirit works on the believers inwardly and outwardly as the means for them to predict something. Acts 11:27-28 says, “And in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. And one of them named Agabus rose up and signified through the Spirit that there was about to be a great famine over the whole inhabited earth.” Prophets are those who speak for God and speak forth God through God’s revelation; sometimes they are also inspired to predict something, just as what was referred to in this portion of the Word. The prophets predict by the Spirit of God as the means, uttering something from God. Therefore, sometimes the Spirit also works in us, the believers, to enable us to predict something by Him.
In Paul’s last time to Jerusalem we can see that the Spirit also tells the believers the things to come. In Acts 20:22-23 Paul said, “And now, behold, I am going bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing what will meet me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in city after city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.” Paul did not know what he would meet with in Jerusalem, but he knew one thing-that the Holy Spirit solemnly testified to him that bonds and afflictions awaited him. Later, the prophet Agabus “took Paul’s belt; and having bound his own feet and hands, he said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, In this way will the Jews in Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles” (21:10-11). This was the Holy Spirit warning Paul, indirectly through a member of the Body, what would befall him in Jerusalem.
In 1 Timothy 4, prophesying concerning the degradation of the church, Paul said, “The Spirit says expressly that in later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons” (v. 1). Here the Spirit told the believers beforehand of the coming apostasy and warned them concerning it.
The portions of the Word mentioned above show us that the Spirit tells us, either directly or indirectly, the things to come. Therefore, we need to exercise our spirit that it may become keen and clear to listen to the Spirit’s speaking, and we also need to learn to receive what the Spirit speaks to us through the members of the Body.
In Acts 13 five prophets and teachers in the church in Antioch gave the Head of the Body an opportunity through their ministering and fasting, that the Head, as the Spirit, might set apart Barnabas and Saul and send them out to preach the gospel of Christ (vv. 1-4). On the one hand, the Bible says that Barnabas and Saul were sent by the other three brothers; on the other hand, it says that they were sent out by the Spirit. This proves that the three brothers were one with the Spirit in the Lord’s move, and the Spirit honored their sending as His. Today, in like manner, the Spirit works in us and on us to gain us that He may send us out to preach the gospel of Christ to others.
In Acts 15 we see that the keeping of the Mosaic customs and the ceremony of circumcision had caused not a small disturbance in the church at that time. Hence, the apostles and elders gathered together in Jerusalem to discuss this matter. That was a unique conference held by the apostles of the universal church and the elders of the local church in Jerusalem. Both were the leading ones in the Lord’s New Testament move on earth. The conference had no chairman; the presiding One was the Holy Spirit (v. 28), the Spirit of Christ, who is the pneumatic Christ, the Head of the church (Col. 1:18) and the Lord of all (Acts 10:36). The decision made in the conference was not based on men’s voting; it was the result of mutual fellowship under the presiding of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, later in the letter to the churches, they wrote, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things” (15:28). By this, we can see that there was no voting, and there was neither autocracy nor democracy. Instead, it was altogether a fellowship by, with, and in the Spirit, and it was by the Spirit working together with the apostles and elders that the problem of the keeping of the law was solved.
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