The King's Church in Ilford
The following is the text of the talk given on 27th May by Robin Hawkins
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"Eating The Honey"
Reading: 1Sam 14:24-30
We're celebrating Pentecost today, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the birthday of the church. 1978 years old - approximately. The fact is we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit every Sunday, as we invite Him to come among us and do His work.
This last week I had two days in Peterborough at Prayer & Fasting. Three times a year church leaders in Newfrontiers churches get together to pray. This time we met in this amazing new facility owned by Peterborough Community Church - an 1800 seater building. PCC are affiliated to Plumbline Ministries. Four years ago they reported a membership of 350. Now they have two services every Sunday morning. It's just one more powerful illustration of how God is on the move.
Every time we get together at P & F, there is this sense of expectancy that God is on the move among us also. This time Rob Rufus from Hong Kong was with us, teaching and imparting a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit. Those who went to Brighton last year were deeply impacted by his ministry then. He's speaking at Brighton this year - and it's not too late to book in!
I want to share some of the prophecies we got this week, and some of the things that Rob brought. As we celebrate Pentecost, let it be with a fresh impartation of Holy Spirit power and anointing.
Not many of you will have heard of Ginny, but you will possibly remember the prophecy she brought 10 yrs ago about the flowers on the streets - a few weeks before the death of Diana. That word established her as one to whom people listen when she brings a Word. This time she brought this Word from Samuel, about Jonathan eating the honey.
This story is a picture of us. Saul's army was faithful, committed, but "in distress". It had been a long day, and they were tired and hungry. They were supposed to have been plundering the enemy, but they'd not been very effective at it because of this curse Saul had put them under. He was so keen for his army to plunder the enemy, he wouldn't let them stop for food - food that would actually have made them more effective.
We too are an army - faithful and committed, but we too are "in distress". We've been trying to plunder our enemy for a long time. We haven't always seen the results we long to see, and now we're tired and hungry. There's a sense too, in which we're under a curse - like they were. Let me explain why.
Saul is always seen as the King who did it His Way. He could have written the song, "I did it my way.." He was the "head and shoulders" king. He stood head and shoulders above any one else in Israel. But when it came to leading the people of God, there is no record that he ever asked God first what he should do. He was the "head and shoulders" king, who relied on his own thinking and his own strength. On this occasion it nearly led to disaster with a rash oath that nearly led to him having to execute his own son, Jonathan. Jonathan, on the other hand had much more in common with David. This whole day had started of with a bold and audacious move on Jonathon's part, while Saul's army languished under a Pomegranate Tree!
Saul's army didn't want to be in this self-effort mode. It probably didn't even realise that it was; but it knew that it was hungry and tired - just as we are. Like them, we have the same job of plundering the enemy, rescuing lives held in satan's grip, and sometimes it seems we have all too little result for the work we're putting in. The irony is that there is the honey of the Holy Spirit all around us, but for some reason we're afraid to eat it.
It takes a Jonathan - a man of faith and boldness - to start eating it. He didn't know he was not supposed to be eating it. It was the common sense thing to do - and we read that "his eyes brightened". You can tell someone who's been with the Holy Spirit - their eyes are bright with His life and vigour - And that's what God's reminding us of today. The Holy Spirit is all around us. Let's eat the honey of the Holy Spirit.
This is a picture. How do we translate the picture into reality - By faith. Start by choosing to believe Jesus' promises: "Ho, anyone that thirsts, let him come to me and drink, and out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water." OK, the picture's changed from hunger and honey, to thirst and water, but the message is the same. Are we thirsty for the Holy Spirit? Are we hungry for the things of God? - Enough to reach out and take hold of them by faith.
The first time I spoke in tongues I had to take a step of faith and start to speak, trusting that the Holy Spirit would give me the words. For that split second I risked speaking gibberish, and looking a fool; but then the Holy Spirit broke in and out came His words. Yet some people try so hard to speak in tongues or to receive from God that they go over the top, and end up blocking the flow.
I remember back in 1994, asking Simon Pettit to pray with me at P & F. I wanted this blessing that everyone else was getting. So there was I, all psyched up to receive - and tensed up too, when Simon said, "Relax, Robin, this is God's work - not yours. So I relaxed, and let the Holy Spirit have His way. Suddenly this belly-laugh rose up from within me, and the joy of the Lord overflowed like the river that Jesus promised.
The Holy Spirit expresses Himself in different ways, but it's the same Holy Spirit.
Rob Rufus reminded us that when Jesus was on earth, He called people to follow Him. Then one day He promised them another person like Him that He called the Comforter. This word 'another' means another but the same. So this Comforter wouldn't be Jesus, but He'd have the same nature, and the same power. So just as Jesus is God, so this Comforter, the Holy Spirit is also God. But now the Holy Spirit was to be the contact person on earth of the Trinity.
Now I don't want to you to feel threatened by that. It's not as if we can't talk to Jesus or the Father anymore. On the contrary, the Holy Spirit brings glory to the Father and the Son by revealing more and more of them to us.
Paul tells us that we are to live each day according to the Spirit. Unless we walk in daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are going to seem distant to us. When Benny Hinn wrote his book "Good Morning, Holy Spirit", he called it that out of an awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence in his life that he'd never had before.
Humanly, we're bound to relate more easily to Jesus than to the Holy Spirit. He was a man like us as well as being God. The Holy Spirit is invisible. We can't see Him, but like the wind, we can see Him at work.
Terry Virgo brought a prophetic word in which the Lord called us to "Be shaped by the invisible. I am coming to you," the Lord said, " with persuasive power, which will overcome sweet reasonableness. Will you come and be with me in the secret place? I am coming to you to give you roads of faith that no-one's seen before. Will you come on a journey of faith with me, or will you be shaped by what you see before you?"
There were many other words I could share with you, but I think there's enough there for us to realise that our Lord Jesus has got plans and strategies for us to plunder the enemy, but it will be done "'..not by might, nor by strength, but by my Spirit', says the Lord". It's vital that we learn to walk in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, in close fellowship with Him. I believe God's heart for us this morning is to receive a fresh impartation of the Holy Spirit.
Some of us here may not be Believers at all, but you're aware that God's in this place by His Holy Spirit. You can have His Holy Spirit living within you too if you'll come to Him in repentance, and ask Him to be Lord of your life. Others of us know we're Believers, but know too we don't have this intimacy with Jesus, and we're hungry for more. You need to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and ask for the gift of tongues. For others of us, we've got dry. We're tired, and hungry for that honey of the Holy Spirit, thirsty for those living waters, and Jesus says to you too, "Come and drink"
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Psalm 19:1