我们前几天在探讨，在历史上一直有人把教会视为一个宗教机构，像一间商店般为社会人士提供他们所需要的服务。今天，让我们继续进一步思想这个观点。字典上把「机构」(institution)这个词汇定义为「一个医治灵魂的组织」。因此在某个程度上，教会不错是一个机构，但它却不完全是机构。当然，像圣经曾说，教会必须是一个「身体」，而且有生命和能力在不住地流动。不过在教会里所流动的生命必须源自圣灵，因为只有祂才可赐予生命。我以「祂」来形容圣灵，是因为圣灵不单是一种感应力，更是一位引导、劝慰、洁净、赐力量、指引的灵体，而最重要的是祂与我们同在。如果圣灵只是一个普通的「它」，就只能带来一种非个人的影响，是不可能具有以上说到的能力的。

可是，你有没有想过，为甚么在五旬节的时候，圣灵不降临在圣殿，而是降临在一间房子里？我把这个问题反复思考了很多年，后来我终于明白，那就是，假如圣灵降临在圣殿中，那么祂的降临就会与神圣的地方、神圣的仪式和神圣的场合相连系，可是当圣灵降临在一个最平凡的家的时候，这就表示祂不是为了特别的「属灵」场合而来，相反的，祂的降临是为了所有的生命、所有的场合。

圣灵不是为不平凡的人而进口的属灵奢侈品，相反的，祂是平凡人生活上的属灵必需品。祂是我们所做的一切事情的脉搏，是我们日常生活的生命，当祂不在或不能全面掌控的时候，教会就好像今天经文中的参孙一样，心绪不宁、手忙脚乱、一事无成。

「圣灵是我们日常生活的生命」

进深研究
徒九1-21；创三十二24-30；撒上十六7，十一13

1. 为甚么扫罗不大可能遇见神？
2. 为甚么大马色的路上不太可能当时的地点？

祈祷
慈悲仁爱的天父，我十分感激您，因为我无须到不同的圣地去寻找您的灵。无论我在甚么地方，您都会临到我，把我的属世变为属灵。感谢您。阿们。

Heaven-Sent Revival

Day 321

"The pulse beat of all we do"

"So [Samson]...said, 'I will go out as before, at other times...' But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him." (v.20, NKJ)

Bible reading:
Judges 16:1-22

1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her.

2 The people of Gaza were told, "Samson is here!" So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we'll kill him."

3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron.

4 Some time later, he fell in love with a woman in the Valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah.

5 The rulers of the Philistines went to her and said, "See if you can lure him into showing you the secret of his great strength and how we can overpower him so we may tie him up and subdue him. Each one of us will give you eleven hundred shekels[a] of silver."

6 So Delilah said to Samson, "Tell me the secret of your great strength and how you can be tied up and subdued."

7 Samson answered her, "If anyone ties me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, I'll become as weak as any other man."

8 Then the rulers of the Philistines brought her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she tied him with them.

9 With men hidden in the room, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the bowstrings as easily as a piece of string snaps when it comes close to a flame. So the secret of his strength was not discovered.

10 Then Delilah said to Samson, "You have made a fool of me; you lied to me. Come now, tell me how you can be tied."

11 He said, "If anyone ties me securely with new ropes that have never been used, I'll become as weak as any other man."

12 So Delilah took new ropes and tied him with them. Then, with men hidden in the room, she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" But he snapped the ropes off his arms as if they were threads.

13 Delilah then said to Samson, "All this time you have been making a fool of me and lying to me. Tell me how you can be tied." He replied, "If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I'll become as weak as any other man." So while he was sleeping, Delilah took the seven braids of his head, wove them into the fabric

14 and[b] tightened it with the pin. Again she called to him, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and pulled up the pin and the loom, with the fabric.

15 Then she said to him, "How can you say, 'I love you,' when you won't confide in me? This is the third time you have made a fool of me and haven't told me the secret of your great strength."

16 With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.

17 So he told her everything. "No razor has ever been used on my head," he said, "because I have been a Nazirite dedicated to God from my mother's womb. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man."

18 When Delilah saw that he had told her everything, she sent word to the rulers of the Philistines, "Come back once more; he has told me everything." So the rulers of the Philistines returned with the silver in their hands.

19 After putting him to sleep on her lap, she called for someone to shave off the seven braids of his hair, and so began to subdue him.[c] And his strength left him.

20 Then she called, "Samson, the Philistines are upon you!" He awoke from his sleep and thought, "I'll go out as before and shake myself free." But he did not know that the Lord had left him.

21 Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding grain in the prison.

22 But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Message

We continue examining the view that the Church is a religious institution. The dictionary defines the word "institution" as "an establishment for the cure of souls". In a sense then, the Church is an institution, but it is not essentially an institution. Essentially it is a body through which life and energy must continuously flow. And the life that must flow through the Church is the life that comes from the Spirit. He and He alone gives life. I say "He" for the Holy Spirit is more than an influence. He is a Person who guides, counsels, cleanses, empowers, directs and, most of all, just abides with us. An impersonal influence, an "it", doesn't do that.

Have you ever wondered why it was that at Pentecost the Holy Spirit did not fall in the Temple but in a house? I have thought about this for many years and for what it is worth my conclusion is this: if the Holy Spirit had been given in the Temple, then His coming would be associated with a sacred place, sacred services and sacred occasions. The Holy Spirit came in the most common place - a home. He is not given for special "spiritual" occasions, but for all occasions - for all life.

The Holy Spirit is not a spiritual luxury to be imported into the unusual but a spiritual necessity at work in the usual. He is to be the pulse beat of all we do - the Life in our living. And when He is absent or not permitted to have full control, the Church, like Samson in our text today, might shake itself and make a great fuss but will accomplish nothing.

"The Holy Spirit is the Life in our living"

Prayer
Gracious and loving Father, I am so grateful that I do not have to wander from sacred place to sacred place in search of Your Spirit. You come down to me wherever I am and turn all my seculars into sacreds. Amen.

Further study
Acts 9:1-21
Genesis 32:24-30

1 Samuel 16:7; 11:13

1. Why was Saul an unlikely candidate meet with God?
2. Why was the Damascus road an unlikely place?

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