The True Christian’s Faith and Experience #020 The Movement of the Holy Spirit and the Old Serpent.

This session is devoted to Chapter 14 on the true Christian’s faith and experience concerning the movements in the hearts of men of the spirit of God and the spirit of the serpent. 

          The true Christian is empowered with a heavenly spirit of discerning. He perceives the power of sin and how the old serpent in the Garden of Eden has grown so powerful in the hearts of men in whom he rules, that he no sooner commands and they obey. His motions toward evil have grown so powerful that among nominal Christians he is perceived too powerful to overcome and conquer while on this side of the grave. These titular Christians have become such slaves that they have let in that apostate faith which says they can never resist or disobey the devil’s commands till the death of their natural bodies. 

          The nominal Christian acknowledges that the impulses of the devil are powerful. However, he does not believe that the spirit of God is so near and present with him with sufficient power, to be able to preserve him from obeying the impulses and temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil. He professes it to be an illusion that the spirit of God is moving in him to do good works. He concludes that the workings of the Holy Spirit are not known in these days. It is as if God has left the world to be wholly guided by the motions of the devil. This is the faith of devils, not the faith of the true Christian. He is a witness of the movement of the spirit of God towards every good word and action. Holy men in former ages spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and as they were led and guided by that spirit. This is testified repeatedly in the holy scriptures and has accompanied the righteous in all ages and guided them into the way of peace. Those who obey the Holy Spirit bring forth its fruits. Those who obey the spirit of the serpent bring forth its fruits. One moves to gentleness and humility, the other to the delusion of self-exaltedness, hardness and high-mindedness. 

References:

• The True Christian’s Faith and Experience Briefly Declared.  
• The quote in our introduction is from  Lewes Benson’s article "That of God in Every Man" -- What Did George Fox Mean by It?   That article was published in Quaker Religious Thought volume 12 number 2 in the spring of 1970.  

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