Spirit of the Lamb and the Lion
1987
That’s kind of an important prayer for me because something I’ve observed in just watching people is that with the Spirit of Jesus Christ filling a person’s life is by definition obviously supernatural. I mean something you can’t conjure up in your natural self no matter how committed you are, no matter how dedicated you are. You can give your body to be burned or give all your money to the poor. That doesn’t really bring you to a place where the Spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the dead dwells mightily in you, as Paul spoke of in Ephesians 1. But the manifestations of that is something that has always kind of interested me and that is specifically in Revelation 4, 5, and 6, it speaks of an incident where someone said, “Behold the Lion of Judah.” And it says that John said, “I turned and I saw the Lamb looking as though He had been slain.” In Revelation 6, it goes on to talk about the wrath of the Lamb. That’s a strange concept to us, the wrath of the lamb.
What I’ve noticed about someone that is genuine in their pursuit of Christ and yet the Spirit of Jesus Christ isn’t reigning in them, that they may exhibit the Spirit of the Lamb, the murdered Lamb. They may be very sweet and genuine and very kind and generous and so on. Yet when it comes to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, having seen His holiness, Hebrews 5 says that everyone who is mature has an understanding of the teaching of righteousness. The prophets of old always said it was always the false prophets that confused the clean and the unclean, the defiled and the undefiled. And something Jesus Christ never did was have the Spirit of the Lamb in the sense that He lost His hatred, His terrible hatred of hypocrisy, for example. Never once did He turn away from hypocrisy. In Matthew 23, it says that He shouted to the crowd and to the disciples, as well as the Pharisees that were near Him, “Woe to you, woe to you!” It wasn’t just a secret meeting with the Pharisees saying, “Ya’ll ought to stop this and I’m going to love you for a few more years, and you’ll grow into it.” He laid down something that was very real and it had to do with righteousness, with respect to that hypocrisy.
Now the Spirit of Jesus Christ, being filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, involves both of those things by definition. You’re willing to draw with a stick in the mud when a woman is caught in adultery and is trapped and is a victim of her surroundings and you know she was probably even set up. I mean, where was the guy that she was with? There’s some unanswered questions in that whole story and it seemed as if it was just a test for Jesus. But His response to that, of course, showed the infinite wisdom that’s also involved in the Spirit of Jesus, as Steven had, standing against Sanhedrin, all the lawyers and experts of the law. He totally confounded them with the Wisdom from above, and it says that they couldn’t do battle with him. That’s the Spirit of Jesus and that will be manifested in us when Christ’s Spirit reigns in us. But the Spirit of compassion and the Spirit of righteousness and hatred of sin and driving home those things that are costing the lambs their lives; to know in our hearts that it’s better that a person have a millstone tied around their neck and thrown into the sea, rather than to cause one of the little ones to sin. To have that boiling Spirit within us that stands against the things that cost the lambs their innocence and the hatred of that. But also the willingness to lay down our lives for our enemies while they’re yet sinners; to give our lives as a ransom for those that despise us and don’t understand or disagree or undercut us in some way.
You see, both of those aspects have got to be present in our lives. And we can have a nice little fellowship and sing sweet songs, and be kind, wonderful, loving people, and yet without the Spirit of the Lion of Judah in us, we won’t be able to destroy the works of the devil, as the Son of God was manifest on earth and in us to do. There also has to be that sword. “I didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword,” and if the Spirit of Jesus is in us, that will also be obvious in our lives. We didn’t come to bring peace. We didn’t come to be compromisers and pat everyone on the back and hug everybody and say, “Oh, you’ll all grow into it one day.” There’s more to it than that. And there’s a time and place to take a stand and say, “I’m moving on!” with confidence, confident and unashamed. And yet be willing to die for others while they’re yet sinners, before they have it all together.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that it’s something that you can’t develop in your natural self, there’s no way you can understand those things, because they’re contradictions. “Behold the Lion of Judah,” “And I turned and saw the Lamb looking as though it had been slain,” the wrath of the Lamb. Those are things that in the natural self, we are unable to muster up both at the same time. We’ll be one or the other. We’ll brutalize people with judgment and hostility and criticism and impatience because we’re trying to manifest the Lion of Judah out of our own natural self or we’ll compromise and allow sin to be rampant. Allow the little ones that Jesus loves to be ripped to shreds by hypocrisy and double standards and in the environment of those things and never take a stand against it in the name of love and that’s not the Spirit of Jesus either.
So, anyway, that song isn’t just a song to me and it never has been and that involves the aspect of the Lion of Judah. “I rise up to worship, I stand to acclaim. The King of All Glory, Christ Jesus His Name. I ask You, King Jesus, fulfill this desire. Ignite me and make ME a Chariot of Fire.” Let me walk through this planet and leave everything changed that I cross paths with. That’s the Spirit of Jesus, nothing we pass by is unchanged. It’s going to be touched, somehow it’s going to be affected and touched by either the Lion of Judah or the Murdered Lamb, one of those two things. So now that you all maybe have a better feel for the lyrics and maybe something of my heart and why I suggest we sing that, maybe y’all would want to sing it again.
I rise up to worship,
I stand to acclaim
The King of all glory,
Christ Jesus His Name
I ask You, King Jesus,
Fulfill this desire
Ignite me and make me,
A Chariot of Fire
Come ride on my life,
Lord Jesus Christ
My King and my Master
Come ride on my life,
To this one goal
I wholly aspire
Come ride on my life,
Lord Jesus Christ
My King and my Master
Come ride on my life
And I will be
A Chariot of Fire
Father, we ask that You would make that so, that Your Love and Your Life and Your example and more than anything that same Spirit that lifted You out of that grave after three days; we pray, Father, that that would rest in our hearts and in our lives. Not for our satisfaction, not to make us comfortable, not to make us enjoy life more, but more than that, that we might do the works that You do, even greater works. We pray in Jesus’ Name.
