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The Wind of God.

The Wind of God

“Luck” is defined as success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions. “Luck” has hardly a place in the believer’s vocabulary, except when used in jest. I much prefer the word “providence” when used in a serious consideration of the apparent blessings that have come our way. The definition of “providence” is: foresight; care; especially, the foresight and care which God manifests for his creatures; hence, God himself, regarded as exercising a constant wise prescience. A manifestation of the care and superintendence that God exercises over his creatures; an event ordained by divine direction. I agree with Alexander Pope who said, “A god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but fate and nature.”

In 1588 King Phillip of Spain commissioned the galleon of 130 of his mightiest war ships in his “Invincible Armada.” His goal was to bring Protestant England to her knees and back under the control of the Roman Catholic Church. He boasted that he would shed Protestant blood to the horses’ bridles. The fleet under the command of Sir Francis Drake was no match for the formidable Armada. As the Armada circled the British Isles she hit troubled waters like she had never known. As a matter of fact, the worst gale (what would later be known as hurricane force winds) hit the Spanish fleet with incredible power. Allow me to give you two quotes from secular history:

Thompson said: "As the armada came around the northern coast of Scotland and met the gales of the Atlantic Ocean, what remained of the great Spanish engine of war was hurled against the rocks or swamped in midocean. No more than half of the Spanish Armada managed to struggle back to Spanish ports in 1589. History interprets the defeat of the Spanish Armada as an English victory. It was not thought so at the time. The armada had not sunk under English bombardment, but under the wind of God. 'Afflavit Deus,' said the English --- 'God blew!'”

Military History said: “Because of bad storms, the fleet never reached its objective. The remaining Spanish ships endeavored to escape by sailing northward around the Isles. Blown off course, the vessels went all the way north and around the British Isles, and ended up in the North Atlantic. They were caught in terrible storms and the ships were dashed to pieces on Scotland and Ireland’s rocky coastline. The Spanish Armada owed its defeat mainly to the violent storm it encountered off the coast of Britain. Upon hearing of the defeat Phillip II calmly and simply said, ‘I sent my ships to fight against men and not against the winds and waves of God.’”

The Spanish started with 130 ships only 50 made it back to Spain. God blew! The threats of Phillip were miniscule next to the wind of God. How blessed we have been from the wind of God!

1. The wind of God can protect or punish.

“And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21). “Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters” (Exodus 15:10). The same wind that protected the Israelites while they crossed the Red Sea on dry land is the same God that brought the very waters held at bay on top of the Egyptian soldiers.

The principle is repeated in the Bible from Old to New Testament. If we obey God we are blessed; if we disobey God we fall under the curse. “A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known” (Deuteronomy 11:27,28). How many times have I warned young people to obey God in the obvious things we understand. It is presumptuous to think God will let you by with what He has judged others for. Presumptuous sinning is bold going against the limits of what is right, knowingly and on purpose. This is why it is often called the forward or high-handed sin. “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression” (Psalm 19:13). “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries” (Hebrews 10: 26,27).

2. The wind of God can convict.

“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). Our Lord likens the workings of the Holy Spirit to the movement of the wind. Sometimes the wind is unpredictable, always sovereign. In our prayer it would serve us well to trust God in His dealings with other people.

The rebellious little boy who was ordered to sit down by his mother said, “Although I am sitting down on the inside, I am standing up on the outside.” Have you ever wanted to get inside your kids and make them sit down? That question could very easily be defined rhetorical. Probably all parents have desired to make their kids feel, think and behave with the right attitudes. Ah! Herein is where God can come through with His mighty wind of conviction. God can get inside of people and bless them or bother them. Let us pray that God will do what only He can do. And when He does what only He can do, we get what only He can give. “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

3. The wind of God can empower.

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2). I wonder what might have been going through Peter’s mind when he heard and felt the mighty wind of God come through the upper room. Might he have been remembering the blowing wind on the lake that was filling the boat with water? Might he also have thought about his walking on that stormy water? Now it was time for the church to be the church God called them to be. It was time to arise out of complacency and take a stand with the prophets and saints of old. It was time for providence to work in a mighty and amazing way. Society and culture from the times of the ancient Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans was about to be overthrown, not from the proverbial “winds of change,” but from the Wind of God. “And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind” (Psalm 18:10). Who can argue that as empires rose and fell, a great blessing followed as the Holy Spirit moved from east to west. Think of the British Empire that experienced the puritan and pilgrim movement which blew our spiritual ancestors across the waters of the Atlantic. Think of the Great Awakening that shook Britain and her daughter, America. Contemplate the second Great Awakening, the revivals of prayer. In the history of the church she will long remember the greatest missionary and evangelistic movement of the Victorian to the present time. I long and pray for the Mighty Wind from Heaven to visit us one more time in renewal and blessing.