Fate And The Holy Spirit: That Fateful Day

Fate; Destiny; Doom

Did you have one of those black plastic 8 balls that would tell your fortune? Remember? You ask a question – will I be handsome….Shake it up. Turned it over, the little white triangle would rise to the top.

Try Again…

So you probably did the same thing I did, shake it up again, turn it over. Little triangle rises..Not likely…

Ugh – shake it up again.

Now who really, is going to stake much on a water filled globe for predicting an outcome in their life? Still – we have to grab that eight ball and shake it up….

We had Chinese food the other night. Great meal, I love Chinese food.

After the meal - the fortune cookie. Again – I open it, I hope it says something good. But as usual something irrelevant. I was bummed. I want good news. I want to open the cookie and read: You are a very sincere and loyal person. You will have much happiness and joy. I want that, even though I place no trust in a cookie. Why is that? To be doomed by a horrible fate is something most of us want to avoid. To believe we are going to end up plummeting over a cliff and to not be able to do anything about it...

We start out life imagining, hoping, believing life will work out for us. There are days you can wake up – how did I get here in life? Sometimes it can seem that we are trapped, doomed, no end in sight - no matter how many times we shake the 8 ball.

The good news is this: Our life is not set on a course of which we have no control over. We are not subject to fate.

Sometimes we hear people say: Circumstances just spun out of control!

Story – Silver shoe kid.

I worked for years in a department store. There was this kid that worked in the China Department which is a place of high value products. This kid was offered a much better position with much better pay – turned it down. Why? Because he walk out each day with a set of silverware I each shoe. He had big feet! Later on in life he did other petty theft. He was a cat burglar – during storms, in town. This was always in the paper, these robberies. Finally he got caught in credit card fraud bysending credit cards to his house - in other people’s names. In the paper he claimed fate - “circumstances just spun out of control”. Was it fate or his own sin?

The concept of fate – is not a biblical concept. It is pagan. We do not have a distant God who just sets things in motion. We have a very personal God, who deals in every intimate detail of our life.

This summer – we have been looking at the Holy Spirit. That third person of the trinity, who is really, a mystery to many of us. The trinity in action: Father – initiates; Son - accomplishes Father’s will; Holy Spirit – brings to fruition.

The Holy Spirit is our connecting point. Through the Holy Spirit the Inaccessible God is accessible. The Holy Spirit is not just a new testament phenomena. He has always been around, always empowering God’s people – for God’s purpose. When the Holy Spirit speaks to us - Guides us - Empowers us - He works with us, He works with who we are – as individuals. In other words: God does not push us and we obey robotically. We are not products of fate. No – it is a dialogue – a working together to accomplish his will.

Today we see the Holy Spirit at work through the prophet Isaiah. In our Scripture today we see a pronouncement made – you will die. A broken man, king Hezekiah is, and God relents. Hezekiah – is not doomed, because of the Grace and Mercy of our Lord God. This here is not an isolated incident.

Remember Jonah in the city of Nineveh? "God will destroy your city" preaches Jonah. But they repented – God relented. It wasn’t fate after all.

The wonderful, glorious thing about knowing the person of Jesus Christ is: No matter who you are, No matter what you have done, No matter, how you have altered the course of your life, No matter how doomed you feel - Through the power of Jesus Christ you and not doomed, you are free.

Dynamic Power of God.

OT through the NT through Today. The Power that we see in the Old Testament and the Power we see in the New Testament is the same power that is available to you and I today. It is not a different God we read about in the Old Testament. He is the same. This dynamic power of God is available to those who call upon Jesus Christ, who give their life over, who commit their life to Christ. If you find yourself thinking