Old Testament Types of Church Members

1 Corinthians 10:11–12 “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”

In 1 Cor. 10, Paul lists some of the actions of Israel and the results of those actions, and then in verse 11, he says that all of those things listed are to serve examples for us. As a matter of fact, he says those things are written for our instruction.

Instruction in verse 11 means teaching the Lord’s ways through His Word.

We are taught the Lord’s ways through His Word, including both Old and New Testaments. The Bible instructs us about the Lord. You are not going to learn about God apart from His Word.

As Paul wrote, studying the Old Testament is important for the church if we are to learn God’s ways. The church is not found in the Old Testament, but we can see through the lives of three men the three types of church members in every church.

It is important to understand that in the Old Testament, believers did not have the indwelling Holy Spirit. The relationship between believers in the Old Testament and the Holy Spirit was noticeably different from His relation to believers in the Old Testament.

If you read the Old Testament, you will find that the Holy Spirit would come upon and come into a person, leave that person, and sometimes return. That is quite different than the indwelling Holy Spirit that New Testament believers enjoy, but even though that relationship is different, the work of the Holy Spirit was consistent in the Old Testament.

The Holy Spirit could not indwell men until the penalty of sin was paid at Calvary.******

To help understand the relationship between believers and the Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments, it is best to look at it this way.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was with men. After Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was in men.

With that being said, there are three Old Testament leaders who typify the Holy Spirit’s ministry in the church today, and those three men, David, Samson, and Saul, typify the three types of members in every church, including Beech Grove.

(1) DAVID: The Spirit-Filled Christian

As I said, in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit could come upon a person, stay in a person, leave a person, and return to the person.

The Holy Spirit came upon David and never departed. David is a type of the spirit-filled Christian.

1 Samuel 16:11–13 “Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.” And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.”

The Holy Spirit came upon David, and He never departed. We know that from the New Testament as well.

Acts 13:22 “And when he had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’”

David was a man after God’s own heart, possessed by the Holy Spirit.

Yes, David was a sinner, and one of the saddest episodes of falling into sin as Christian in all the Bible involves David’s sin with Bathsheba, but the Holy Spirit never left him.

As a matter of fact, David was concerned about losing the Holy Spirit because of that sin.

Psalm 51:11 “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”

David sinned a great sin, but the Holy Spirit did not depart. The Holy Spirit convicted.

Psalm 32:3–5 “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah”

The Holy Spirit was wearing David out because David had not confessed his sin, but eventually David did confess.

2 Samuel 12:13 “David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.”

David confessed his sin before the Lord, and that ladies and gentlemen is what separates a spirit-filled church member from the other types of members in a church. Yes, David sinned a great sin, but he responded to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit.

David is the perfect type of a spirit-filled Christian in a church. Once a person is saved, the Holy Spirit indwells that person, but the indwelling Holy Spirit is not the same as being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 5:18 “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,”

There are many Christians who never get filled with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is a conscious choice.

How do I know that? Because Paul compares being filled with the Holy Spirit with getting drunk with wine. You get drunk by drinking, but how are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

Ephesians 5:19–20 “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,”

Ephesians 5:21 “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

To be spirit-filled, you must:

Worship God through His Word

Worship God through your actions

Worship God through thanksgiving

Worship God through submission.

Those are the ingredients that makeup a spirit-filled Christian, but there is one special ingredient that finishes the recipe, and that ingredient is confession.

1 John 1:8–9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

A spirit-filled Christian, like David, is still a sinner, but a spirit-filled Christian does not deceive himself or herself by saying he or she has no sin which is in effect what you say if you do not confess your sin. I learned something this week about the meaning of that word confess in those two verses.

Sometimes, we mistakenly think that confess in verse 9 just means to say something like this:

“God please forgive me I told a lie.” Well, dear friend, that is not confession. Confession is saying the same thing about a particular sin that God says about it. It is agreeing with God, and when you realize that, the act of confession takes on a brand-new meaning.

God knows what we do. He is trying to get us to the point that we same the same things He says about those things we do, and that is what confession is, and when we confess in God’s way, the Bible says that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

David did that. He confessed his sin. He agreed with what God said about that sin, and he worshipped God in the ways described in Ephesians 5:19-21, and as a result, David was a man after God’s own heart.

As a percentage of church membership, spirit-filled Christians makeup the smallest chunk of the membership. Are you spirit-filled? Do you practice what the Bible says in order to be spirit-filled? It is a conscious choice. Have you made that choice?

(2) SAMSON: The Backsliding Church Member

As I duck behind the pulpit, let me say this.

IF you are saved, you are either spirit-filled or backslidden. There is no middle ground, and the distance between being spirit-filled and backslidden is not very far, and Samson is the perfect example of a church member that is a backslider.

Samson’s life is one of contradiction.

He was a man of great physical strength yet displayed great moral weakness. He was a judge for 20 years and “a Nazirite, set apart to God from birth” (Judges 13:5), yet he continually broke the rules of a Nazirite.

There were three main rules of being a Nazirite which were apart from the Law.

In other words, a Nazirite would have the Law plus the rules for being a Nazirite. Those rules are as follows:

(1) Abstinence from wine and strong drink

(2) Refrain from cutting the hair of the head the whole period of the continuance of the vow

(3) Avoidance of contact with the dead

The rules of a Nazirite or the ways of the Nazirite were entered into voluntarily by making a vow before God.

Numbers 6:1–2 “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord,”

Samson, whom the Spirit of God upon many times giving him great strength to fight the Philistines, was a womanizer and a vengeful man. He could not say not to the flesh. Let me give you some examples.

Judges 14:5–6 “Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.”

Judges 14:8–9 “After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.”

The Nazirite vows prohibited contact with anything dead, but Samson carelessly disregarded God’s Word.

Judges 14:10–11 “His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.”

This was a wedding feast prepared for Samson and his sweetheart. It was customary practice for these feasts to turn into drinking parties. From what was Samson supposed to abstain? Strong drink and wine.

Judges 16:18–19 “When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up again, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought the money in their hands. She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began to torment him, and his strength left him.”

He caved to his flesh and would have done anything Delilah asked, and as a result, she shaved his head, and the Bible says his strength left him. What was the source of his strength? The Spirit of the Lord.

So, the spirit of the Lord left Samson just as it seems to a backslidden church member.

Look what the Bible says.

Judges 16:20 “And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him.”

Samson went to act in the strength of the Lord as he had many times, but that strength had left him. It left him for three reasons and those same three things cause a church member to backslide.

(1) He disregarded God’s Word

(2) He caved to the flesh

(3) He took God for granted (God was not number 1; Samson was)

Dear friend, it happens to church member after church member. If you disregard God’s Word, if you cave to the flesh, and if you do not give God the proper place in your life, you will lose all spiritual strength. You will go out in prayer trying to defeat the Philistines of the world, but when you pray, you find that all of your strength is gone, and you succumb to the enemy.

That is why so many in the church live defeated lives. Instead of being spirit-filled, they are motivated to feed the flesh, but praise God because He never leaves you nor forsakes you.

Samson’s sin brought him shame and despair as it does to any Christian. He got to the bottom of his barrel.

Judges 16:21 “And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. And he ground at the mill in the prison.”

When Samson got to his lowest point, God was ready to work.

Judges 16:22 “But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.”

When God got Samson to the point of realizing how much he needed God’s strength, Samson turned to the Lord and repented.

Judges 16:28 “Then Samson called to the Lord and said, “O Lord God, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes.””

God was waiting on Samson. Samson called on God and repented, and God restored his strength, and dear friend, if you are saved and you do not feel the strength of the Lord as you once did in your life, you need to do as Samson. You need to call on the Lord, confess, and repent.

1 John 1:8–9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

I am telling you, dear friend, the difference between a spirit-filled church member and a backslidden church member is confession, saying the same thing about your sin as God says.

(3) SAUL: The Apostate Church Member

The third type of church member found in every church is the apostate church member, the church member who is not truly saved.

Notice what the Bible says about King Saul.

1 Samuel 16:14 “Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.”

Saul had his chance to do what God wanted him to do, but Saul was more interested in serving Saul than serving God. Saul is an example of what could happen to every lost church member. The Bible says that the spirit of God will not always strive with men.

God will call you to salvation, but He will not forgive your continuing rejection of that call. Eventually, you will get to the point of no return. Paul talks about it in Romans.

Romans 1:20–21 “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

The Book of Hebrews tells us exactly what happens to you if you are a church member but lost as you continue in your rejection.

Hebrews 6:4–6 “For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Dear friend, when God stops dealing with you, for you to saved, Christ would have to be crucified afresh, and that is not going to happen.

If you are lost here this morning, you know that you need to be saved, and ladies and gentlemen, I do not say this lightly. This could very well be your last chance to come to Jesus. Today is the day of salvation. It is all been done for you. All you have to do is in faith cling to Jesus.

Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Romans 10:13 “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””

I beg you to call on Jesus today and to confess that decision. Christian friend, would you not like to be spirit-filled instead of backslidden? You can be. You just need to confess your sins and repent of them, and the strength you once had will come flooding back into your soul.