In some very profound teaching in 2 Cor. 3 we seem to have a hint as to how we hear the voice of the Lord in guiding the affairs of the church. There, the administration (_diachonia_) of the Spirit is distinctly spoken of in contrast with the administration of the law. Its deliverances are written "not with ink, not in tables of stone, but in the tables that are the hearts of flesh, with the Spirit of the living God" (R. V.). There must be a sensitive heart wherein this handwriting may be inscribed; an unhindering will through which he may act. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," it is written in the same passage; liberty for God to speak and act as he will through us, which begets loyalty; not liberty for us to act as we will, which begets lawlessness. To us there is something exceedingly suggestive in the teaching of the Lord's post-ascension gospel, the Revelation, on this point. The epistles to the {133} seven churches we hold, with many of the best commentators, to be a prophetic setting forth of the successive stages of the church's history--its declines and its recoveries, its failures and its repentances, from ascension to advent. And because the bride of Christ is perpetually betrayed into listening to false teachers and surrendering to the guidance of evil counsellors, the Lord is constantly admonishing her to heed the voice of her true Teacher and Guide, the Holy Ghost. How forcibly this admonition is introduced into the great Apocalyptic drama! As in the opening of the successive seals, representing the judgments of God upon apostate Christendom, the cry is repeated, "Come"! "Come"! "Come"! "Come"! (Rev. 6)--as though the church under chastisement would repeatedly relearn the advent prayer which her Lord put into her mouth in the beginning: "Even so, come, Lord Jesus," so at each stage of the church's backsliding a voice is heard from heaven saying: "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches." It is the admonition "of him that hath the seven spirits of God," seven times addressed to his church throughout her earthly history, calling her to return from her false guides and misleading teachers, and to listen to the voice of her true Counsellor. From this general statement of the administration of the Holy Spirit let us now descend to the {134} particular acts and offices in which this authority is exercised.