Part 16 (1/2)

How wonderful the providence of G.o.d that opened the church at Antioch and prepared a new center for Gentile Christianity, in the larger spirit of the cosmopolitan congregation, and then gathered there men like Paul and Barnabas to be the leaders of a wider movement for all the world!

How marvelous the providence that saved Peter from the cruel hand of Herod, opening his prison doors on the very night preceding his intended execution, and smiting Herod down with a hideous disease in the hour of his presumptuous purpose to destroy the Church of G.o.d!

How extraordinary the providences that followed Paul through his wondrous life, opening his way from land to land, and making storm and tempest, and even the very viper that sprang upon him, to work for the cause of Christ!

And still the same G.o.d rules in the same realm of Providence. Still the Holy Ghost within us can control the circ.u.mstances around us. Still the march of events will keep time to the leadings of the Spirit. And the man that walks in the Holy Ghost shall have a charmed life and be immortal till his work is done, and he will find that winds and waves and fierce and cruel men, and even Satan's very emissaries shall be forced to become auxiliaries to His purpose, and work with Him for the furtherance of the Gospel.

And so G.o.d has shown in the lives of men like Arnot, in Africa; Paton, in the New Hebrides; George Muller, in Bristol, and many a humble missionary of the cross who has dared to trust the mighty promise of the ascending Master, the permanent value of His words, ”All power is given Me in heaven and in earth, and lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the age.”

VII. IT IS THE POWER FOR GUIDANCE.

The Holy Spirit gives power for guidance. He directed them. He led their steps. He sent Philip to Samaria, and down to the desert to meet the eunuch. He sent Peter to the housetop and then to the home of Cornelius. He restrained Paul and Silas from preaching in Bithynia and Ephesus, and then He sent them to Macedonia, to give the gospel to Europe.

Step by step He was the Guide of all their ways, and He is still our Counselor and Guide; and if we will trust Him and acknowledge Him in all our ways, He will direct our steps and lead us into all the fullness of our Father's will.

VIII. IT IS THE POWER FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH.

There is nothing more wonderful than the oversight of the Holy Ghost in the church of the apostolic age. He was its recognized Leader and Head. He directed its councils, and was acknowledged as its President. He controlled its disciples, kept out unworthy members, and preserved it from the touch of the world.

How solemn and awful His dealing with Ananias and Sapphira! How suggestive the solemn statement ”of the rest, durst none join themselves unto them”! Oh, if the Holy Ghost is in the Church, the world will not have to be kept out; it will be only too glad to stay out.

Alas, that day should have come when learning, genius, influence and worldly power should be recognized in the house of G.o.d, and the world should be sought by sinful compromises and unholy attractions, and the church should be baffled and hindered by the ”mixed mult.i.tude” that she has no power to keep away. G.o.d is trying to show His ministers and people that He is adequate for all the needs of His work, and any pastor and church that will fully recognize Him, shall always be prospered and blessed, spiritually, financially, numerically, influentially, and every way.

Oh, that G.o.d would show His Church her true power and glory, and that she might again be the woman ”clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet!”

IX. IT IS THE POWER OF CONVICTION OVER THE HEARTS OF MEN.

The power of the Holy Ghost is not always a conscious power on our part. It is marked chiefly by effectiveness in reaching the hearts of others. On the day of Pentecost, it was the power to convict the consciences of men, and to influence and control their actions. ”They were p.r.i.c.ked to the heart, and they said, Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

It is not always the highest excitement that indicates the strongest power. The great question is, ”What is the effect upon the hearts and lives of men?” When Demosthenes used to speak in Athens, the people forgot all about Demosthenes, and said, ”Let us go and find Philip.” It put the ”go” into them. And so when the Holy Ghost is present in power He leads to results.

The speaker may be very calm, and have little consciousness of the power, but in the audience are men and women who are brought face to face with G.o.d; and the truth is ”manifested to every man's conscience in the sight of G.o.d,” and a Voice within says, ”Thou art the man.” The will is led to decide and choose for G.o.d, and men turn from sin and yield themselves in entire surrender. This is the power we want --the power that ”will convict men of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment;” not the power of great machinery, of thrilling eloquence, melting pathos, and marvelous preaching and singing but the power that quietly moves upon the hearts of men, in their workshops and in their homes, until they are constrained to give themselves to G.o.d.

X. IT IS THE POWER TO SUFFER.

Perhaps there is no more remarkable manifestation of the power of the Holy Ghost, in the early church, than the sweetness and grandeur with which they endured all things for Jesus' sake. Beaten with stripes and humiliated before the council, they came together, not to condole with each other or show their bleeding wounds, but to rejoice ”that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.”

Hunted out of Iconium by a mob of respectable women, pelted with stones and hooted from the community, the ”disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.” Theirs was a gladness that did not recognize their sufferings, but lifted them above persecution, and counted it but part of their coronation.

And so the power of the Holy Ghost will give us the heroism of endurance and enable us, like our Master, for the joy set before us to endure the cross, despising the shame. It will bring about a spirit of self-denial and holy sacrifice; it will make it easy for us to let go things and give up things ”and endure all things for the elect's sake,” and to say with the great apostle, ”Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.”

XI. IT IS THE POWER FOR SERVICE.

Finally this was the power for unwearied, earnest and effective work. It was a power that could enable Paul, in a single lifetime, while supporting himself by his own manual labor, unsupported by any missionary society or church, and without the facilities of our railroads, steamboats, telegraphs and means of communication, to girdle the globe and preach the gospel everywhere, and say in words of superlative triumph, ”So that from Jerusalem, round about unto Illyric.u.m, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”

O, beloved, we are living in an earnest age, and surely the Holy Ghost ought to produce earnest men today. G.o.d give to us this power for work that will multiply our lives until they measure up to the extraordinary opportunities, and to the marvelous intensities of these last days on which the ends of the world are come.

Oh, for a race of Pauls! Oh, for an army of Gideons! Oh, for a band of heroes!

Oh, for the baptism of the Holy Ghost in all the meaning of Pentecost and in all the highest thought of Christ Himself!

Chapter 9.

FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.

”They were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” Acts 2: 4. ”Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” Eph. 5: 18.

I.

These words imply that there is a difference between having the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. These disciples, on the day of Pentecost, had, in some measure, received the Spirit previously. The Lord Jesus must have meant something when He breathed on them and said, ”Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” And the disciples to whom the apostle wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians had already been ”sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise,” which was the earnest of their inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession; but they were not filled with the Spirit.

What this difference is we may not be able to state explicitly or accurately. Our theories and definitions may be at fault, and it is probably unnecessary that we should understand all about it theoretically. The most important thing is that we should feel after it until we find it; that we should long for it and press forward to receive it. It is very probable that many a soul is converted without being distinctly conscious of the process at the time, and that many a Christian receives the gift of the Holy Ghost when he is stumbling after it and reaching out for it in the darkness and the dimness of spiritual trouble. And so we may not know all about this, but we may earnestly desire it and persistently seek until we find it. All divine conditions transcend our understanding, and our most real, intense and important experiences often come to us by processes which we our-elves could not explain.

The most familiar operations of the natural world afford a forcible ill.u.s.tration of this distinction. We all easily understand the difference between the shallow stream and the overflowing river. In both cases there is water, but in one case it is a feeble current, while in the other it is an overflowing stream that drives the innumerable wheels of the factories along the sh.o.r.es. The power all comes from the fullness which causes the overflow.

We can easily understand the difference between a boiler full of water and a boiler full of boiling water. In the one case it is cold water which fills, but which has no power; in the other it is the water converted into steam, driving the wheels of the mighty engine and carrying the cars across the continent along the iron track.

That single degree of temperature makes all the difference in the world between power and impotence. The Scriptures of truth bear out this distinction with the greatest possible clearness and force.

In writing to Timothy, the Apostle Paul says, in the first chapter of the second epistle and sixth verse, ”Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of G.o.d, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. G.o.d hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

The gift was already bestowed and fully recognized, but it was like an expiring flame --the embers of the fire were falling into ashes, and the flame was almost dead. The word used is rekindle, stir up the fading embers, rekindle the fire --be filled with the Spirit.

Again, in 1 Corinthians 12: 7, we read, ”But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.” This word ”profit” expresses the whole difference between receiving the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. Every one may receive the Spirit, but only a few ”profit withal”; that is, improve the gift, develop it, exercise it, and reach its utmost fullness.

All this is perfectly unfolded in the beautiful parable of the pounds, Luke 19. The one pound given to each servant is the special enduement of the Holy Ghost, power for service; but the improvement of the pound, in each case, is different, according to the diligence and fidelity of the servant. And so the outcome of each life is different, and the final reward bears the same proportion. It is a wonderful and solemn truth and places an awful responsibility upon every one of us for the right use of G.o.d's spiritual gifts, and especially that Gift of gifts, the blessed Holy Ghost Himself.

In the twelfth chapter of First Corinthians and the thirteenth verse, we have another remarkable statement: ”For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”

It is one thing to be baptized into the one body by the Spirit; it is another thing to drink into that one Spirit. The first is an act; the second is a habit. The first brings us into a relations.h.i.+p; the second is the true use of that relations.h.i.+p, the drinking of His fullness until we become filled, and the habit of abiding in His fullness so that we are always filled.

Once more, the same truth is very beautifully taught in the story of the widow and her pot of oil, already referred to in connection with 2 Kings 4: 1-7. That little pot of oil represents the Holy Ghost; but the outpouring of the pot of oil into all the vessels which the widow borrowed from her neighbors, ill.u.s.trates the fullness of the Spirit, as we receive Him into all the needs of our life, and into all the circ.u.mstances which G.o.d's providence brings to us as opportunities for the development of our spiritual life and the richer fullness of the Holy Ghost.

So many have the Holy Ghost confined in a little pot of oil and hidden away on the shelf of a cabinet. G.o.d wants us to go out into all the needs of life, and pour that divine fullness into every vessel that comes to us, until our whole life shall be a living embodiment and ill.u.s.tration of the all-sufficiency of Christ.

II.

Let us now inquire what are some of the effects and evidences of the filling of the Holy Ghost.

1. To be filled with the Spirit, in the first place will bring us the fullness of Jesus. The person and work of the Holy Ghost must never be recognized apart from the person of Christ --to do this is sure to lead us into Spiritualism. Natural religion recognizes the spirit world. Spiritualism is full of it. The priestess of Apollo was called the Pythoness, because she inhaled a spiritual influence until her whole body became swollen like a python, and her whole being was alive with intense spiritual force; but it was the spirit of evil; it was a spirit apart from the person of Christ and the true G.o.d.

The Holy Ghost never comes to us apart from Jesus. He is the Way to the Father, and He is the Way from the Father to us; and the blessed Spirit when He comes witnesses not of Himself but of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us be very careful of this. It is possible to become inflated with a spiritual influence, and yet to ignore and even disobey the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be led into pride, self-sufficient sentimentalism, and even sin.