Part 6 (1/2)
Let us receive Him in all His fullness, let us be filled with the Spirit, let us drink of the ocean in which we have been baptized. A Christian friend wrote the other day that his old neighbors had got up a report that he had turned out badly in his Christian life and taken to drinking. He replied, very happily, that it was true he had taken to drinking of late, but that if his old friends could only know what he was drinking they they would all join him, for he had found the fountain of living waters, and was drinking from the Holy Spirit and could say, ”He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst again.”
3. Let us trust the Holy Spirit.
We must believe in the Spirit as well as in the Son, and treat Him with confidence, expecting Him to meet us and bless us, and communicate unto Him all our needs, perplexities, and even our temptations and sins. He was the anti-type of the water of h.o.r.eb's ancient rock, and it is as wrong today as it was for Moses to strike that rock in unbelieving violence, when G.o.d bids us simply to speak to it in gentleness and trust, and expect its waters to gush forth at our whispered call and satisfy out every need.
The Holy Spirit is sensitive to our distrust. Many persons cry for Him and pray to Him as though He were a distant and selfish tyrant, insensible to His children's cry. It is a mother heart to whom we speak, and one who is always within whispering distance of her little ones.
Let us nestle beneath her wings, let us walk in the light of her love, let us trust the Holy Ghost with implicit, childlike confidence, and always expect the answering voice and presence of the Comforter, and it shall be true, ”Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” The apostle asks the Galatians, ”Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?” and adds after, ”we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
This is the only way that we can receive a person-by treating him with confidence, believing that he comes to us in sincerity, and opening the door to him at once, recognize him as a friend, and treat him as a welcome guest. So let us treat the Holy Spirit.
4. Let us obey the Spirit.
The first thing in obedience is to hearken. Especially is this necessary with the gentle Comforter. So gentle is this mother that her voice is not often loud, and may be missed by the inattentive ear; therefore, the beautiful expression is used by the apostle Paul in the 8th chapter of Romans, which reminds us of a mother's voice; ”The minding of the Spirit is life and peace.” We are to mind the Spirit, we are to pay attention to His counsels, commands, and slightest intimations. G.o.d never speaks an idle word, or gives a lesson that we can afford to slight or forget. They who will listen will have much to listen to, but they who slight the voice of G.o.d need not wonder that they are often left in silence.
The Spirit's voice is ''a still small voice.” The heart in which He loves to dwell is a quiet one, where the voice of pa.s.sion and the world's loud tumult is stilled, and His whisper is watched for with delight and attention.
But not only must we hearken; when we know we must obey. The voice of the Spirit is imperative; there can be no compromise, and there should be no delay. G.o.d will not excuse us from His commandments. His word is very deliberately spoken and for our good always, and when the command is given it cannot be recalled. Therefore, if we do not obey we must be involved in darkness, difficulty, and separation from Him. We may plunge on, but the Spirit waits at that point, on the crossroads of life, and we can make no progress until we return and obey Him. Many a bitter experience, many a tear of brokenhearted disappointment and failure have come from refusing to obey. Indeed, such disobedience must be fatal if persisted in. It was just there that Saul halted and lost his kingdom, through disobedience and willfulness in neglecting the voice of G.o.d. It was there that Israel found the fatal crisis of their history at Kadesh Barnea. It was there that, in the apostolic days, a nation was about to reap the same fatal error, and the apostle pleaded with his countrymen so solemnly and gently: ”Today if ye will hear His voice harden not your hearts.”
Happy the heart that promptly obeys the voice of G.o.d. The Spirit delights to lead such a soul. How beautifully we see this ill.u.s.trated in the experience of Paul! At one period of his ministry he was in danger of pressing on in his work beyond the divine command, and so, we are told, he was forbidden of the Spirit to preach the Word in Asia, and essayed to go into Bithynia but the Spirit suffered him not. Happy for him that he obeyed both these restraints. Had he persisted. in his way, and even succeeded in getting down to Ephesus, he would have found every door closed, and his visit would have been premature.
Waiting on G.o.d's bidding and way a year longer he was permitted to go afterwards and found the door wide open, and his next and perhaps most successful ministry was given to him at Ephesus, while in obedience, that led him now into Europe, he was permitted to establish the Gospel in that mighty continent.
A little later, we see the very opposite lesson exemplified in his life. We are told that he purposed in Spirit to go to Jerusalem and Rome. This was a personal direction of the Holy Ghost to him, and in consequence he determined upon the greatest purpose of his life, to carry the gospel to his countrymen at Jerusalem, and then to establish Christianity in the capital of the world.
It was well that he proposed it in the Spirit, and that he was sure of G.o.d's command, for the difficulties that afterwards met him would have been insuperable on any human line.
First, the very servants of G.o.d met him all along the way, and even prophetic messengers warned him not to go to Jerusalem, but the brave apostle kept to his promise and pressed divinely on.
Next, the whole power of unbelieving Judaism arrayed itself against him, tried to mob him at Jerusalem, to a.s.sa.s.sinate him on the way to Caesarea, and then to condemn him before the tribunal of Felix, Festus and Agrippa, but still he pressed steadfastly on.
Next, the intriguing policy and imperial power of Rome itself confronted him, and held him two years a prisoner at Caesarea, but he never for a moment abandoned his purpose.
At length he was on his way to Rome, but then the very elements of nature and the powers of h.e.l.l combined in one last effort to destroy him. The fierce Euroclydon of the Mediterranean wrecked his s.h.i.+p, and on Malta's sh.o.r.e the viper from the flames fastened upon his hand, but he still pressed on in indomitable might, in obedience to the Holy Ghost, and so he reached Rome and planted the standard of the cross before the palace of the Caesars, witnessed for Christ in the face of imprisonment and martyrdom, and at last looked down from heaven on the spectacle of Christianity the established religion of the whole ”Roman empire three hundred years later.
Thus let us obey the Holy Ghost, whether it be in silence or in activity, and we shall find that if He be to us our Wonderful Counsellor, He shall certainly prove our mighty G.o.d.
5. Let us honor the Holy Ghost.
Less than any other person does He honor Himself. His constant business is to exalt Christ and hide behind His person. Therefore, the Father is pleased when we exalt and honor Him, and He Himself will especially use the instrument which gives Him the glory. ”Honor the Holy Ghost and He will honor you,” was the counsel of an aged Christian patriarch who had seen many a mighty awakening in the church of G.o.d.
It is indeed true and specially important in this material and rationalistic age, when even the ministers of Christ sometimes seem to wish to eliminate the supernatural from the Scriptures and the church, and find any other explanation than the power of G.o.d for His supernatural working.
The special dispensation of the Holy Ghost is drawing to its close. We may therefore expect that He will manifest His power in unusual methods and degrees as the age draws to its close.
Let us understand Him and be in sympathy with His divine thought, and ready to follow His wise and mighty leaders.h.i.+p unto the last campaign of Christianity. Why should we ever be looking back to Pentecost? Why should we not expect His mightiest triumphs in the immediate future, and, as Joel has prophesied, ”before the great and terrible day of the Lord.”
CHAPTER 12.
HINDERING THE HOLY SPIRIT.
”Grieve not the Holy Spirit of G.o.d.”--Eph. iv: 80.
”Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.”--Acts vii: 51.
”Quench not the Spirit. ”-1 Thess. v: 19.
It is very touching and solemn that while the Holy Ghost might, in the exercise of His omnipotence, coerce our will, and compel us to submit to His authority, yet He approaches us with the most deferential regard for our feelings and independence, even suffering us to resist and disobey Him, and bearing long with our willfulness and waywardness.
There are several terms used in the Scriptures to denote the manner in which we may sin against the Holy Spirit.
I.
We May Quench the Spirit.
This has reference, perhaps, mainly to the hindrance we offer to His work in others, rather than to our resistance of His personal dealings with our own souls.
Among the various hindrances which we may offer to the Holy Spirit may be mentioned such as these: 1. We may refuse to obey His impulses in us when He bids us speak or act for Him. We may be conscious of a distinct impression of the Spirit of G.o.d bidding us to testify for Christ, and by disobedience, or timidity, or procrastination, we may quench His working, both in our own soul and in the heart of another 2. We must suppress His voice in others, either by using our authority to restrain His messages, when He speaks through His servants or refusing to allow the liberty of testimony. Many hold the reins of ecclesiastical authority unduly, and thus lose the free and effectual working of the Holy Ghost in their churches and in their work.
There is a less direct way, however, of politely silencing Him by forcing Him out, and so filling the atmosphere with the spirit of stiffness, criticism, and a certain air of respectability and rigidness that He gently withdraws from the uncongenial scene, and refuses to thrust His messages upon unwilling hearts.
3. The Spirit may be grieved by the method of public wors.h.i.+p in a congregation.
It may be either so stiff and formal that there is no room for His spontaneous working, or so full of worldly and unscriptural elements as to repel and offend Him from taking any part in a pompous ritual. An operatic choir and a ritualistic service will effectually quench all the fire of G.o.d's altar, and send the gentle dove to seek a simpler nest.
4. The Spirit may be quenched by the preacher, and his spirit and method.
His own manner may be so intellectual and self-conscious, and his own spirit so thoroughly cold and vain that the Holy Ghost is neither recognized nor known in his work. His sermons may be on themes in which the Spirit has no interest, for He only witnesses to the Holy Scriptures and the person of Christ, and wearily turns away from the discussion of philosophy, and the stale show of critical brilliancy over the questions of the day or the speculations of man's own vain reason.
Perhaps his address is so rigidly written down that the Holy Spirit could not find a opportunity for even a suggestion, if He so desired, and His promptings and leading so coolly set aside by a course of elaborate preparation which leaves no room for G.o.d.
5. The spirit of error in the teachings of the pulpit will always quench the Holy Spirit.
He is jealous for His own inspired Word and when vain man attempts to set it aside He looks on with indignation, and expose such teachers to humiliation and failure.
The spirit of self-a.s.sertion and self -consciousness is always fatal to the free working of the Holy Ghost.
When a man stands up in the sacred desk to air his eloquence and call attention to his intellectual brilliancy, or to preach himself in any sense, he will always be deserted by the Holy Spirit. He uses the things ”that are not to bring to naught the things that are.” And before we can expect to become the instruments of His power, we must wholly cease from self and be lost in the person and glory of Jesus.
6. The spirit of pride, fas.h.i.+on and worldly display in the pews, is just as fatal as ambition in the pulpit.
Such an atmosphere seems to freeze out the spirit of devotion, and erect on the throne of the lowly Nazarene a G.o.ddess of carnal pride and pleasure, like the foul Venus that the Parisian mob set up in the Madeleine at Paris in the days of the revolution, as an object of wors.h.i.+p. From such an atmosphere the Holy Ghost turns away grieved and disgusted.
7. The quickening and reviving influences of the Holy Ghost are often quenched in the very hour of promise by wrong methods in the work of Christ's church.
How often, on the eve of a real revival, the minds of the people have been led away by some public entertainment in connection with the house of G.o.d, or its after-fruits withered by a series of unholy fairs and secular bids for money, and the introduction of the broker and the cattle-vender into the cleansed temple of Jehovah, as in the days of Christ.