“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
One day, in a fit of boyish temper, I spoke hot words of anger, somewhat unjustly, against another person, and this deeply grieved my mother. She said but little, and though her sweet face has mouldered many years beneath the Southern daisies, her look of grief I can still see across the years of a third of a century. And that is the one sad memory of my childhood. A stranger might have been amused or incensed at my words, but mother was grieved—grieved to her heart by my lack of generous, self-forgetful, thoughtful love.
We can anger a stranger or an enemy, but it is only a friend we grieve. The Holy Spirit is such a Friend, more tender and faithful than a mother; and shall we carelessly offend Him, and estrange ourselves from Him in spite of His love?
There is a sense in which every sin is against the Holy Ghost. Of course, not every such sin is unpardonable, but the tendency of all sin is in that direction, and we are only safe as we avoid the very beginnings of sin. Only as we “walk in the Spirit” are we “free from the law of sin and death” (Romans viii. 2). Therefore, it is infinitely important that we beware of offences against the Spirit, “lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews iii. 13).
Grieving the Holy Spirit is a very common and a very sad offence of professing Christians, and it is to this that must be attributed much of the weakness and ignorance and joylessness of so many followers of Christ.
And He is grieved, as was my mother, by the unloving speech and spirit of God’s children.
In his letters to the Ephesians, Paul says, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” And then he adds: “And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us” (Eph. iv. 29-v. 2).
What does Paul teach us here? That it is not by some huge wickedness, some Judas-like betrayal, some tempting and lying to the Holy Ghost, as did Ananias and Sapphira (Acts v. 1-9), that we grieve Him, but by that which most people count little and unimportant; by talk that corrupts instead of blessing and building up those that hear, by gossip, by bitterness, and uncharitable criticisms and fault-findings. This was the sin of the elder son when the prodigal returned, and it was by this he pierced with grief the kind old father’s heart.
By getting in a rage, by loud, angry talking and evil-speaking and petty malice, by unkindness and hard-heartedness and an unforgiving spirit, we grieve Him. In a word, by not walking through the world as in our Father’s house, and among our neighbours and friends as among His dear children; by not loving tenderly and making kindly sacrifices for one another, He is grieved. And this is not a matter of little importance. It may have sadly momentous consequences.
It is a bitter, cruel, and often an irreparable thing to trifle with a valuable earthly friendship. How much more when the friendship is heavenly? when the Friend is our Lord and Saviour, our Creator and Redeemer, our Governor and Judge, our Teacher, Guide, and God? When we trifle with a friend’s wishes—especially when such wishes are all in perfect harmony with and for our highest possible good—we may not estrange the friend from us, but we estrange ourselves from our friend. Our hearts grow cold toward him, though his heart may be breaking with longing toward us.
The more Saul ill-treated David, the more he hated David.
Such estrangement may lead, little by little, to yet greater sin, to strange hardness of heart, to doubts and unbelief, and backslidings and denial of the Lord.
The cure for all this is a clean heart full of sweet and gentle, self-forgetful, generous love. Then we shall be “followers of God as dear children,” then we shall “walk in love as Christ loved us, and gave Himself for us.”
But there is another offence, that of quenching the Spirit, which accounts for the comparative darkness and deadness of many of God’s children.
In I Thess. v. 16-19 the Apostle says: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit.”
When will the Lord’s dear children learn that the religion of Jesus is a lowly thing, and that it is the little foxes that spoil the vines? Does not the Apostle here teach that it is not by some desperate, dastardly deed that we quench the Spirit, but simply by neglecting to rejoice and pray, and give thanks at all times and for all things?
It is not necessary to blot the sun out of the heavens to keep the sunlight out of your house—just close the blinds and draw the curtains; nor do you pour barrels of water on the flames to quench the fire—just shut off the draught; nor do you dynamite the city reservoir and destroy all the mains and pipes to cut off your supply of sparkling water, but just refrain from turning on the main.
So you do not need to do some great evil, some deadly sin, to quench the Spirit. Just cease to rejoice, through fear of man and of being peculiar; be prim and proper as a white and polished gravestone; let gushing joy be curbed; neglect to pray when you feel a gentle pull in your heart to get alone with the Lord; omit giving hearty thanks for all God’s tender mercies, faithful discipline and loving chastenings, and soon you will find the Spirit quenched. He will no longer spring up joyously like a well of living water within you.
But give the Spirit a vent, an opening, a chance, and He will rise within you and flood your soul with light and love and joy.
Some years ago a sanctified woman of clear experience went alone to keep her daily hour with God; but, to her surprise, it seemed that she could not find Him, either in prayer or in His word. She searched her heart for evidence of sin, but the Spirit showed her nothing contrary to God in her mind, heart, or will. She searched her memory for any breach of covenant, any broken vows, any neglect, any omission, but could find none.
Then she asked the Lord to show her if there were any duty unfulfilled, any command unnoticed, which she might perform, and quick as thought came the often-read words, “Rejoice evermore.” “Have you done that this morning?”
She had not. It had been a busy morning, and a well-spent one, but so far there had been no definite rejoicing in her heart, though the manifold riches and ground for joy of all Christians were hers.
At once she began to count her blessings and thank the Lord for each one, and rejoice in Him for all the way He had led her, and the gifts He had bestowed, and in a very few minutes the Lord stood revealed to her spiritual consciousness.
She had not committed sin, nor resisted the Spirit, but a failure to rejoice in Him who had daily loaded her with benefits (Psalm lxviii. 19) had in a measure quenched the Spirit. She had not turned the main, and so her soul was not flooded with living waters. She had not remembered the command: “Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.” But that morning she learned a lifelong lesson, and she has ever since safeguarded her soul by obeying the many commands to “Rejoice in the Lord.”
Grieving and quenching the Spirit will not only leave barren and desolate an individual soul, but it will do so for a Corps, a church, a community, a whole nation or continent. We see this illustrated on a large scale by the long and weary Dark Ages, when the light of the Gospel was almost extinguished, and only here and there was the darkness broken by the torch of truth held aloft by some humble, suffering soul that had wept and prayed, and through painful struggles had found the light.
We see it also in those Corps, churches, communities, and countries where revivals are unknown, or are a thing of the past, where souls are not born into the Kingdom, and where there is no joyous shout of victory among the people of God.
Grieving and quenching the Spirit may be done unintentionally by lack of thought and prayer and hearty devotion to the Lord Jesus; but they prepare the way and lead to intentional and positive resistance to the Spirit.
To resist the Spirit is to fight against Him.
The sinner who, listening to the Gospel invitation, and convicted of sin, refuses to submit to God in true repentance and faith in Jesus, is resisting the Holy Spirit. We have bold and striking historical illustrations of the danger of resisting the Holy Spirit in the disasters which befell Pharaoh, and the terrible calamities which came upon Jerusalem, and have for twenty centuries followed the Jews.
The ten plagues that came upon Pharaoh and his people were ten opportunities and open doors into God’s favour and fellowship, which they themselves shut by their stubborn resistance, only to be overtaken by dreadful catastrophe.
To the Jews, Stephen said: “Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts vii. 51); and the siege and fall of Jerusalem, and the butchery and banishment and enslavement of its inhabitants, and all the woes that came upon the Jews, followed their rejection of Jesus and the hardness of heart and spiritual blindness which swiftly overtook them when they resisted all the loving efforts and entreaties of His disciples baptised with the Holy Spirit.
And what on a large scale befalls nations and people, on a small scale also befalls individuals. Those that receive and obey the Lord are enlightened and blessed and saved; those that resist and reject Him are sadly left to themselves and surely swallowed up in destruction.
Likewise the professing Christian who hears of heart-holiness and cleansing from all sin as a blessing he may now have by faith, and, convicted of his need of the blessing and of God’s desire and willingness to bestow it upon him now, refuses to seek it in whole-hearted affectionate consecration and faith, is resisting the Holy Spirit. And such resistance imperils the soul beyond all possible computation.
We see an example of this in the Israelites who were brought out of Egypt with signs and wonders, and led through the Red Sea and the wilderness to the borders of Canaan, but, forgetting, refused to go over into the land. In this they resisted the Holy Spirit in His leadings as surely as did Pharaoh, and with quite as disastrous results to themselves, perishing in their evil way.
For their sin was as much greater than his as their light exceeded his.
Hundreds of years later, Isaiah, writing of this time, says: “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bare them, and carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled, and vexed His Holy Spirit; therefore He was turned to be their enemy, and He fought against them” (Isaiah lxiii. 9, 10).
We see from this that Christians must beware and watch and pray and walk softly with the Lord in glad obedience and childlike faith, if they would escape the darkness and dryness that result from grieving and quenching the Spirit, and the dangers that surely come from resisting Him.
“Arm me with jealous care,As in Thy sight to live;And, Oh, Thy servant, Lord, prepare,A strict account to give.
“Help me to watch and pray,And on Thyself rely,Assured if I my trust betray,I shall for ever die.”
“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
Is Jesus Christ divine? Is the Bible an inspired Book? Is man a fallen creature who can be saved only through the suffering and sacrifice of the Creator? Will there be a resurrection of the dead, and a day in which God will judge all the world by the Man Christ Jesus? Is Satan a personal being, and is there a Hell in which the wicked will be for ever punished?
These are great doctrines which have been held and taught by His followers since the days of Jesus and His Apostles, and yet they are ever being attacked and denied.
Are they true? Or are they only fancies and falsehoods, or figures of speech and distortions of truth? How can we find truth and know it?
Jesus said, “When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth” (John xvi. 13).
What truth? Not the truth of the multiplication table, or of physical science, or art, or secular history, but spiritual truth—the truth about God and His will and character, and our relations to Him in Christ—that truth which is necessary to salvation and holiness—into all this truth the Holy Spirit will guide us. “He shall teach you all things,” said Jesus (John xiv. 26).
How, then, shall we escape error and be “sound in doctrine”? Only by the help of the Holy Spirit.
How do we know Jesus Christ is divine? Because the Bible tells us so? Infinitely precious and important is this revelation in the Bible; but not by this do we know it. Because the Church teaches it in her creed, and we have heard it from the catechism? Nothing taught in any creed or catechism is of more vital importance; but neither by this do we know it.
How then? Listen to Paul: “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost” (I Cor. xii. 3). “No man,” says Paul. Then learning it from the Bible or catechism is not to know it except as the parrot might know it; but every man is to be taught this by the Holy Spirit, if he is to really know it.
Then it is not a revelation made once for all, and only to the men who walked and talked with Jesus, but it is a spiritual revelation made anew to each believing heart that in penitence seeks Him and so meets the conditions of such a revelation.
Then the poor, degraded, ignorant outcast at The Army penitent-form in the slums of London or Chicago, who never heard of a creed, and the ebony African and dusky Indian, who never saw the inside of a Bible, may have Christ revealed in him, and know by the revelation of the Holy Spirit that Jesus is Lord.
“It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me,” wrote Paul (Gal. i. 15, 16); and again, “Christ liveth in me” (Gal. ii. 20); and again, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. iv. 19); as though Christ is to be spiritually formed in the heart of each believer by the operation of the Holy Spirit, as He was physically formed in the womb of Mary by the same Spirit (Luke i. 35); and again, “The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints,... which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. i. 26, 27); “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith” (Eph. iii. 17); “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates” (2 Cor. xiii. 5)?
“At that day,” said Jesus, when making His great promise of the Comforter to His disciples, “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you” (John xiv. 20); and again, in His great prayer, He said: “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
It is this ever-recurring revelation to penitent, believing hearts, by the agency of the ever-present Holy Spirit, that makes faith in Jesus Christ living and invincible. “I know He is Lord, for He saves my soul from sin, and He saves me now,” is an argument that rationalism and unbelief cannot answer nor overthrow, and so long as there are men in the world who can say this, faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ is secure; and this experience and witness come by the Holy Ghost.
“I worship Thee, O Holy Ghost,I love to worship Thee;My risen Lord for aye were lostBut for Thy company.”
And so it is by the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit that all saving truth becomes vital to us.
It is He that makes the Bible a living Book; it is He that convinces the world of judgment (John xvi. 8-11); it is He that makes men certain that there is a Heaven of surpassing and enduring glory and joy, and a Hell of endless sorrow and woe for those who sin away their day of grace and die in impenitence.
Who have been the mightiest and most faithful preachers of the gloom and terror and pain of a perpetual Hell? those who have been the mightiest and most effective preachers of God’s compassionate love.
In all periods of great revival, when men seemed to live on the borderland, and in the vision of eternity, Hell has been preached. The leaders in these revivals have been men of prayer and faith and consuming love, but they have been men who knew “the terrors of the Lord,” and, therefore, they preached the judgments of God, and they proved that the law with its penalties is a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ (Gal. iii. 24). Fox, the Quaker; Bunyan, the Baptist; Baxter, the Puritan; Wesley and Fletcher, and Whitefield and Caughey, the Methodists; Finney, the Presbyterian; Edwards and Moody, the Congregationalists; and General Booth, the Salvationist, have preached it, not savagely, but tenderly and faithfully, as a mother might warn her child against some great danger that would surely follow careless and selfish wrong-doing.
What men have loved and laboured and sacrificed as these men? Their hearts have been a flaming furnace of love and devotion to God, and an over-flowing fountain of love and compassion for men; but just in proportion as they have discovered God’s love and pity for the sinner, so have they discovered His wrath against sin and all obstinate wrong-doing; and as they have caught glimpses of Heaven and declared its joys and everlasting glories to men, so they have seen Hell, with its endless punishment, and with trembling voice and overflowing eyes have they warned men to “flee from the wrath to come.”
Were these men, throbbing with spiritual life and consumed with devotion to the Kingdom of God and the everlasting well-being of their fellowmen, led to this belief by the Spirit of Truth, or were they misled? Is it the prophet, weeping and praying and preaching and fighting for God and men, to whom the Spirit has always first spoken and revealed the things of God? Or is it the philosopher, or dry-as-dust theologian, or the popular preacher of smooth things, sitting in his study and among his books, spinning out of his own mind his conceits concerning God’s plan and purpose in the universe?
Does Seneca or the Psalmist, Plato or Paul, Rousseau or Wesley, the idolised, high-salaried, soft-raimented preacher of a wide gate and broad way to life and Heaven, or the veteran soul-winner, General Booth, more clearly make known the mind of God in matters that are spiritual?
“The things of the Spirit... are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. ii. 14), says Paul. It is not by searching and philosophising that these things are found out, but by revelation. “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,” said Jesus to Peter, “but My Father which is in Heaven” (Matthew xvi. 17). The great teacher of truth is the Spirit of Truth, and the only safe expounders and guardians of sound doctrine are men filled with the Holy Ghost.
Study and research have their place, and an important place; but in spiritual things they will be no avail unless prosecuted by spiritual men. As well might men blind from birth attempt to study the starry heavens, and men born deaf undertake to expound and criticise the harmonies of Bach and Beethoven. Men must see and hear to speak and write intelligently on such subjects. And so men must be spiritually enlightened to understand spiritual truth.
The greatest danger to any religious organisation is that a body of men should arise in its ranks, and hold its positions of trust, who have learned its great fundamental doctrines by rote out of the catechism, but have no experimental knowledge of their truth inwrought by the mighty anointing of the Holy Ghost, and who are destitute of “an unction from the Holy One,” by which, says John, “ye know all things” (1 John ii. 20, 27).
Why do men deny the divinity of Jesus Christ? Because they have never placed themselves in that relation to the Spirit, and met those unchanging conditions that would enable Him to reveal Jesus to them as Saviour and Lord.
Why do men dispute the inspiration of the Scriptures? Because the Holy Ghost, who inspired “holy men of God” to write the Book (2 Peter i. 21), hides its spiritual sense from unspiritual and unholy men.
Why do men doubt a Day of Judgment, and a state of everlasting doom? Because they have never been bowed and broken and crushed beneath the weight of their sin, and by a sense of guilt and separation from a holy God that can only be removed by faith in His dying Son.
A sportsman lost his way in a pitiless storm on a black and starless night. Suddenly his horse drew back and refused to take another step. He urged it forward, but it only threw itself back upon its haunches. Just then a vivid flash of lightning revealed a great precipice upon the brink of which he stood. It was but an instant, and then the pitchy blackness hid it again from view. But he turned his horse and anxiously rode away from the terrible danger.
A distinguished professor of religion said to me some time ago, “I dislike, I abhor, the doctrine of Hell”; and then after a while added, “But three times in my life I have seen that there was eternal separation from God and an everlasting Hell for me, if I walked not in the way God was calling me to go.”
Into the blackness of the sinner’s night the Holy Spirit, who is patiently and compassionately seeking the salvation of all men, flashes a light that gives him a glimpse of eternal things which, heeded, would lead to the sweet peace and security of eternal day. For when the Holy Spirit is heeded and honoured, the night passes, the shadows flee away, the day dawns, “the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings,” and, saved and sanctified, men walk in His light in safety and joy. Doctrines which before were repellent to the carnal mind, and but foolishness, or a stumbling-block to the heart of unbelief, now become precious and satisfying to the soul; and truths which before were hid in impenetrable darkness, or seen only as through dense gloom and fog, are now seen clearly as in the light of broad day.
“Hold thou the faith that Christ is Lord,God over all, who died and rose;And everlasting life bestowsOn all who hear the living word.For thee His life-blood He out-poured,His Spirit sets thy spirit free;Hold thou the faith—He dwells in thee,And thou in Him, and Christ is Lord!”
“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
An important work of the Holy Spirit is to teach us how to pray, instruct us what to pray for, and inspire us to pray earnestly, without ceasing, and in faith, for the things we desire and the things that are dear to the heart of the Lord.
In a familiar verse, the poet Montgomery says:
“Prayer is the burden of a sigh,The falling of a tear,The upward glancing of the eye,When none but God is near.”
And no doubt he is right. Prayer is exceedingly simple. The faintest cry for help, a whisper for mercy, is prayer. But when the Holy Spirit comes and fills the soul with His blessed presence, prayer becomes more than a cry; it ceases to be a feeble request, and often becomes a strife (Romans xv. 30; Col. iv. 12) for greater things, a conflict, an invincible argument, a wrestling with God, and through it men enter into the Divine councils and rise into a blessed and responsible fellowship in some important sense with the Father and the Son in the moral government of the world.
It was in this spirit and fellowship that Abraham prayed for Sodom (Genesis xviii. 23-32); that Moses interceded for Israel, and stood between them and God’s hot displeasure (Exodus xxxii. 7-14); and that Elijah prevailed to shut up the heavens for three years and six months, and then again prevailed in his prayer for rain.
God would have us come to Him not only as a foolish and ignorant child comes, but as an ambassador to his home government; as a full-grown son who has become of age and entered into partnership with his father; as a bride who is one in all interests and affections with the bridegroom.
He would have us “come boldly to the throne of grace” with a well-reasoned and Scriptural understanding of what we desire, and with a purpose to “ask,” “seek,” and “knock” till we get the thing we wish, being assured that it is according to His will; and this boldness is not inconsistent with the profoundest humility and a sense of utter dependence; indeed, it is always accompanied by self-distrust and humble reliance upon the merits of Jesus, else it is but presumption and unsanctified conceit. This union of assurance and humility, of boldness and dependence, can be secured only by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and only so can one be prepared and fitted for such prayer.
Three great obstacles hinder mighty prayer:
1. selfishness; 2, unbelief; 3, the darkness of ignorance and foolishness. The baptism with the Spirit sweeps away these obstacles and brings in the three great essentials to prayer—1, faith; 2, love, Divine love; 3, the light of heavenly knowledge and wisdom.
1. Selfishness must be cast out by the incoming of love. The ambassador must not be seeking personal ends, but the interests of his government and the people he represents; the son must not be seeking private gain, but the common prosperity of the partnership in which he will fully and lawfully share; the bride must not forget him to whom she belongs, and seek separate ends, but in all ways identify herself with her husband and his interests.
So the child of God must come in prayer, unselfishly.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit, with our co-operation and glad consent, to search and destroy selfishness out of our hearts, and fill them with pure love to God and man. And when this is done we shall not then be asking for things amiss to consume them upon our lusts, to gratify our appetites, or pride, or ambition, or ease, or vain-glory. We shall seek only the glory of our Lord and the common good of our fellow-men, in which, as co-workers and partners, we shall have a common share. If we ask for success, it is not that we may be exalted, but that God may be glorified; that Jesus may secure the purchase of His blood; that men may be saved, and the Kingdom of Heaven be established upon earth.
If we ask for daily bread, it is not that we may be full, but that we may be fitted for daily duty. If we ask for health, it is not alone that we may be free from pain and filled with physical comfort, but that we may be spent “in publishing the sinner’s Friend,” in fulfilling the work for which God has placed us here.
2. Unbelief must be destroyed. Doubt paralyzes prayer. Unbelief quenches the spirit of intercession. Only as the eye of faith sees our Father God upon the Throne guaranteeing to us rights and privileges by the blood of His Son, and inviting us to come without fear, and make our wants known, does prayer rise from the commonplace to the sublime; does it cease to be a feeble, timid cry, and become a mighty spiritual force, moving God Himself in the interests which it seeks.
Men, wise with the wisdom of this world, but poor and naked and blind and foolish in matters of faith, ask: “Will God change His plans at the request of man?” And we answer, “Yes,” since many of God’s plans are made contingent upon the prayers of His people, and He has ordered that prayer offered in faith, according to His will, revealed in His word, shall be one of the controlling factors in His government of men.
Is it God’s will that the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific should sweep across the Isthmus of Panama? That men should run under the Alps? That thoughts and words should be winged across the ocean without any visible or tangible medium? Yes; it is His will, if men will it, and work to these ends in harmony with His great physical laws. So in the spiritual world there are wonders wrought by prayer, and God wills the will of His people when they come to Him in faith and love.
What else is meant by such promises and assurances as these: “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark xi. 24); “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit” (James v. 16-18. American Revision).
The Holy Spirit dwelling within the heart helps us to understand the things we may pray for, and the heart that is full of love and loyalty to God only wants what is lawful. This is mystery to people who are under the dominion of selfishness and the darkness of unbelief, but it is a soul-thrilling fact to those who are filled with the Holy Ghost.
“What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?” asked Jesus of the blind man (Luke xviii. 41).
He had respect to the will of the blind man, and granted his request, seeing he had faith. And He still has respect to the vigorous, sanctified will of His people—the will that has been subdued by consecration and faith into loving union with His will.
The Lord answered Abraham on behalf of Sodom till he ceased to ask.
“The Lord has had His way so long with Hudson Taylor,” said a friend, “that now, Hudson Taylor can have his way with the Lord.”
Adoniram Judson lay sick with a fatal illness in far-away Burmah. His wife read to him an account of the conversion of a number of Jews in Constantinople through some of his writings. For a while the sick man was silent, and then he spoke with awe, telling his wife that for years he had prayed that he might be used in some way to bless the Jews, yet never having seen any evidence that his prayers were answered; but now, after many years and from far away, the evidence of answer had come. And then, after further silence, he spoke with deep emotion, saying that he had never prayed a prayer for the glory of God and the good of men but that, sooner or later, even though for the time being he had forgotten, he found that God had not forgotten, but had remembered and patiently worked to answer his prayer.
Oh, the faithfulness of God! He means it when He makes promises and exhorts and urges and commands us to pray. It is not His purpose to mock us, but to answer and “to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” Bless His holy Name!
3. Knowledge and wisdom must take the place of foolish ignorance. Paul says, “We know not what we should pray for as we ought,” and then adds, “But the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans viii. 26). If my little child asks for a glittering razor, I refuse its request; but when my full-grown son asks for one I grant it. So God cannot wisely answer some prayers, for they are foolish or untimely. Hence, we need not love and faith only, but wisdom and knowledge, that we may ask according to the will of God.
It is this that Paul has in mind when he says that he will not only pray with the Spirit, but “I will pray with the understanding also” (I Cor. xiv. 15). Men should think before they pray, and study that they may pray wisely.
Now, when the Holy Spirit comes there pours into the soul not only a tide of love and simple faith, but a flood of light as well, and prayer becomes not only earnest, but intelligent also. And this intelligence increases, as, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the word of God is studied, and its heavenly truths and principles are grasped and assimilated.
It is thus men come to know God and become His friends, whose prayers He will assist and will not deny.
Such men talk with God as friend with friend, and the Holy Spirit helps their infirmities; encourages them to urge their prayer in faith; teaches them to reason with God; enables them to come boldly in the name of Jesus, when oppressed with a sense of their own insignificance and unworthiness; and, when words fail them and they scarcely know how to voice their desires, He intercedes within them with unutterable groanings, according to the will of God (Romans viii. 26, 27; 1 Cor. ii. 11).
A young man felt called to mission work in China, but his mother offered strong opposition to his going. An agent of the mission, knowing the need of the work, and vexed with the mother, one day laid the case before Hudson Taylor.
“Mr. Taylor,” said he, “listened patiently and lovingly to all I had to say, and then gently suggested our praying about it. Such a prayer I have never heard before! It seemed to me more like a conversation with a trusted friend whose advice he was seeking. He talked the matter over with the Friend from every point of view—from the side of the young man, from the side of China’s needs, from the side of the mother, and her natural feelings, and also from my side. It was a revelation to me. I saw that prayer did not mean merely asking for things, much less asking for things to be carried out by God according to our ideas; but that it meanscommunion, fellowship, partnership, with our Heavenly Father. And when our will is really blended with His, what liberty we may have in asking for what we want!”
Hallelujah!
“My soul, ask what thou wilt,Thou canst not be too bold;Since His own blood for thee He spilt,What else can He withhold?”
“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
Since God saves men by “the foolishness of preaching,” the preacher has an infinitely important work, and he must be fitted for it. But what can fit a man for such sacred work? Not education alone, not knowledge of books, not gifts of speech, not winsome manners, nor a magnetic voice, nor a commanding presence, but only God. The preacher must be more than a man—he must be a man plus the Holy Ghost.
Paul was such a man. He was full of the Holy Spirit, and in studying his life and ministry we get a life-sized portrait of an anointed preacher living, fighting, preaching, praying, suffering, triumphing, and dying in the power and light and glory of the indwelling Spirit.
In the second chapter of the First of Thessalonians he gives us a picture of his character and ministry which were formed and inspired by the Holy Spirit, a sample of His workmanship, and an example for all Gospel preachers.
At Philippi he had been terribly beaten with stripes on his bare back, and roughly thrust into the inner dungeon, and his feet were made fast in the stocks; but that did not break nor quench his spirit. Love burned in his heart, and his joy in the Lord brimmed full and bubbled over, and at midnight, in the damp, dark, loathsome dungeon, he and Silas, his comrade in service and suffering, “prayed and sang praises unto God.” God answered with an earthquake, and the jailer and his household got gloriously converted. Paul was set free and went at once to Thessalonica, where, regardless of the shameful way he had been treated at Philippi, he preached the Gospel boldly, and a blessed revival followed with many converts; but persecution arose, and Paul had again to flee. His heart, however, was continually turning back to these converts, and at last he sat down and wrote them this letter. From this we learn that—
1. He was ajoyfulpreacher. He was no pessimist, croaking out doleful prophecies and lamentations and bitter criticisms. He was full of the joy of the Lord. It was not the joy that comes from good health, a pleasant home, plenty of money, wholesome food, numerous and smiling friends, and sunny, favouring skies; but a deep, springing fountain of solemn, gladdening joy that abounded and overflowed in pain and weariness, in filthy, noisome surroundings, in loneliness and poverty, and danger and bitter persecutions. No earth-born trial could quench it, for it was Heaven-born; it was “the joy of the Lord” poured into his heart with the Holy Spirit.
2. He was aboldpreacher. Worldly prudence would have constrained him to go softly at Thessalonica, after his experience at Philippi, lest he arouse opposition and meet again with personal violence; but, instead, he says: “We were bold in our God to speak unto you the Gospel of God with much contention.” Personal considerations were all forgotten, or cast to the winds, in his impetuous desire to declare the Gospel and save their souls. He lived in the will of God, and conquered his fears. “The wicked” are fearful, and “flee when no man pursueth; but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”
This boldness is a fruit of righteousness, and is always found in those who are full of the Holy Ghost. They forget themselves, and so lose all fear. This was the secret of the martyrs when burned at the stake or thrown to the wild beasts.
Fear is a fruit of selfishness. Boldness thrives when selfishness is destroyed. God esteems it, commands His people to be courageous, and makes spiritual leaders only of those who possess courage (Joshua i. 9).
Moses feared not the wrath of the king, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and boldly espoused the cause of his despised and enslaved people.
Joshua was full of courage. Gideon fearlessly attacked one hundred and twenty thousand Midianites, with but three hundred unarmed men.
Jonathan and his armour-bearer charged the Philistine garrison and routed hundreds singlehanded.
David faced the lion and the bear, and inspired all Israel by battling with and killing Goliath.
The prophets were men of the highest courage, who fearlessly rebuked kings, and at the risk of life, and often at the cost of life, denounced popular sins, and called the people back to righteousness and the faithful service of God. These men feared God, and so lost the fear of man. They believed God, and so obeyed Him, and found His favour, and were entrusted with His high missions and everlasting employments.
“Fear thou not, for I am with thee,” saith the Lord; and this Paul believed, and so says, “We were bold in our God.” God was his high tower, his strength and unfailing defence, and so he was not afraid.
His boldness toward man was a fruit of his boldness toward God, and that, in turn, was a fruit of his faith in Jesus as his High Priest, who had been touched with the feeling of his infirmities, and through whom he could “come boldly to the Throne of Grace, and obtain mercy, and find grace to help in every time of need.”
It is the timidity and delicacy with which men attempt God’s work that often accounts for their failure. Let them speak out boldly like men, as ambassadors of Heaven, who are not afraid to represent their King, and they will command attention and respect, and reach the hearts and consciences of men.
I have read that quaint old Bishop Latimer, who was afterwards burned at the stake, “having preached a sermon before King Henry VIII, which greatly displeased the monarch, was ordered to preach again on the next Sunday, and make apology for the offence given. The day came, and with it a crowded assembly anxious to hear the bishop’s apology. Reading his text, he commenced thus: ’Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty monarch, the king’s most excellent majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest. Therefore, take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease. But, then, consider well, Hugh, dost thou not know from whence thou comest? Upon whose message thou art sent? Even by the great and mighty God, who is all-present, and who beholdeth all thy ways, and who is able to cast thy soul into Hell! Therefore, take care that thou deliver thy message faithfully.’”
He then repeated the sermon of the previous Sunday, word for word, but with double its former energy and emphasis. The Court was full of excitement to learn what would be the fate of this plain-dealing and fearless bishop. He was ordered into the king’s presence, who, with a stern voice, asked: “How dared you thus offend me?” “I merely discharged my duty,” was Latimer’s reply. The king arose from his seat, embraced the good man, saying, “Blessed be God I have so honest a servant.”
He was a worthy successor of Nathan, who confronted King David with his sin, and said, “Thou art the man.”
This Divine courage will surely accompany the fiery baptism of the Spirit.
What is it but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that gives courage to Salvation Army Officers and Soldiers, enabling them to face danger and difficulty and loneliness with joy, and attack sin in its worst forms as fearlessly as David attacked Goliath?
“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.”
“Shall I, for fear of feeble man,The Spirit’s course in me restrain?Awed by a mortal’s frown, shall IConceal the word of God most high?Shall I, to soothe the unholy throng,Soften Thy truth, or smooth my tongue?
“How then before Thee shall I dareTo stand, or how Thine anger bear?Yea, let men rage; since Thou wilt spreadThy shadowing wings around my head;Since in all pain Thy tender loveWill still my sure refreshment prove.”
3. He waswithout guile. “For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile; but as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.”
He was frank and open. He spoke right out of his heart. He was transparently simple and straightforward. Since God had honoured him with this infinite trust of preaching the Gospel, he sought to so preach it that he should please God regardless of men. And yet that is the surest way to please men. People who listen to such a man feel his honesty, and realise that he is seeking to do them good, to save them rather than to tickle their ears and win their applause, and in their hearts they are pleased.
But, anyway, whether or not they are pleased, he is to deliver his message as an ambassador, and look to his home government for his reward. He gets his commission from God, and it is God who will try his heart and prove his ministry. Oh, to please Jesus! Oh, to stand perfect before God after preaching His Gospel!
4. He wasnot a time-server nor a covetous man.“Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness,” he adds.
There are three ways of reaching a man’s purse: (1) Directly. (2) By way of his head with flattering words. (3) By way of his heart with manly, honest, saving words. The first way is robbery. The second way is robbery, with the poison of a deadly, but pleasing, opiate added, which may damn his soul. The third reaches his purse by saving his soul and opening in his heart an unfailing fountain of benevolence to bless himself and the world.
It were better for a preacher to turn highwayman, and rob men with a club and a strong hand, than, with smiles and smooth words and feigned and fawning affection, to rob them with flattery, while their poor souls, neglected and deceived, go down to Hell. How will he meet them in the Day of Judgment, and look into their horrorstricken faces, realising that he played and toyed with their fancies and affections and pride to get money, and, instead of faithfully warning them and seeking to save them, with flattering words fattened their souls for destruction!
Not so did Paul. “I seek not yours, but you,” he wrote the Corinthians. It was not their money, but their souls he wanted.
But such faithful love will be able to command all men have to give. Why, to some of his converts he wrote: “I bear you record, that if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me” (Gal. iv. 15). But he sought not to please them with flattering words, only to save them.
So faithful was he in this matter, and so conscious of his integrity, that he called God Himself into the witness-box. “God is witness,” says he.
Blessed is the man who can call on God to witness for him; and that man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells in fullness can do this. Can you, my brother?
5. He wasnot vain-glorious, nor dictatorial, nor oppressive. Some men care nothing for money, but they care mightily for power and place and the glory that men give. But Paul was free from this spiritual itching. Listen to him: “Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome” (or “used authority”) “as the Apostles of Christ.”
Said Solomon, “For men to seek their own glory is not glory,” it is only vain-glory. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” asked Jesus.
From all this Paul was free, and so is every man who is full of the Holy Ghost. And it is only as we are thus free that with the whole heart and with a single eye we can devote ourselves to the work of saving men.
6. With all his boldness and faithfulness he wasgentle. “We were gentle among you,” he says, “as a nurse cherisheth her children.”
The fierce hurricane which casts down the giant trees of the forest is not so mighty as the gentle sunshine, which, from tiny seeds and acorns, lifts aloft the towering spires of oak and fir on a thousand hills and mountains.
The wild storm that lashes the sea into foam and fury is feeble compared to the gentle, yet immeasurably powerful influence, which twice a day swings the oceans in resistless tides from shore to shore.
And as in the physical world the mighty powers are gentle in their vast workings, so it is in the spiritual world. The light that falls on the lids of the sleeping infant and wakes it from its slumber, is not more gentle than the “still small voice” that brings assurance of forgiveness or cleansing to them that look unto Jesus.
Oh, the gentleness of God! “Thy gentleness hath made me great,” said David. “I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor. x. 1), wrote Paul. And again, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness” (Gal. v. 22). And as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are gentle, so will be the servant of the Lord who is filled with the Spirit.
I shall never forget the gentleness of a mighty man of God whom I well knew, who on the platform was clothed with zeal as with a garment, and in his overwhelming earnestness was like a lion or a consuming fire; but when dealing with a wounded or broken heart, or with a seeking soul, no nurse with a little babe could be more tender than he.
7. Finally, Paul was full ofself-forgetful, self-sacrificing love.“So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.”
No wonder he shook those heathen cities, overthrew their idols, had great revivals, that his jailer was converted, and that his converts would have gladly plucked out their eyes for him! Such tender, self-sacrificing love compels attention, begets confidence, enkindles love, and surely wins its object.
This burning love led him to labour and sacrifice, and so live and walk before them that he was not only a teacher, but an example of all he taught, and could safely say, “Follow me.”
This love led him to preach the whole truth, that he might by all means save them. He kept back no truth because it was unpopular, for it was their salvation and not his own reputation and popularity he sought.
He preached not himself, but a crucified Christ, without the shedding of whose blood there is no remission of sins; and through that precious blood he preached present cleansing from all sin, and the gift of the Holy Spirit for all who obediently believe.
And this love kept him faithful and humble and true to the end, so that at last in sight of the martyr’s death, he saw the martyr’s crown, and cried out: “I am now ready to be offered,... I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day.”
He had been faithful, and now at the end he was oppressed with no doubts and harassed with no bitter regrets, but looked forward with eager joy to meeting his Lord and beholding the blessed face of Him he loved. Hallelujah!
“Have you received the Holy Ghost?’Twill fit you for the fight,’Twill make of you a mighty host,To put your foes to flight.
“Have you received the Holy Power?’Twill fall from Heaven on you,From Jesus’ throne this very hour,’Twill make you brave and true.
“Oh, now receive the Holy Fire!’Twill burn away all dross,All earthly, selfish, vain desire,’Twill make you love the Cross.”
“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?”