The Holy Spirit may lead to a holy rivalry in love and humility and brotherly kindness and self-denial and good works, but He never leads men into the swelling conceit of such exclusive knowledge and superior wisdom that they can no longer be taught by their fellow-men.

3. Again, the man who is filled with the Spirit is tolerant of those who differ from him in opinion, in doctrine. He is firm in his own convictions, and ready at all times with meekness and fear to explain and defend the doctrines which he holds and is convinced are according to God's word, but he does not condemn and consign to damnation all those who differ from him. He is glad to believe that men are often better than their creed, and may be saved in spite of it; that, like mountains whose bases are bathed with sunshine and clothed with fruitful fields and vineyards, while their tops are covered with dark clouds, so men's hearts are often fruitful in the graces of charity, while their heads are yet darkened by doctrinal error.

Anyway, as "the servant of the Lord," he will "not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil" (2 Timothy ii. 24-26).

But when Satan comes as an angel of light he will, under guise of love for and loyalty to the truth, introduce the spirit of intolerance. It was this spirit that crucified Jesus; that burned Huss and Cranmer at the stake; that strangled Savonarola; that inspired the massacre of St. Bartholomew and the horrors of the Inquisition; and it is the same spirit, in a milder but possibly more subtle form, that blinds the eyes of many professing Christians to any good in those who differ from them in doctrine, forms of worship or methods of government. They murder love to protect what they often blindly call truth. What is truth without love? A dead thing, an encumbrance, the letter that killeth!

The body is necessary to our life in this world, but life can exist in a deformed and even mutilated body; and such a body with life in it is better than the most perfect body that is only a corpse. So, while truth is most precious, and sound doctrine to be esteemed more than silver and gold, yet love can exist where truth is not held in its most perfect and complete forms, and love is the one thing needful.

"The love of God is broader Than the measure of man's mind: And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind."

4. The Holy Ghost begets a spirit of unity among Christians. People who have been sitting behind their sectarian fences in self-complacent ease, or proud indifference, or proselytising zeal, or grim defiance, are suddenly lifted above the fence, and find sweet fellowship with each other, when He comes into their hearts.

They delight in each other's society; they each esteem others better than themselves, and in honour they prefer one another before themselves. They fulfil the Psalmist's ideal: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Here is a picture of the unity of Christians in the beginning in Jerusalem: "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." What an ideal is this! And since it has been attained once, it can be attained again and retained, but only by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. It was for this that Jesus poured out His heart in His great intercessory prayer, recorded in John xvii., just before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. He says, "I pray for them.... Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one." And what was the standard of unity to which He would have us come? Listen!

"As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me." Such unity has a wondrous power to compel the belief of worldly men. "And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me." Wondrous unity! Wondrous love!

It is for this His blessed heart eternally yearns, and it is for this that the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those who receive Him. But Satan ever seeks to destroy this holy love and divine unity. When he comes, he arouses suspicions, he stirs up strife, he quenches the spirit of intercessory prayer, he engenders backbitings, and causes separations.

After enumerating various Christian graces, and urging the Colossians to put them on, Paul adds: "And above all these things, put on charity," or love, "which is the bond of perfectness" (Col. iii. 14). These graces were garments, and love was the girdle which bound and held them together; and so love is the bond that holds true Christians together.

Divine love is the great test by which we are to try ourselves and all teachers and spirits.

Love is not puffed up. Love is not bigoted. Love is not intolerant. Love is not schismatic. Love is loyal to Jesus and to all His people. If we have this love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, we shall discern the voice of our Good Shepherd, and we shall not be deceived by the voice of the stranger; and so we shall be saved from both formalism and fanaticism.

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



VIII.

GUIDANCE.

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to guide the people of God through the uncertainties and dangers and duties of this life to their home in Heaven. When He led the children of Israel out of Egypt, by the hand of Moses, He guided them through the waste, mountainous wilderness, in a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, thus assuring their comfort and safety. And this was but a type of His perpetual spiritual guidance of His people.

"But how may I certainly know what God wants of me?" is sure to become the earnest and, oftentimes, the agonising cry of every humble and devoutly zealous young Christian. "How may I know the guidance of the Holy Spirit?" is asked again and again.

1. It is well for us to get it fixed in our minds that we need to be guided always by Him. A ship was wrecked on a rocky coast far out of the course that the captain thought he was taking. On examination, it was found that the compass had been slightly deflected by a bit of metal that had lodged in the box.

But the voyage of life on which we each one sail is beset by as many dangers as the ship at sea, and how shall we surely steer our course to our heavenly harbour without Divine guidance? There is a wellnigh infinite number of influences to deflect us from the safe and certain course. We start out in the morning, and we know not what person we may meet, what paragraph we may read, what word may be spoken, what letter we may receive, what subtle temptation may assail or allure us, what immediate decisions we may have to make during the day, that may turn us almost imperceptibly, but none the less surely, from the right way. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

2. We not only need Divine guidance, but we may have it. God's word assures us of this. Oh! how my heart was comforted and assured one morning by these words: "And the Lord shall guide thee continually" (Isaiah lviii. 11). Not occasionally, not spasmodically, but "continually." Hallelujah! The Psalmist says: "This God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our Guide even unto death" (Psalm xlviii. 14). Again, he says: "The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way" (Psalm xxv. 9). And again, "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye" (Psalm xxxii. 8). And again, "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel" (Psalm Ixxiii. 24). Jesus said of the Holy Spirit: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth" (John xvi. 13). And Paul wrote: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Romans viii. 14).

These Scriptures establish the fact that the children of God may be guided always by the Spirit of God.

"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, Pilgrim through this barren land! I am weak, but Thou art mighty: Hold me with Thy powerful hand."

3. How does God guide us?

Paul says: "We walk by faith, not by sight," and, "The just shall live by faith," so we may conclude:—

(a) That the guidance of the Holy Spirit is such as still to demand the exercise of faith. God never leads us in such a way as to do away with the necessity of faith. When God warned Noah, we read that it was by faith that Noah was led to build the ark. When God told Abraham to go to a land which He would show him, it was by faith that Abraham went (Hebrews xi. 7, 8). If we believe, we shall surely be guided; but if we do not believe, we shall be left to ourselves. Without faith it is impossible to please God, or to follow where He leads. Again, the Psalmist says, "The meek will He guide in judgment," from which we gather:—

(b) That the Spirit guides us in such manner as to demand the exercise of our best judgment. He enlightens our understanding and directs our judgment by sound reason and sense.

I knew a man who was eager to obey God, and to be led by the Spirit, but who had the mistaken idea that the Holy Spirit sets aside human judgment and common sense, and speaks directly upon the most minute and commonplace matters. He wanted the Holy Spirit to direct him just how much to eat at each meal, and he has been known to take food out of his mouth at what he supposed to be the Holy Spirit's notification that he had eaten enough, and that if he swallowed that mouthful, it would be in violation of the leadings of the Spirit.

No doubt, the Spirit will help an honest man to arrive at a safe judgment even in matters of this kind, but it will doubtless be through the use of his sanctified common sense. Otherwise, he is reduced to a state of mental infancy, and kept in intellectual swaddling clothes. He will guide us in judgment; but it is only as we resolutely, and in the best light we have, exercise judgment.

John Wesley said that God usually guided him by presenting reasons to his mind for any given course of action.

(c) The Psalmist says, "Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel," and "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way that thou shalt go." Now, counsel, instruction, and teaching not only imply effort upon the part of the teacher, but also study and close attention on the part of the one being taught. So this guidance of the Holy Spirit is such as will require us to attentively listen, diligently study, and patiently learn the lessons He would teach us. And so we see that the Holy Spirit does not set aside our powers and faculties, but seeks to awaken and stir them into full activity, and develop them into well- rounded perfection, and thus make them channels through which He can intelligently influence and direct us.

What He seeks to do is to illuminate our whole spiritual being, as the sun illuminates our physical being, and bring us into such union and sympathy, such oneness of thought, desire, affection, and purpose with God, that we shall, by a kind of spiritual instinct, know at all times the mind of God concerning us, and never be in doubt about His will.

4. The Holy Spirit guides us—

(a) By opening up to our minds the deep, sanctifying truths of the Bible, and especially by revealing to us the character and spirit of Jesus and His Apostles, and leading us to follow in their footsteps—the footsteps of their faith and love and unselfish devotion to God and man, even unto the laying down of their lives.

(b) By the circumstances and surroundings of our daily life.

(c) By the counsel of others, especially of devout, and wise, and experienced men and women of God.

(d) By deep inward conviction, which increases as we wait upon Him in prayer and readiness to obey. It is by this sovereign conviction that men are called to preach, to go to foreign fields as missionaries, to devote their time, talents, money, and lives to God's work for the bodies and souls of men.

5. Why do people seek for guidance and not find it?

(a) Because they do not diligently study God's word, and seek to be filled with its truths and principles. They neglect the cultivation of their minds and hearts in the school of Christ, and so miss Divine guidance. One of the mightiest men of God now living used to carry his Bible with him into the coal mine when only a boy, and spent his spare time filling his mind and heart with its heavenly truths, and so prepared himself to be divinely led in mighty labours for God.

(b) They do not humbly accept the daily providences, the circumstances, and conditions of their everyday life as a part of God's present plan for them; as His school in which He would train them for greater things; as His vineyard in which He would have them diligently labour.

A young woman imagined she was called to devote herself entirely to saving souls; but under the searching training through which she had to pass saw her selfishness, and she said she would have to return home, and live a holy life there, and seek to get her family saved—something which she had utterly neglected—before she could go into the work. If we are not faithful at home, or in the shop, or mill, or store where we work, we shall miss God's way for us.

(c) Because they are not teachable, and are unwilling to receive instruction from other Christians. They are not humble-minded.

(d) Because they do not wait on God, and listen and heed the inner leadings of the Holy Spirit. They are self-willed; they want their own way. Some one has said, "That which is often asked of God is not so much His will and way, as His approval of our way." And another has said: "God's guidance is plain, when we are true." If we promptly and gladly obey, we shall not miss the way. Paul said of himself, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." He obeyed God at all costs, and so the Holy Spirit could guide him.

(e) Because of fear and unbelief. It was this fearfulness of unbelief that caused the Israelites to turn back, and not go into Canaan when Caleb and Joshua assured them that God would help them to possess the land. They lost sight of God, and feared the giants and walled cities, and so missed God's way for them and perished in the wilderness.

(f) Because they do not take everything promptly and confidently to God in prayer.

Paul tells us to be "instant in prayer"; and I am persuaded that it is slowness and delay to pray, and sloth and sleepiness in prayer, that rob God's children of the glad assurance of His guidance in all things.

(g) Because of impatience and haste. Some of God's plans for us unfold slowly, and we must patiently and calmly wait on Him in faith and faithfulness, assured that in due time He will make plain His way for us, if our faith fail not. It is never God's will that we should get into a headlong hurry; but that, with patient steadfastness, we should learn to stand still when the pillar of cloud and fire does not move, and that with loving confidence and glad promptness we should strike our tents and march forward when He leads.

"When we cannot see our way, Let us trust and still obey; He who bids us forward go, Cannot fail the way to show. Though the sea be deep and wide, Though a passage seem denied; Fearless, let us still proceed, Since the Lord vouchsafes to lead."

Finally, we may rest assured that the Holy Spirit never leads His people to do anything that is wrong, or that is contrary to the will of God as revealed in the Bible. He never leads anyone to be impolite and discourteous. "Be courteous" is a Divine command. He would have us respect the minor graces of gentle, kindly manners, as well as the great laws of holiness and righteousness.

He may sometimes lead us in ways that are hard for flesh and blood, and that bring to us sorrow and loss in this life. He led Jesus into the wilderness to be sore tried by the Devil, and to Pilate's judgment hall, and to the cross. He led Paul in ways that meant imprisonment, stonings, whippings, hunger and cold, and bitter persecution and death. But He upheld Paul until he cried out: "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." "Yea," said he, "I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Hallelujah! Oh, to be thus led by our Heavenly Guide!

"He leadeth me! Oh, blessed thought! Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught! Whate'er I do, where'er I be, Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.

"Sometimes 'mid scenes of deepest gloom, Sometimes where Eden's bowers bloom, By waters still, o'er troubled sea, Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.

"Lord, I will clasp Thy hand in mine, Nor ever murmur nor repine, Content, whatever lot I see, Since 'tis my God that leadeth me.

"And when my task on earth is done, When by Thy grace the victory's won, E'en death's cold wave I will not flee, Since God through Jordan leadeth me."

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



IX.

THE MEEK AND LOWLY HEART.

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

I know a man whose daily prayer for years was that he might be meek and lowly in heart as was his Master. "Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me," said Jesus; "for I am meek and lowly in heart."

How lowly Jesus was! He was the Lord of life and glory. He made the worlds, and upholds them by His word of power (John i., Hebrews i.). But He humbled Himself, and became man, and was born of the Virgin in a manger among the cattle. He lived among the common people, and worked at the carpenter's bench. And then, anointed with the Holy Spirit, He went about doing good, preaching the Gospel to the poor, and ministering to the manifold needs of the sick and sinful and sorrowing. He touched the lepers; He was the Friend of publicans and sinners. His whole life was a ministry of mercy to those who most needed Him. He humbled Himself to our low estate. He was a King who came "lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass" (Zech. ix. 9). He was a King, but His crown was of thorns, and a cross was His throne.

What a picture Paul gives us of the mind and heart of Jesus! He exhorts the Philippians, saying, "Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves"; and then he adds, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

Now, when the Holy Spirit finds His way into the heart of a man, the Spirit of Jesus has come to that man, and leads him to the same meekness of heart and lowly service that were seen in the Master.

Ambition for place and power and money and fame vanishes, and in its place is a consuming desire to be good and do good, to accomplish in full the blessed, the beneficent will of God.

Some time ago I met a woman who, as a trained nurse in Paris, nursing rich, English-speaking foreigners, received pay that in a few years would have made her independently wealthy; but the spirit of Jesus came into her heart, and she is now nursing the poor, and giving her life to them, and doing for them service the most loathsome and exacting, and doing it with a smiling face, for her food and clothes.

Some able men in one of our largest American cities lost their spiritual balance, cut themselves loose from all other Christians, and made for a time quite a religious stir among many good people. They were very clear and powerful in their presentation of certain phases of truth, but they were also very strong, if not bitter, in their denunciations of all existing religious organisations. They attacked the churches and The Salvation Army, pointing out what they considered wrong so skilfully, and with such professions of sanctity, that many people were made most dissatisfied with the churches and with The Army.

An Army Captain listened to them, and was greatly moved by their fervour, their burning appeals, their religious ecstasy, and their denunciations of the lukewarmness of other Christians, including The Army. She began to wonder if after all they were not right, and whether or not the Holy Spirit was amongst us. Her heart was full of distress, and she cried to God. And then the vision of our Slum Officers rose before her eyes. She saw their devotion, their sacrifice, their lowly, hidden service, year after year, among the poor and ignorant and vicious, and she said to herself, "Is not this the Spirit of Jesus? Would these men, who denounce us so, be willing to forgo their religious ecstasies and spend their lives in such lowly, unheralded service?" And the mists that had begun to blind her eyes were swept away, and she saw Jesus still amongst us going about doing good in the person of our Slum Officers and of all who for His name's sake sacrifice their time and money and strength to bless and save their fellow-men.

You who have visions of glory and rapturous delight, and so count yourselves filled with the Spirit, do these visions lead you to virtue and to lowly, loving service? If not, take heed to yourselves, lest, exalted like Capernaum to Heaven, you are at last cast down to Hell. Thank God for the mounts of transfiguration where we behold His glory! but down below in the valley are children possessed of devils, and to them He would have us go with the glory of the mount on our faces, and lowly love and vigorous faith in our hearts, and clean hands ready for any service. He would have us give ourselves to them; and if we love Him, if we follow Him, if we are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, we will.

A Captain used to slip out of bed early in the morning to pray, and then black his own and his Lieutenant's boots, and God mightily blessed him. Recently I saw him, now a Commissioner, with thousands of Officers and Soldiers under his command, at an outing in the woods by the lake shore, looking after poor and forgotten Soldiers, and giving them food with his own hand. Like the Lord, his eyes seemed to be in every place beholding opportunities to do good, and his feet and hands always followed his eyes; and this is the fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



X.

HOPE.

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

Are you ever cast down and depressed in spirit? Listen to Paul: "Now, the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost" (Romans xv. 13). What cheer is in those words! They ring like the shout of a triumph.

1. God Himself is "the God of hope." There is no gloom, no depression, no wasting sickness of deferred hope in Him. He is a brimming fountain and ocean of hope eternally, and He is our God. He is our Hope.

2. Out of His infinite fullness He is to fill us; not half fill us, but fill us with joy, "all joy," hallelujah! "and peace."

3. And this is not by some condition or means that is so high and difficult that we cannot perform our part, but it is simply "in believing "—something which the little child or the aged philosopher, the poor man and the rich man, the ignorant and the learned can do. And the result will be:—

4. Abounding "hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." And what power is that? If it is physical power, then the power of a million Niagaras and flowing oceans and rushing worlds is as nothing compared to it. If it is mental power, then the power of Plato and Bacon and Milton and Shakespeare and Newton is as the light of a fire-fly to the sun when compared to it. If it is spiritual power, then there is nothing with which it can be compared. But suppose it is all three in one, infinite and eternal! This is the power, throbbing with love and mercy, to which we are to bring our little hearts by living faith, and God will fill us with joy and peace and hope by the incoming of the Holy Spirit.

God's people are a hopeful people. They hope in God, with whom there is no change, no weakness, no decay. In the darkest night and the fiercest storm they still hope in Him, though it may be feebly. But He would have His people "abound in hope" so that they should always be buoyant, triumphant.

But how can this be in a world such as this? We are surrounded by awful, mysterious, and merciless forces, that at any moment may overwhelm us. The fire may burn us, the water may drown us, the hurricane may sweep us away, friends may desert us, foes may master us. There is the depression that comes from failing health, from poverty, from overwork and sleepless nights and constant care, from thwarted plans, disappointed ambitions, slighted love, and base ingratitude. Old age comes on with its grey hairs, failing strength, dimness of sight, dullness of hearing, tottering step, shortness of breath, and general weakness and decay. The friends of youth die, and a new, strange, pushing generation that knows not the old man, comes elbowing him aside and taking his place. Under some blessed outpouring of the Spirit the work of God revives, vile sinners are saved, Zion puts on her beautiful garments, reforms of all kind advance, the desert blossoms as the rose, the waste place becomes a fruitful field, and the millennium seems just at hand; and then the spiritual tide recedes, the forces of evil are emboldened, they mass themselves and again sweep over the heritage of the Lord, leaving it waste and desolate, and the battle must be fought over again.

How can one be always hopeful, always abounding in hope, in such a world? Well, hallelujah! it is possible "through the power of the Holy Ghost," but only through His power; and this power will not fail so long as we fix our eyes on eternal things and believe.

The Holy Spirit, dwelling within, turns our eyes from that which is temporal to that which is eternal; from the trial itself to God's purpose in the trial; from the present pain to the precious promise.

I am now writing in a little city made rich by vast potteries. If the dull, heavy clay on the potter's wheel and in the fiery oven could think and speak, it would doubtless cry out against the fierce agony; but if it could foresee the purpose of the potter, and the thing of use and beauty he meant to make it, it would nestle low under his hand and rejoice in hope.

We are clay in the hand of the Divine Potter, but we can think and speak, and in some measure understand His high purpose in us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us understand. And if we will not be dull and senseless and unbelieving, He will illuminate us and fill us with peaceful, joyous hope.

1. He would reveal to us that our Heavenly Potter has Himself been on the wheel and in the fiery furnace, learning obedience and being fashioned into "the Captain of our salvation" by the things which He suffered. When we are tempted and tried, and tempest-tossed, He raises our hope by showing us Jesus suffering and sympathising with us, tempted in all points as we are, and so able and wise and willing to help us in our struggle and conflict (Hebrews ii. 9-18). He assures us that Jesus, into whose hands is committed all power in Heaven and earth, is our elder Brother, "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews iv. 15), and He encourages us to rest in Him and not be afraid; and so we abound in hope, through His power as we believe.

2. He reveals to us the eternal purpose of God in our trials and difficulties. Listen to Paul: "All things work together for good to them that love God." "We know this," says Paul (Romans viii. 28). But how can this be? Ah! there is where faith must be exercised. It is "in believing" that we "abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."

God's wisdom and ability to make all things work together for our good are not to be measured by our understanding, but to be firmly held by our faith. My child is in serious difficulty and does not know how to help himself; but I say, "Leave it to me." He may not understand how I am to help him, but he trusts me, and rejoices in hope. We are God's dear children, and He knows how to help us, and make all things work together for our good, if we will only commit ourselves to Him in faith.

"Thou art as much His care as if beside Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth; Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide, To light up worlds, or wake an insect's mirth."

Again, afflictions overtake us, and now the Holy Spirit encourages our hope and makes it to abound by such promises as these: "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. iv. 17, 18). But such a promise as that only mocks us if we do not believe. "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 He carried them all the days of old" (Isaiah lxiii. 9). And He is just the same to-day. To some He says: "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah xlviii 10), and nestling down into His will and "believing," they "abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost."

He turns our eyes back upon Job in his loss and pain; upon Joseph sold into Egyptian slavery; Daniel in the lions' den; the three Hebrews in the burning fiery furnace, and Paul in prison and shipwreck and manifold perils; and, showing us their steadfastness and their final triumph, He prompts us to hope in God.

When weakness of body overtakes us, He encourages us with such assurances as these: "My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever" (Psalm lxxiii. 26), and the words of Paul: "Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. iv. 16).

When old age comes creeping on apace, He has promised to meet the need that our hope fail not. Listen to David! He prays: "Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.... Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have showed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to come" (Psalm lxxi. 9, 18). And through Isaiah the Lord replies: "Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you" (Isaiah xlvi. 4). And David cries out, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing, to show that the Lord is upright" (Psalm xcii. 12-15).

These are sample promises of which the Bible is full, and which have been adapted by infinite wisdom and love to meet us at every point of doubt and fear and need, that, in believing them, we may have a steadfast and glad hope in God. He is pledged to help us. He says: "Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness" (Isaiah xli. 10).

When all God's waves and billows seemed to sweep over David, and his soul was bowed within him, three times he cried out: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance" (Psalm xlii. 5). And Jeremiah, remembering the wormwood and the gall, and the deep mire of the dungeon into which they had plunged him, and from which he had scarcely been delivered, said: "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord" (Lam. iii. 26).

When the Holy Spirit is come, He brings to remembrance these precious promises, and makes them living words; and, if we believe, the whole heaven of our soul shall be lighted up with abounding hope. Hallelujah! It is only through ignorance of God's promises, or through weak and wavering faith, that hope is dimmed. Oh, that we may heed the still small voice of the Heavenly Comforter, and steadfastly, joyously believe!

"My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus' blood and righteousness; When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my Hope and Stay."

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



XI.

THE HOLY SPIRIT'S SUBSTITUTE FOR GOSSIP AND EVIL-SPEAKING.

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

The other day I heard a man of God say: "We cannot bridle the tongues of the people among whom we live: they will talk"; and by talk he meant gossip and criticism and fault-finding.

"You never can tell when you send a word— Like an arrow shot from a bow By an archer blind—be it cruel or kind, Just where it will chance to go. It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend, Tipped with its poison or balm: To a stranger's heart in life's great mart It may carry its pain or its calm."

The wise mother, when she finds her little boy playing with a sharp knife, or the looking-glass, or some dainty dish, does not snatch it away with a slap on his cheek or harsh words, but quietly and gently substitutes a safer and more interesting toy, and so avoids a storm.

A sensible father who finds his boy reading a book of dangerous tendency, will kindly point out its character and substitute a better book that is equally interesting.

When children want to spend their evenings on the street, thoughtful and intelligent parents will seek to make their evenings at home more healthfully attractive.

When a man seeks to rid his mind of evil and hurtful thoughts, he will find it wise to follow Paul's exhortation to the Philippians: "Brethren, whatsoever things are true,... honest,... just,... pure,... lovely,... of good report;... if there be any praise, think on these things" (Phil. iv. 8).

Any man who faithfully, patiently, and persistently accepts this programme of Paul's will find his evil thoughts vanishing away.

And this is the Holy Spirit's method: He has a pleasant and safe substitute for gossip and fault-finding and slander.

Here it is: "Be filled with the Spirit: speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Eph. v. 18-20). This is certainly a fruit of being filled with the Spirit.

Many years ago the Lord gave me a blessed revival in a little village in which nearly every soul in the place, as well as farmers from the surrounding country, were converted. One result was that they now had no time for gossip and doubtful talk about their neighbours. They were all talking about religion and rejoicing in the things of the Lord. If they met each other on the street, or in some shop or store, they praised the Lord, and encouraged each other to press on in the heavenly way. If they met a sinner, they tenderly besought him to be reconciled to God, to give up his sins, "flee from the wrath to come," and start at once for Heaven. If they met in each other's houses, they gathered around the organ or the piano and sang hymns and songs, and did not part till they had united in prayer.

There was no criticising of their neighbours, no grumbling and complaining about the weather, no fault-finding with their lot in life, or their daily surroundings and circumstances. Their conversation was joyous, cheerful, and helpful to one another. Nor was it forced and out of place, but rather it was the natural, spontaneous outflow of loving, humble, glad hearts filled with the Spirit, in union with Jesus, and in love and sympathy with their fellow-men.

And this is, I think, our Heavenly Father's ideal of social and spiritual intercourse for His children on earth. He would not have us separate ourselves from each other and shut ourselves up in convents and monasteries in austere asceticism on the one hand, nor would He have us light and foolish, or fault-finding and censorious on the other hand, but sociable, cheerful, and full of tender, considerate love.

On the day of Pentecost, when they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and a multitude were converted, we read that "they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people" (Acts ii. 46, 47). This is a sample of the brotherly love and unity which our Heavenly Father would have throughout the whole earth; but how the breath of gossip and evil-speaking would have marred this heavenly fellowship and separated these "chief friends"!

"Lord! subdue our selfish will; Each to each our tempers suit By Thy modulating skill, Heart to heart, as lute to lute."

Let no one suppose, however, that the Holy Spirit accomplishes this heavenly work by some overwhelming baptism which does away with the need of our co-operation. He does not override us, but works with us; and we must intelligently and determinedly work with Him in this matter.

People often fall into idle and hurtful gossip and evil-speaking, not so much from ill-will, as from old habit, as a wagon falls into a rut. Or they drift into it with the current of conversation about them. Or they are beguiled into it by a desire to say something, and be pleasant and entertaining.

But when the Holy Spirit comes, He lifts us out of the old ruts, and we must follow Him with care lest we fall into them again, possibly never more to escape. He gives us life and power to stem the adverse currents about us, but we must exercise ourselves not to be swept downward by them. He does not destroy the desire to please, but He subordinates it to the desire to help and bless, and we must stir ourselves up to do this.

When Miss Havergal was asked to sing and play before a worldly company, she sang a sweet song about Jesus, and, without displeasing anybody, greatly blessed the company.

At a breakfast party John Fletcher told his experience so sweetly and naturally that all hearts were stirred, the Holy Ghost fell upon the company, and they ended with a glorious prayer meeting.

William Bramwell used at meals to steadily and persistently turn the conversation into spiritual channels to the blessing of all who were present, so that they had two meals—one for the body and one for the soul.

To do this wisely and helpfully requires thought and prayer and a fixed purpose, and a tender, loving heart filled with the Holy Spirit.

I know a mother who seeks to have a brief season of prayer and a text of Scripture just before going to dinner to prepare her heart to guide the conversation along spiritual highways.

Are you careful and have you victory in this matter, my comrade? If not, seek it just now in simple, trustful prayer, and the Lord who loves you will surely answer, and will be your helper from this time forth. He surely will. Believe just now, and henceforth "let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ."

"I ask Thee, ever blessed Lord, That I may never speak a word, Of envy born, or passion stirred.

"First, true to Thee in heart and mind, Then always to my neighbour kind, By Thy good hand to good inclined.

"Oh, save from words that bear a sting, That pain to any brother bring: Inbreathe Thy calm in everything.

"Let love within my heart prevail, To rule my words when thoughts assail, That, hid in Thee, I may not fail.

"I know, my Lord, Thy power within Can save from all the power of sin; In Thee let every word begin.

"Should I be silent? Keep me still, Glad waiting on my Master's will: Thy message through my lips fulfil.

"Give me Thy words when I should speak, For words of Thine are never weak, But break the proud, but raise the meek.

"Into Thy lips all grace is poured, Speak Thou through me, Eternal Word, Of thought, of heart, of lips the Lord."

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



XII.

THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST.

"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

God is love, and the Holy Spirit is ceaselessly striving to make this love known in our hearts, work out God's purposes of love in our lives, and transform and transfigure our character by love. And so we are solemnly warned against resisting the Spirit, and almost tearfully and always tenderly exhorted to "quench not the Spirit," and to "grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby," says the Apostle, "ye are sealed unto the day of redemption."

There is one great sin against which Jesus warned the Jews, as a sin never to be forgiven in this world nor in that which is to come. That was blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

That there is such a sin, Jesus teaches in Matthew xii. 31, 32, Mark iii. 28-30, and Luke xii. 10. And it may be that this is the sin referred to in Hebrews vi. 4-6; x. 29.

Since many of God's dear children have fallen into dreadful distress through fear that they had committed this sin, it may be helpful for us to study carefully as to what constitutes it.

Jesus was casting out devils, and Mark tells us that "the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth He out devils." To this Jesus replied with gracious kindness and searching logic: "How can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, it cannot stand. And if Satan rise up against himself and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. No man can enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house."

In this quiet reply we see that Jesus does not rail against them, nor flatly deny their base assertion that He does His miracles by the power of the Devil, but shows how logically false must be their statement. And then, with grave authority, and, I think, with solemn tenderness in His voice and in His eyes, He adds, "Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation"; or, as the Revised Version puts it, "is guilty of an eternal sin"; and then Mark adds, "because they said, He hath an unclean spirit" (Mark iii. 22-30).

Jesus came into the world to reveal God's truth and love to men, and to save them, and men are saved by believing in Him. But how could the men of His day, who saw Him working at the carpenter's bench, and living the life of an ordinary man of humble toil and daily temptation and trial, believe His stupendous claim to be the only-begotten Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and the final Judge of all men? Any wilful and proud impostor could make such a claim. But men could not and ought not to believe such an assertion unless the claim were supported by ungainsayable evidence. This evidence Jesus began to give, not only in the holy life which He lived and the pure Gospel He preached, but in the miracles He wrought, the blind eyes He opened, the sick He healed, the hungry thousands He fed, the seas He stilled, the dead He raised to life again, and the devils He cast out of bound and harassed souls.

The Scribes and Pharisees witnessed these miracles, and were compelled to admit these signs and wonders. Nicodemus, one of their number, said to Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him" (John iii. 2). Would they now admit His claim to be the Son of God, their promised and long- looked-for Messiah? They were thoughtful men and very religious, but not spiritual. The Gospel He preached was Spirit and life; it appealed to their conscience and revealed their sin, and to acknowledge Him was to admit that they themselves were wrong. It meant submission to His authority, the surrender of their wills, and a change of front in their whole inner and outer life. This meant moral and spiritual revolution in each man's heart and life, and to this they would not submit. And so to avoid such plain inconsistency, they must discredit His miracles; and since they could not deny them, they declared that He wrought them by the power of the Devil.

Jesus worked these signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit, that he might win their confidence, and that they might reasonably believe and be saved. But they refused to believe, and in their malignant obstinacy heaped scorn upon Him, accusing Him of being in league with the Devil; and how could they be saved? This was the sin against the Holy Spirit against which Jesus warned them. It was not so much one act of sin, as a deep-seated, stubborn rebellion against God that led them to choose darkness rather than light, and so to blaspheme against the Spirit of truth and light. It was sin full and ripe and ready for the harvest.

Some one has said that "this sin cannot be forgiven, not because God is unwilling to forgive, but because one who thus sins against the Holy Spirit has put himself where no power can soften his heart or change his nature. A man may misuse his eyes and yet see; but whosoever puts them out can never see again. One may misdirect his compass, and turn it aside from the North Pole by a magnet or piece of iron, and it may recover and point right again; but whosoever destroys the compass itself has lost his guide at sea."

Many of God's dear children, honest souls, have been persuaded that they have committed this awful sin. Indeed, I once thought that I myself had done so, and for twenty-eight days I felt that, like Jonah, I was "in the belly of hell." But God, in love and tender mercy, drew me out of the horrible pit of doubt and fear, and showed me that this is a sin committed only by those who, in spite of all evidence, harden their hearts in unbelief, and to shield themselves in their sins deny and blaspheme the Lord.

Dr. Daniel Steele tells of a Jew who was asked, "Is it that you cannot, or that you will not believe?" The Jew passionately replied, "We will not, we will not believe."

This was wilful refusal and rejection of light, and in that direction lies hardness of heart beyond recovery, fullness of sin, and final impenitence, which are unpardonable.

Doubtless many through resistance to the Holy Spirit come to this awful state of heart; but those troubled, anxious souls who think they have committed this sin are not usually among the number.

An Army Officer in Canada was in the midst of a glorious revival, when one night a gentleman arose and with deep emotion urged the young people present to yield themselves to God, accept Jesus as their Saviour, and receive the Holy Spirit. He told them that he had once been a Christian, but that he had not walked in the light, and, consequently, had sinned against the Holy Spirit, and could never more be pardoned. Then, with all earnest tenderness, he exhorted them to be warned by his sad state, and not to harden their hearts against the gracious influences, and entreated them to yield to the Saviour. Suddenly the scales of doubt dropped from his eyes, and he saw that he had not in his inmost heart rejected Jesus; that he had not committed the unpardonable sin; that

"The love of God is broader Than the measure of man's mind: And the heart of the Eternal Is most wonderfully kind."

And in an instant his heart was filled with light and love and peace, and sweet assurance that Christ Jesus was his Saviour, even his.

In one meeting, I have known three people who thought they had committed this sin, and were bowed with grief and fear, to come to the penitent-form and find deliverance.

The poet Cowper was plunged into unutterable gloom by the conviction that he had committed this awful sin; but God tenderly brought him into the light and sweet comforts of the Holy Spirit again, and doubtless it was in the sense of such lovingkindness that he wrote:

"There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Emanuel's veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stains."

John Bunyan was also afflicted with horrible fears that he had committed the unpardonable sin, and in his little book entitled, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners" (a book which I would earnestly recommend to all soul-winners), he tells how he was delivered from his doubts and fears and was filled once more with the joy of the Lord. There are portions of his "Pilgrim's Progress" which are to be interpreted in the light of this grievous experience.

Those who think they have committed this sin may generally be assured that they have not.

1. Their hearts are usually very tender, while this sin must harden the heart past all feeling.

2. They are full of sorrow and shame for having neglected God's grace and trifled with the Saviour's dying words, but such sorrow could not exist in a heart so fully given over to sin that pardon was impossible.

3. God says, "Whosoever will may come"; and if they find it in their hearts to come, they will not be cast out, but freely pardoned and received with loving kindness through the merits of Jesus' blood. God's promise will not fail, His faithfulness is established in the heavens. Bless His holy name! Those who have committed this sin are full of evil, and do not care to come, and will not, and, therefore, are never pardoned. Their sin is eternal.

"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"



XIII.

OFFENCES AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST.

"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?"



XIV.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND SOUND DOCTRINE.

"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 lost But 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 bestows On 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?"



XV.

PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT.

"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.