“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” Rom. 8: 2. “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that hath raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Rom. 8 : 11.

The thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel is one of the most remarkable exhibitions of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, because it introduces with great clearness and definiteness the doctrine of the resurrection.

This truth, beyond all others, is characteristic of the system of redemption. It might be called the patent sign of the Gospel. Far more than the Cross, the symbol of baptism expresses the fundamental idea of the Christian religion; for, while the Cross speaks only of death, baptism tells also of resurrection and life.

This truth, foreshadowed in many Old Testament passages, and doubtless underlying the teaching of all the prophets, is brought out here with great distinctness, and makes the passage one of the marked ones of Old Testament revelation.

1. THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES. First, we have the vision in the valley of dry bones. This is not a vision of the resurrection proper, but rather of a special resurrection. The prophet is taken in the spirit into the valley of dry bones. It is the scene of some ancient battle, where he beholds around him the skeletons of the fallen army, and, lo! they are very many, and, lo! they are very dry.

A generation has passed since they fell. The flesh has long ago withered from the skeletons, and the bones lie bleached and withered under the open sun. Suddenly the question comes to him, “Can these bones live?” And his wise answer is “Lord Thou knowest.” Then there comes to him; first, the command to prophesy unto the bones, proclaiming to them the Word of the Lord, and announcing to them that they shall live. And, lo! there comes a noise and a shaking; and bone cleaves to his bone, and they assume the forms of men; but still there is no breath in them.

Then a second time the Word of the Lord comes to him, commanding him to prophesy unto the breath of life to come from the four winds and breathe upon these slain that they may live; and, lo! as he prophesies and commands, the spirit of life to come into these lifeless forms, there is a quivering moment, as the life passes into every frame, and they spring to their feet and stand before him a mass of living men, an exceeding great army.

2. THE APPLICATION OF THIS TO ISRAEL AS A NATION. God does not leave the prophet in doubt as to the meaning of the vision. Its first and immediate application is to his people. They were mourning over their national ruin and saying, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off for our parts.” But he tells them that the voice of God is yet to come to them; that the power of His Spirit is yet to breathe upon them; that even shattered and hopeless Israel shall revive; and that the nation shall spring to life once more and return to their own land to resume their place in God’s great plan, while their divisions and disunions shall cease forever, and God shall dwell among them and restore His ancient sanctuary and renew His covenant with them forevermore.

There could scarcely be a more appropriate figure of Israel’s depressed condition than the vision of the dry bones. For eighteen centuries their hope has been dead in a far more terrible sense than was true even under the Babylonian captivity. It is not a century ago since the children of Israel were disfranchised outcasts of every nation. Even in Great Britain itself the voice of the pulpit and of the whole Christian press was raised against the first proposal to give the right of franchise to Hebrew citizens and to allow the children of Abraham a place and a name among the Gentiles.

For centuries they have been truly “outcasts of earth and reprobates of heaven,” and the idea of their restoration to their own land, and to their ancient blessing, might well be deemed the most hopeless prospect that language could express. But, lo! already the vision of the prophet begins to be fulfilled. The Word of God respecting Israel has been recovered and reissued. God’s people have begun to understand His purpose concerning Israel and have begun to preach the Gospel, even to the unbelieving sons of Abraham, and to proclaim to them, like the ancient prophet, the word of hope and promise, and to call them from their graves to their true Messiah and their only hope. And, lo! already there is a noise and a shaking; and bone is beginning to come to his bone, and a national revival of Judaism is one of the most marked signs of the day.

A spirit of reunion and reorganization is everywhere abroad among them. National societies are being formed. The rich and the poor are coming together. Great leaders of the nation are lending their financial strength to the cause of the helpless and the outcast. While as yet it is not a spiritual movement, but merely a reorganization of national life and hope, it is just what the prophet predicted would first come to pass; and he must be blind indeed, who does not see the ancient vision being fulfilled today among the children of Israel in every nation under heaven.

But there is a deeper spiritual movement. The Holy Ghost is also beginning His saving work. The deeper heart of the nation is beginning to be touched; and some of her sons are recognizing their long rejected Messiah, and beginning to accept Him as their Savior and their King.

These are but precursors of that latter rain which is to fall, when the Spirit of grace and of supplication shall be poured out upon the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and they shall look upon Him whom they pierced and shall mourn for Him as one that mourneth for an only son. And then shall a fountain be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness, and all the blessed promises for Israel shall receive their spiritual fulfillment.

Then shall Israel and Judah be united. Then shall the severances of ages be forever healed. Then shall they be cleansed from their defilements and uncleanness and idolatries, to sin no more. Then shall they take the place of God’s chosen people; and, as the Queen of nations and the special witnesses of Jesus, the sons of Abraham shall fulfill their high calling, and their restoration shall be complete.

Then shall God’s sanctuary be among them once more. Neither shall He hide His face from them any more, but they shall dwell forever in His covenant love, the Light of the world, and the Leader of the nations.

3. THE APPLICATION OF THE VISION TO THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE SOUL AND THE CHURCH. There is something worse than the death of a nation, something worse than the death of the body. It is the spiritual death of those who lie sunk in trespasses and sins. The condition of human souls is like the bones in the valley of vision, very many and very dry. There is no human probability of restoration or life. But there is hope in God and in resurrection life.

There is the same twofold agency which we see in the nation. First is the Word of God. This is the divine instrument in the conversion of souls and the quickening of the spiritually dead. “Being born again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”

Although souls are lost and dead, God commands us to proclaim to them the Word of God, and to tell them that He has sent them life, and is waiting to quicken them and bring them out of their graves.

This very word which they are unable to understand or feel or believe is the power through which they are to be awakened and brought to life. There is a strange potency in the Gospel to awaken the human conscience and to quicken the human spirit by the power of the Holy Ghost.

But the Word of God alone can bring about only an outward reformation like the baptism of John, which changed the lives of men and the forms and habits of their conversation; but it cannot put breath in them. And so the first effect is the abandonment of sin, the reformation of life, the assuming of the forms of righteousness, but there is no breath in them. The great agent in the real and vital transfiguration is the Spirit of the Living God, “the breath of life from the four winds of heaven.”

There is something very significant about the way in which the prophet was commanded to address the Spirit. It was not the language of entreaty, but of command. Just as he was commanded to prophesy to the dry bones and to bid them live, so he is commanded to prophesy unto the Holy Ghost and to bid the Spirit come and quicken those lifeless stones.

Is there not for us the significant suggestion and a solemn lesson that we are to speak the Gospel to men in the authority of God, and with the expectation of its power, and that we are to claim the Holy Ghost to accompany the words and to give efficacy to our testimony and work with the same authority? That we are not only to ask Him and invoke Him, but to command Him and to use Him, and fully to expect His almighty efficiency to accomplish the work for which He sent us?

Just as the laws of electricity, when properly understood, place at our command the forces of electricity, so, when we yield to the laws of the Spirit’s operation, we may command the Spirit’s operation and fully count upon His almighty working and infinite power. Is not this the real meaning of faith and the real province of Prayer in the ministry of the Gospel? Is not this the secret of many of our failures? Do we command Him as we might? Do we use these infinite forces which God has placed at our service for the accomplishment of the work for which He has sent us?

The effect of the Holy Spirit’s work is not a mere reformation, but a transformation. The forms of life are quickened into real life, and the men spring to their feet, and stand before him, “an exceeding great army.” They do not now need to be carried. They are themselves self-supporting; nay, they become an army of mighty power, and go forth in aggressive conflict to fight against the enemies of God and to impart to others the blessing which they themselves have received.

This mighty Holy Spirit is recognized as present in the world. The four winds indicate the four quarters of the earth, and they suggest the omnipresence and the ever-presence of that blessed Spirit who is with the Church, through the Christian dispensation, as the enduement of power for every commission on which the Master has sent her. Shall we claim our high and divine resources? Shall we utilize the infinite and all-sufficient supplies which our Master has committed to us? And shall we, with a simpler, bolder confidence, give forth the authoritative Word, and call down the Almighty Spirit to quicken the dry bones of a lifeless Church and to awaken the spiritually dead, that Christ may give them life?

4. THE FUTURE RESURRECTION. While this passage is not a literal vision of the resurrection from the dead, at the same time it assumes it and takes it for granted. That glorious doctrine is more fully unfolded and differentiated in the teachings of the New Testament. We see it first in its great pledge and first fruit, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see it next in the resurrection of His people at His coming, and we see the vision of it in its final and glorious age at the consummation of all faith.

In every instance it will be, in some measure, at least, the work of the Holy Spirit. He who is working out the spiritual resurrection now, will accomplish it at the glorious appearing of our Lord, and will change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.

We shall not dwell on this glorious doctrine now. It will be much more fully unfolded in later Scriptures. It is our blessed hope, and already we have its divine pattern and pledge in the first begotten from the dead, the glorious Prince of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

5. THE APPLICATION OF THE VISION TO THE WHOLE REALM OF FAITH AND SPIRITUAL POWER. There is a greater truth presented than even the literal resurrection. The thought lying back of the prophet’s vision, and the profound truth which it throws forward upon the prospective of faith is that the resurrection is t he pattern and the guarantee of all that God is able and willing to do in response to the faith of His people.

Expressed in a single sentence, the thought is that we have a resurrection God, and we ought to have a resurrection faith. Is not this the sublime thought which the Apostle Paul has presented in the magnificent climax of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where he prays that the “eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe!”

Now comes the measure and standard of that power, “According to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.” Henceforth, the standard of faith and the measure of God’s working for His people is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When any trying situation presents itself, when any hard question is asked, and unbelief seems to say, “Can these bones live?” we have the simple answer, “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God.”

There are things that are darker than the grave and sadder than death. There are spiritual situations; there are family troubles; there are business difficulties; there are catastrophes and calamities; there are needs and trials compared with which the tears of bereavement are sweet, and the darkness of the sepulchre is bright indeed. But, thank God, we can meet these difficulties, these trials, these situations, these seeming impossibilities, and say, “Our trust is not in ourselves, but in God, who raiseth the dead. Who delivered us from so great a death, who doth deliver, in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us.” This is our hope for the hour of fierce temptation, for the time of sorrow and trial, for the conflict with sickness and pain, for the desperate campaign with the powers of the darkness as we go forth to save men and evangelize the world and bring the coming of our Lord.

All these are situations too hard for us; but, thank God, we can meet them every one with the God of the resurrection, with the hope of the resurrection, with the faith of the resurrection, with the life of the resurrection, with the pledge of the resurrection, and say, “Yes, it is all true. With men it is impossible — BUT GOD — who raiseth the dead.”

Break from your fears, ye saints, and tell
How high your great Deliverer reigns;
Sing how He spoiled the hosts of hell,
And led the monster Death in chains.

Say, “Live forever, Wondrous King,
Born to redeem and strong to save;”
Then ask the Monster, “Where’s thy sting,
And where’s thy victory, boasting grave?”

“Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for the forefront of the house stood toward the east, and the waters came down from under, from the right side of the house, at the south side of the altar. Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the outer gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out the waters on the right side. And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and He brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins. Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of the river. Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other. Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed. And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh. And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim: they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many. But the miry places thereof and the marshes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt. And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary; and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.” Ezekiel 47: 1-12.

This magnificent prophetic vision is doubtless a picture of the literal restoration of Israel’s temple and Israel’s race in the future days of millennial promise. Conceding this, it is quite legitimate for us to apply it also to the present working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of His people, and in the midst of His Church, which is the temple of the living God.

Our Lord Jesus has Himself identified the living water in His beautiful words in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of John. There, amid the sacred solemnities of that ancient temple and the Feast of Tabernacles, He applied to Himself the beautiful figure of the water that was being poured out before their eyes, and cried and said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of His inmost being shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified).”

This is an exact paraphrase of the meaning of the vision of Ezekiel. It represents the Holy Spirit as a river of water flowing from the inmost being of a consecrated heart, and becoming rivers of blessing to others.

There is something about the entire imagery of this picture so oriental, so sublime, so rich, that, like a beautiful flower, we cannot analyze it too much without destroying some of its symmetry and sweetness. It speaks of something as glorious as the rich symbolism of the picture.

It speaks of the crystal stream and the deepening, broadening rivers flowing through desert lands, and transforming them into gardens of luxuriant beauty and verdure. It speaks of perennial fruits and leaves of healing and even the Dead Sea itself reclaimed by its healing waters, until it becomes a place of fishermen who stand upon its shores from end to end gathering their shoals of fishes. Finally, the Temple itself becomes the abode of God, and is named “Jehovah Shammah,” the Lord is there.

There is something about such figures that cannot be analyzed. There is a freedom, a glow, a vague but real splendor, a something which is unutterable and full of glory, which truly describes a certain elevated phrase of our spiritual experience. There are things in our Christian life which, if you translate into coarse speech, become like the petals of a dissected flower, withered and dead; but let them alone, and they are full of life and joy. You cannot translate them, you cannot always understand them. It is the voice of the Spirit within you crying with unutterable groanings or unutterable joy. It is as full as the magnificent river, as pure as the crystal water, as fresh as the morning dew, as healing as the leaves of the tree of life, and as full of power and blessing as that river that made everything live where it came.

Our hymnology is not exaggerated when we sing:

“I am dwelling on the mountain,
Where the golden sunlight gleams,
O’er a land whose fadeless beauty
Far exceeds my fondest dreams.
Where the air is pure, ethereal,
Laden with breath of flowers.
They are blooming on the mountain,
‘Neath the amaranthine bowers.”

But let us, notwithstanding, interpret as much as we may the rich and suggestive imagery of the picture. The first thing that strikes a thoughtful reader is the direction of this river. We know it represents the Holy Spirit, the blessed Person whose ministry is to cleanse, satisfy, comfort, help, and heal the disciples of Christ. But why is it flowing out and not in? Are we not always trying to get this river to run into us? Are we not always seeking a blessing and a baptism? But here the sanctuary seems to have only one business, to give out the water; and this river only one thing to do, to go forth on its ministry of unselfish mercy. That is the true life of the Holy Ghost. The true purpose of the Spirit in coming to us is to make us workers together with God, whose one business is ever loving, ever blessing, ever giving.

It was not after this river became deep and full that it began to flow out; but from the first little trickling drop it was at the same business. The Temple might have said, when the first two or three droplets began to ooze from beneath the threshold, “I can never spare you; you must remain in my reservoir.” But no; it simply sent them forth, and away they went on their ministry of love; and so on to the end it was ever flowing, and, when it reached the Dead Sea, its living power was so great that the sea became transformed into life and freshness.

The real secret of the Dead Sea was that it had no outlet; it was just a great reservoir through the ages. But as it begins to overflow, it lives. Beloved, this is the secret of spiritual weakness and disappointment. You want a blessing for yourself. Begin to live for God and others, and He will give it back tenfold to you again.

The second thing we learn about this river is that it flows from a sanctuary. What is a sanctuary? It is a sacred, separated, holy, and divine place. First, it must be separated from sinful and common uses. Secondly, it must be dedicated to God and belong exclusively to Him. Thirdly, it must be occupied by God and be filled with Him as its Possessor, its Guest, and the Object of its worship.

In this sense the truly consecrated believer is God’s sanctuary when he separates himself from all evil unto God, dedicates himself to be the property of the Most Holy, and receives the Holy Ghost to dwell in him, and to represent the Trinity as the occupant and owner of his heart and life. This is the sanctuary. This is holiness. This is the true Christian life, and from such a soul as this the river will always flow.

But you cannot be a blessing to others beyond your personal experience. You cannot give what you have not got. You cannot bring pure water out of an unclean fountain. Why are we not greater blessings? Because our hearts are not sanctuaries. We try to do a little for God and then find the whole hindered by a thousand forbidden uses; and God will have no partnership with evil, and will accept no service which is mixed or compromised.

Beloved, let us consecrate ourselves. Let Him sanctify us, fill us, and then flow from us in all the fullness of the Holy Ghost.

The third thing about this river is that it flowed from under the threshold of the sanctuary. It did not come from the roof, or from some hill behind it, or from the fountain in the holy court; but it came from the lowest place, from under the stairs, where people trod as they passed by. And so the Holy Ghost comes from the lowly heart, consecrates the humble spirit, uses the man who is most dead and who has become so lost to himself and all his graces that God can have all the glory, and can fill him without measure.

The fourth thing about the river is its direction. It is flowing toward the east. It is the river of the morning, not the river of the night. It does not represent the old life, whose sun is going down; but it represents the new life which has risen with the resurrection of Christ, and is looking out into the everlasting morning. It is a new and resurrection life, and it flows ever toward the rising sun.

This river begins in a few little trickling drops. It is scarcely a rivulet for the first half mile. It is so small that it just oozes from under the threshold, a few drops of moisture, but it becomes a mighty stream before it reaches the sea. So the Holy Ghost loves to begin in “the day of small things.” He loves to speak to us in “the still, small voice,” to show us that we are not very far off. If He shouted in our ear, it would be an intimation that He was at a great distance or that we were very stupid. There is no sweeter expression of confidence than a whispered secret. The blessed Holy Ghost comes to us with the faintest touches of His breath; and if we do not recognize Him in these small beginnings, we shall not see their growth and development, and we shall wonder all our days why we did not get the blessing. We are looking for wind and rain, for a cyclone of power, for electric storms, when the air is full of divine electric fire. We have only to make the connection, to take it as we need it, and to turn it on to all the machinery of our life.

Beloved, if you will recognize the first touches of God, the faintest whispers of His answering voice, the little finger of His touch, behind which stands all His omnipotence, He will prove to you that it is not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts.

The first stage of the river’s course was about half a mile from the source. There the prophet was halted by his attendant and caused to pass over the little brook, and, lo! it had increased until it was “water to the ankles.” The Hebrew word is much more expressive. It means literally water to the soles of the feet.

There was very little water there, perhaps not quarter of an inch deep, and if the prophet had despised it, he would have been kept out of all the glory of the vision. But he put his feet in the little water that he found. There was enough for the soles of his feet, and that was enough for him.

Is not this just what is said to us, “Every place the soles of your feet shall tread upon, that have I given you”?

What shall we call this putting down of our feet in the waters? Is it, perhaps, the act of stepping out on God’s Spirit, of venturing on Him, of standing on His promises, of counting upon Him, of putting our weight upon Him, of trusting Him for everything, and publicly recognizing and confessing Him as our life and strength? Or does it mean obedience? Do the feet represent the steppings of duty? Is this not also one of the earliest stages of the Spirit’s work? He comes to teach us faith and obedience, and He always requires us to do something very early in our spiritual career, something that often costs sacrifice, something that proves the sincerity of our motive, something that means everything to us; but as we obey Him and go on, we find Him coming to us in fuller measure, and giving us deeper revelations and leading us on to a larger fullness.

Beloved, shall we take both steps, and put our feet in the flood, and walk in the Spirit, and accept boldly and lovingly all the good and acceptable and perfect will of God?

“Waters to the knees.” This is the ministry of prayer in the Spirit that follows a life of obedience and faithfulness to God. He will take us into the secret place of the Most High, and will permit us to bear the burdens of others and to share with Him the priesthood which He ever fulfills before the throne. This is more than our words and works. This is a place of real power, but it must be baptized in the Spirit or it will be fruitless and vain.

Next, we have “the waters to the loins.”This is the girding of power, the baptism of the Spirit for service. The girding of the loins is the symbol of service and strength. God gives power to His servants to speak in His name with effectiveness and to accomplish the glorious results for which He has commissioned them.Without this power we have no business to attempt any service for God. Jesus did not begin His ministry until he received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and it is presumption for us to dare to do so.

Next, we have the waters overhead, “a river to swim in.” The waters had grown so deep now that the prophet is himself powerless even to cross them. His own movements are impossible, and all he can do is to lie upon the bosom of the current and let it carry him.

This speaks of a time where we come to the end of our own effort and fall into the fullness of God. Henceforth our work is God working in us, and we are just like the swimmer on the bosom of the river carried by the tide, but far stronger than if he were fording it, for he has all the strength of the river on his side. Of course, there had to be a surrender of his own work.

There must, of course, be a surrender of our own life before we can fall into the strength of God. Then shall we inherit all the fullness of the divine omnipotence; so far as we are in union with God’s help, we shall have God’s power. This power is spontaneous. Without a struggle, it springs from a source beyond ourselves, and it flows like the ever changing river.

Next, we notice the fruits upon the bank of this glorious river. There are fruits for the food of the saints, perennial fruits, fruits of infinite variety; all the trees of paradise are restored, renewing their harvest every month; each joy is a new joy, fresh as the fruits and flowers of paradise. Even the very leaves are for healing. They are not the most important part of the tree, but they have their place; and so the Lord’s healing through the Holy Ghost is one of the ministries of the Spirit, but not His highest ministry, corresponding to the leaf of the tree while the fruit corresponds to the deeper spiritual life.

Then there are other fruits, especially the fruit of precious souls. The fishermen are standing on the shores of the Dead Sea gathering in their precious souls.

What a solemn picture the Dead Sea was, hard by Jerusalem’s gate, continually reminding the world of the hell that lies near the gate of heaven! Yonder was Zion and the Temple, but yonder also was the sea of death and the gate of hell.

Ah, still it is ever so! While we are rejoicing in the blessed fullness of the Spirit, hard by our gates are the masses of wretchedness and sin, the depths of danger and sorrow that crowd our mighty and sinful city and our poor lost world. But as we are filled with the power of the Spirit, we, too, shall go forth as fishers of men to gather precious souls for Christ in the power of the Spirit, and to turn the deserts of life into places of blessing, so that “everything wherever the river comes shall live.”

There is one more picture. It is in the last chapter of the book. “The name of the city from that day shall be called Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there.”

This blessed river brings the Lord. This blessed Holy Spirit brings the abiding presence of God, and He is better than all His gifts, graces, and operations. He is seeking a home in some of our hearts. The Holy Spirit is knocking at the door to find entrance for the king of Glory. If we will let Him in, He will make it His palace and His home and dwell with us forever. To be the dwelling place of God, is the highest and sublimest glory of the Spirit’s indwelling in the saint.

Like the ancient architect, who, when asked to build a temple for the sun, after others had constructed their beautiful models of granite and polished marble and resplendent gold, brought a design made of simple transparent glass, and said, “This is the true temple for the sun, for the sun himself can dwell within it and pass out and in without restraint.”

God is wanting temples for Himself as transparent as the colorless glass, reflecting not their own glory but His; receiving Him without the necessity of opening a single door, but with every channel and capacity of ours so free, so open, and so in touch, that we live and move and have our being in Him, and He can find in us that congenial abode for which He searches the mighty universe and the highest heaven in vain; for are not we also “the fullness of Him who filleth all in all”?

“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 4: 6.

The restoration was a period of Jewish history as distinctly marked as the Patriarchal or the Mosaic age, the times of the Judges, or the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. It followed the captivity, and was intended to prepare the way for a yet greater event, the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It was one of the most marked periods of divine working in the Old Testament, and it is full of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. This little message which Zechariah gave to his people as the motto of that Restoration, more fitly than any other word expresses its entire history. It was a movement, not of human power, but of the Holy Ghost.

It was unaccompanied by the miraculous signs which attended almost every other important period of Old Testament history; but its providential miracles and its manifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit were even more signal and wonderful than the miracles of the wilderness and the land of promise.

Let us trace the workings of the Holy Spirit through this wonderful period.

1. The first stage might be described as the ministry of prayer. We have an account of it in the ninth chapter of the Book of Daniel. “In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. And I set my face upon the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.”

When God is about to work out any great purpose, He usually lays it as a burden of prayer upon the heart of some of His saints whom He can fully trust. So He called Daniel, His tried servant in Babylon, to this high ministry of prayer.

We cannot fail to notice the connection of Daniel’s prayer with Jeremiah’s prophecy. Seventy years before, the prophet of God had announced, not only the fact, but the duration of Judah’s captivity; and Daniel had been carefully studying the sacred scroll and marked the period of his people’s affliction. Now that the time seemed to have run its course, he was encouraged to go to God in intercessions and plead for the fulfillment of His promise and the accomplishment of the inspired prophecy.

Some would have said that, because God was going to do it, they should not be troubled about it. Why not wait and let Him work out His own counsel? But to true faith the promise of God is a direct incentive to prayer.

True faith always finds its warrant in the Word of God, and because it has pleased Him to commit Himself to us in the Word of Promise, we feel encouraged to present our petition, and to believe for its answer.

Not lightly did Daniel pray, but for three full weeks he humbled himself in fasting and prayer before his God. He was not praying for himself. He was not borne down by the weight of his own trial and care. His prayer was wholly disinterested and altogether for his country and his people and the glory of his God.

This is true prayer, and this is divine partnership with God Himself. This is the highest and holiest ministry given to mortal, and brings us into direct fellowship with our ascended and interceding Lord.

Not in vain did Daniel thus cry to heaven. In due time a messenger came to him from the sky, and directly announced to him; first, that he was greatly beloved; and, next, that his prayer was heard and answered, and that from the very first day that he had set himself to ask it of God, God had recorded the answer in the decrees of the throne, and had set in motion all the forces of His power to accomplish it.

Indeed, this mighty angel had been three weeks on his way, hindered by the powers of darkness, and the principalities that rule over the governments of this world.

What a vision this gives us of the living forces of the world unseen, and of the power of prayer to press through all those labyrinths of evil to reach the heart and hand of God and the scepter of the universe!

Dear saint of God, you may be humble and unknown, you may have little talent and little wealth; but alone in your closet, you can touch the confines of the world, and set in motion forces which will influence the destiny of nations.

Yonder in Babylon we see a lowly suppliant on his face before God, in sackcloth and ashes and deep earnestness of heart. It looks to us like a spectacle of impotence. But wait; look a little further. Stretch your vision to the far circumference of yonder circle, and you shall see a mighty conqueror pausing in his career of triumph, issuing a decree from his throne, recognizing the power of Jehovah, and bringing all the forces of his government to carry out the prayer of that saint of God.

You shall see a long train of captives hastening from their exile to their distant home, and centuries on centuries of national prosperity reaching away down to Messianic times, and far beyond to millennial ages, all is the result of the prayer of Daniel, the beloved of the Lord.

The angel that came to him told him of the years that should intervene until the close of the Old Testament dispensation. He told him of the coming of the great Messiah. He told Him of His sacrifice and its blessed efficacy. He told him of the trials and troubles that should come to his people afterwards, and he reached out to the most distant ages, down even to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in His glory. O friends, when you talk to God and rise out of your own troubles, and stand with Him in the high and holy ministry of prayer, you get a much larger answer than you expect. God not only gives you what you ask, but He gives you an eternity beyond. “Lord, teach us to pray.”

2. The next stage of the working of the Holy Spirit is seen in the providential movements which introduce the Restoration.

The first and most remarkable of these was the career of Cyrus. More than a century before, the prophet Isaiah had described this extraordinary man. He had even called him by his name and pointed him out as the special instrument of the divine purpose in the restoration of Israel. “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut: I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: and I will give thee treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel, mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name; I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.”

What a wonderful picture! What marvelous prophecy, and how literally it was fulfilled in the romantic story of Cyrus, his rapid career of conquest, his capture of Babylon, the establishment of his universal empire, and then his remarkable part in the restoration of Israel and the rebuilding of the temple!

The next chapter in this extraordinary series of events is the proclamation of Cyrus in the first verses of the book of Ezra. “Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel (He is the God) which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the free will offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. Also Cyrus the king, brought forth the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; even those did Cyrus bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer.”

Here we see the conqueror of the world, in the very flush of his renown, turned aside by a divine impulse, and constrained to carry out the very purpose and will of God.

Oh, how wonderful the power of the Holy Ghost! He is able to deal with the hearts and minds of men, the highest as well as the lowest, and to overrule even their selfish ambitions and plans for the carrying out of His own purposes and the building up of His own kingdom.

He who has sent us His ambassadors to the nations has declared, “All power is given unto me, in heaven and in earth.” “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; He turneth it withersoever he will.”

Could we but believe more definitely in the power and providence of God, how much larger would our plans of service be, and how much less would we fear the oppositions of men!

We are living in the days when we may especially claim the overruling providence of God in the affairs of men, and when we may call upon the Holy Ghost to cooperate with the Church of Christ in sending the Gospel to the world, and hastening the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the history of missions there have been some very wonderful instances of God’s interposing power through the affairs of nations.

The story of Japan, the story of Siam, the story of Madagascar, the Indian Mutiny, and the history of China for half a century are full of romances of providence as significant as the story of Cyrus. God has many such things in store for the hearts that can trust Him.

Oh, let us understand the immensity of our God and the far-reaching scope of His providence and His power, and enter into partnership with Him in His great design to give the Kingdom to His Son. The Ancient of Days has come, and is judging among the nations, to give the Son of Man His Kingdom, dominion, and glory. Let us recognize His Presence, and let us claim, as in the days old, the operation of His mighty power.

How sublime and solemn the spectacle upon which the eyes of the Church are gazing today! The mighty Colossus of China, so long opposed to foreign influence and the Gospel of Christ, is being broken to pieces like a potter’s vessel, and plowed up as with the plowshare of God to prepare the way of the Lord. Doubtless it is in answer to some prayer of faith. Doubtless it is preparatory to some glorious aggressive movement of faith and evangelistic zeal. God help us to understand our times and to understand our God, and to be worthy of our high calling as workers together with Him!

Another extraordinary providential working of the Holy Ghost during these days is found in the story of Esther. It was another miracle of Providence, although on a different plane, and in a simpler sphere. This time a nation was to be delivered from extermination. The very race of Israel was to be preserved so as to form a line through which Christ could come. The devil had determined to blot out their existence, but God raised up a little maiden to be His instrument for their deliverance.

He had given Esther a beautiful face and a fair and attractive form; and these were trusts which He meant her to use for Him. He gave her favor in the eyes of the king, and He introduced her to his palace and his throne. Dear young friend, your face, your form, your place in society, these are mighty trusts to use for God. Take heed how you use them. There came a time when Esther must stand forth and fulfill her high commission, and even risk her life for the sake of her country. She hesitated; and had she faltered it would have involved, perhaps, not only the ruin of her people, but the destruction of herself and her father’s house. God gave her grace to be true, and through her true, brave stand, her people were delivered.

The enemies of God were caught in the snare which they had prepared. So God today is working through individuals as well as nations. May He enable us, like Esther of old, to understand His solemn message, “Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Quite as remarkable is the story of Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the returning captives. It was no small undertaking to conduct a band of 50,000 unarmed men and women and children across that vast desert, but Ezra so fully trusted God that he would not even ask an escort. How touching his language! “Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river of Ahava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all of our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way: because we had spoken unto the king, saying, the hand of our God is upon all of them for good that seek him: but his power and his wrath is against all that forsake him. So we fasted, and besought our God for this; and he was entreated of us.” (Ezra 8:21). “Then we departed from the river of Ahava, on the twelfth day of the first month, to go unto Jerusalem ; and the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. And we came to Jerusalem.”

This was the work of the Holy Spirit, and thus He loves to guard and guide those who trust in Him. Their task was a most difficult one. First, they attempted to build the temple without restoring the walls. Their primary object was to set up the worship of their God, and they trusted Him to be a wall of fire round about and the glory in the midst.

They were surrounded by jealous foes who tried in every way to defeat their plan, and sometimes succeeded in delaying their work; but through innumerable vicissitudes and deliverances God safely brought them, until the temple was renewed, and the walls arose under Nehemiah, and the social and political foundations of their national life were once more restored.

This is the true secret of success in every work for God. This is the true meaning of the Church of Christ today. God is her Living Head, and the Holy Ghost is her all-sufficient Defender, her All-sufficiency and Guide; and those who fully trust Him never fail to find Him true and equal to all their exigencies and needs.

3. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE MESSAGES OF HIS INSPIRED SERVANTS. While God raised up Cyrus, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Esther, Ezra, and Nehemiah to lead this great restoration, He also sent His prophetic messenger to aid them by his counsel. By their divine messages, there were three special prophets connected with the work of the restoration, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Malachi’s work belongs properly to a later period, and closes the Old Testament dispensation. Haggai and Zechariah were contemporaries. The one was an old man, the other was a young man. God has need of both classes in the ministry of His Church. We have time at present to refer to Haggai’s messages only.

There were several. The first was one of stern rebuke. The people had begun to forget their great trust, and, instead of rebuilding the house of God in Jerusalem, were erecting for themselves costly homes and becoming absorbed in selfish comfort and ambition. The prophet comes with a very solemn rebuke. “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in ceiled houses, and this house lie waste?” His heart-searching cry is, “Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.”

His message was not in vain. The officers and the people rose up and went to work with fidelity and zeal.

Seven weeks later Haggai is authorized to deliver to the people a very different message full of divine encouragement and glorious promise, “Yet now be strong, O Zerubabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, the son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts: according to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so my Spirit remaineth among you: fear ye not.”

The Holy Spirit was to be their guide and strength. Again and again the phrase is repeated, “Saith the Lord.” It was the word of God, the presence of God, the Spirit of God, that was to be their dependence and their divine resource through all this great undertaking. And then the promise reaches out into all the grandeur of a millennial vision.

“For thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations and the desire of all nations shall come: and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of hosts.

“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace saith the Lord of hosts.”

They were building a house that was to be visited in the coming centuries by the Son of God Himself, and that was to be glorified by His miracles of love and words of grace. Little did they realize the glory, the latter glory for which they were laying foundations. In a still later vision the prophet looks forward to the overthrow of nations and kingdoms, and the coming of the Lord Jesus Himself, and the recompense which then will await Zerubabel and his faithful laborers when the Lord shall make them like a signet of glory and honor.

This may be the glory of our work. This is the glory of all work done in the power of the Spirit. It is done for the coming of the Lord, and it will receive its recompense in that day of manifestations. Oh, let this be our high ambition!

Perhaps the house we build for Him will yet be trodden by the feet of the Son of man. The souls we bring to Him shall be presented in that day as our crown of rejoicing and His. The world that we win for Him shall be our kingdom as well as His in the day of His millennial reign. Yes, if we may but haste that coming and prepare the way by the evangelization of the nations, it may be our blessed hope and transcendent privilege, ourselves to live to meet Him in His glorious advent, and to welcome Him back to the world for which He died, then to share with Him the days, the ages of blessing and glory, which fill the vision of the prophetic age.

Oh, let our work take hold upon His coming, and be dignified and glorified by the same promise that cheered the heart of the restoration workers, “The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.”

The prophetic messages of Zechariah were still more rich and full, but we must defer to another chapter the unfolding of his sublime and instructive images of the Holy Ghost.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” Zech. 4: 6.

We have already looked at these words in connection with the history of the Restoration and the mighty movements of God’s providence in bringing about that glorious result. We also referred to the prophetic ministry of Haggai, the elder of the two prophets who were God’s messengers of counsel and encouragement to the leaders and people at this crisis.

Still more remarkable was the ministry of Zechariah, the younger prophet. His wondrous visions were all calculated to meet some special need and trial in their situation at this time.

The first vision was that of the man among the mulberry trees. The prophet saw in a vision a great plain of low, flat land covered with mulberry trees, and among them were horses moving to and fro. This represented the lowly condition of God’s people; and the horses, God’s ministers of power, who were moving in the midst of His people’s trials and working for their deliverance. This was followed by a message of special encouragement, announcing that these low and desolate regions should yet be filled with multitudes of people, that the cities, through prosperity, should yet be spread abroad; and that the Lord should comfort Zion, and would choose Jerusalem.

Next came the vision of the horns and the carpenters. Four horns appeared before the prophet’s view, representing the enemies that were scattering Judah and pushing to the wall God’s suffering people. But, coming up behind them, were four carpenters, sent to fray the piercing horns of the enemy, and blunt their points, so that they would not be able to touch or harm God’s suffering children. There were just as many carpenters as there were horns, and God’s people in every age may know that wherever there is a foe to strike there is a force to counteract for those who trust Him.

Next came the vision of the man with the measuring line, going forth to measure the walls of Jerusalem, its length and its breadth, and proclaiming: “Jerusalem shall yet be inhabited as towns without walls for the multitudes of men and cattle therein.” This was intended to encourage them amid the paucity of the population. A little handful of returned captives, they were trying to occupy the desolate land, and they seemed so few and contemptible that their enemies turned them to ridicule; but God declared that they would yet spread abroad and cover all the land. And as they looked at their unwalled city and the defenseless temple they were rearing in its midst, and thought of their exposure to all the surrounding enemies, God reassured them, through the prophet, with the precious promise, “I will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.”

Next there came a still more encouraging vision. All the power of their enemies outside could not hurt them half so much as their own weakness and unworthiness within. They were conscious of their sinfulness, and they knew that they had already suffered for their fathers’ unfaithfulness. They might fear that they, too, should forfeit the blessing of Jehovah. And so the prophet was sent with another vision. He beheld Joshua, the high priest, representing the people, standing before the Lord clothed with filthy garments, suggesting their guilt and sin, and Satan standing at his right hand, to resist him.

But as he gazed, lo! the command is given from the throne, “Take away the filthy garments from him, .. .and I will clothe him with a change of raiment, . . . and set a fair miter on his head,” and, turning to the accuser, Jehovah answered all his reproaches, and said: “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”

Then the vision was followed by a gracious promise of cleansing and blessing summed up in the glorious promise, “I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.” God stood not only between them and their enemies, but also between them and themselves, and all their own unworthiness and sinfulness. He thus stands between us and our guilt, our shield from the accusing of our conscience and the charges of our cruel adversary, so that we can cry, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

But now we come to the vision of our text, the most beautiful and significant of all, and unequaled by any other portion of the Holy Scriptures for delicacy and depth of sacred meaning.

It was intended to reveal to them the sources of their strength. They were weak, and their foes were strong. At this very time, through the intrigues of their enemies, a decree had come from the king of Persia, arresting for a time the progress of the work. We are told by Ezra that an army came and “with force and power” caused the work to cease. But, like the echo of man’s impotent rage answering back from the throne, God sends Zechariah to say in the very same phrase turned back again, “Not by force, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Man had sent his force and power, his army and his might; but he had left God out of his calculations, and this work and this conflict was “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting, crying, Grace, grace, unto it!”

The vision itself was a very beautiful one. As he awakened out of sleep with all his powers quickened to take in its meaning, he saw before him a golden candlestick like that which stood in the holy place, with its seven branches of polished gold, surmounted by a vessel of oil and a glowing flame. Then above this candlestick there was a large bowl or reservoir connected by pipes with all the lamps, and containing the supply of oil. But how was this reservoir filled?

Look again at the wondrous and exquisite mechanism. There were no oil cans, no ministering hands, no clumsy machinery of human attendants or conveying tubes, but two living olive trees ripening their fruit continually and pouring it in through two olive branches into the reservoir, from which it flowed down into each of the lamps. How simple, how beautiful, how perfect, and how full of holy meaning ! What is its profound spiritual meaning?

I. THE CANDLESTICK. The golden candlestick represents the Church of God and the people of God. “Ye are the light of the world.” “Let your light so shine before men that they shall see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”

Israel of old was to that generation what the Church is meant to be today, the depository of divine truth and life and light, the true light of the world. As the candlestick was all of gold, so the true Church of Christ consists only of those who are partakers of the divine nature. Gold is the type of the divine, and only as we are restored to the image of God and filled with His light and presence can we be light-bearers for the world.

The candlestick was the only light of the temple. It had no windows. All its light came from God. And the world has no light apart from the Church of God. This holy book, illuminated by the Spirit, contains all that we know of God, redemption, and the future life.

He is a foolish man who tries to deceive himself and his people by the torchlight of his own eloquence, philosophy, and sensationalism.

The candlestick was one, yet manifold; and so the Church of God has infinite variety, and yet but one light and one body. God does not level every soul down to the same pattern, but He lets Isaiah and James and John to be each himself; and yet He fills all with God, and makes their life divine, yet perfectly natural, simple, free, and human.

Every part of our nature has to pass through the new creation, but every part is preserved, sanctified, and filled with God. So the whole spirit and soul and body is preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The candlestick was not luminous. It was simply a light-bearer. It could make no light. It could reflect light from its polished and brilliant surface, but the light must come from another source. So we have no light in ourselves; we can simply receive the light and hold it. We are not ourselves the light of the world, but we are to so shine that men shall see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

We are to reveal not our goodness and our grace, but Christ in us. Let all men see how helpless and insufficient we are in ourselves, but what an all-sufficient and mighty Savior we have, and One available for them as well as for us. This is the light that the world needs, that the Holy Ghost and the person and grace of Jesus be held forth for their darkness and misery and sin.

The business of the candlestick was not to hoard the oil, but to consume it, to use it up, and to keep it ever burning in those glowing tongues of flame. If the lamps and pipes had tried to absorb and retain the oil, they would have lost it. They gave it up, they used it up. They consumed it in ceaseless burning. Men sometimes say to us: “Don’t expend all your vitality; don’t use all your strength; save yourself.” Ah, that is the way to lose yourself. Only that which we give we have. That which we keep we lose.

Try to hold on to one of God’s gifts, and it will go. Try to economize and keep for yourself your blessing, and it will disappear. Pass it on and it will burn forever. As those lamps exhausted the oil in their little cups, the residue of the oil poured in from above; and they were always full, and always fresh, and always burning, and always shining.

So let us be “burning and shining lights,” and, as we give out what He has given, He will replenish the supply, and we shall have enough and to spare; and we, too, shall “shine in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.”

II. THE OIL IS THE EMBLEM OF THE HOLY GHOST. It is He who gives us all our light and life. It is He who produces in us all our graces, and works through us all our service for God and men.

Beloved, this is the test, and this is the difference between man and God. Five of the virgins were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their vessels, but they took no oil in their vessels with their lamps; but they that were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, and when the Bridegroom came this was the point of separation.

The foolish virgins were virgins, too. They were pure; they were waiting and longing for the coming of the Bridegroom; they had a little light, and they had oil enough to light the lamp and keep it burning for a time; but they had not the residue of the oil, they had not the fullness of the Spirit, they had not the indwelling of the personal Holy Ghost. And so their lamps went out in their hour of need. They were unable to go in with the marriage procession.

The one point which settled the happy fate of the others was simply this, that they had “oil in their vessels with their lamps.” They had the Holy Ghost personally indwelling. They had the source of grace within their hearts. They did not need to go and replenish. They were always ready.

Beloved, let a word be sufficient for the wise, and, oh! let us be filled with the Spirit, so that we shall be found of Him in peace.

III. THE SOURCES OF THE OIL. We come to the most beautiful and significant part of the picture, the sources of the oil. These were not the same human mechanism of ministering priests and great reservoirs from which the oil was carried and replenished day by day, but two living trees whose ripening fruit was continually pressed out by hands unseen, and flowed through two olive branches and two golden pipes, down into the reservoir and into the lamps. It was all perfectly spontaneous, simple, silent, and divine. The oil was always flowing; the reservoir was always full; the lamps were always burning.

This is the source of our divine supply. Who were these two olive trees? Certainly they can represent nothing human, but the divine source of our life in Christ. They represent the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed Holy Ghost; the one on the divine side, the other on the earthly side of our spiritual life. Both are called by the same name. The apostle John speaks of Jesus as our Advocate or Paraclete with the Father, and he speaks of the Holy Ghost as our Paraclete from the Father. The one is the Advocate yonder, the other is the Advocate within.

One is on each side of us, and between two such Advocates how can a child of God be lost? From these two blessed Persons of the Godhead, distinct in their personality, yet one in their nature, we draw our spiritual life. We draw it as the olive trees gave forth their oil, spontaneously, silently, constantly, instinctively, just as we breathe the air in which we live, just as the blood circulates through our system, so quietly, so naturally, so simply, that we are unconscious of the process.

Thus we may abide in Him and live upon Him, and draw our strength from God alone. Beloved, have we learned the secret of the olive trees, the secret of abiding in Him?

But, what are these two olive branches that connect the olive trees with the reservoir and run into two golden pipes?

These are “the two anointed ones, or, the two sons of oil, that stand before the Lord of the whole earth.” Ah! this is the ministry of believing and united prayer. This is the highest service given to saints on earth, a counterpart of the priestly service of Jesus Himself upon the throne.

Beloved, if we will let Him, God will teach us this high and holy service. First, these branches must come out of the trees and be so closely in touch with them that they can communicate directly and draw their very life; and so he that ministers at the altar of prayer must be in perfect touch with God on the heaven-side. But on the other side, he must be in perfect touch with man. The branches must run into the reservoir and connect with the lamps.

So if we would know this ministry of prayer, we must be sensitive to the needs of others. We must be lost to our selfishness. We must be in touch with our fellow-men. We must have a heart full of sympathy and love, and readiness to suffer for others and for God.

God give us this glorious ministry and teach us to know the meaning of that mighty promise, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

VI. 1. The effects of the Holy Spirit’s working will appear first in the overturning of obstacles. “Who art thou, O great mountain?” There is always a mountain of difficulty in the way of faith. The best evidence of God’s presence and power is the activity of the adversary. Faith does not fear the highest mountain when the Holy Ghost is in charge, but trustingly and quietly stands, and says, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Be a plain.” The Holy Ghost will give the faith as well as remove the mountains. One cannot but be struck with the similarity of this passage to our Savior’s wonderful teaching regarding faith, where He says, that if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, we shall say to the mountain, “Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea”; it shall be done.

Faith does not ask the mountain to be removed. Faith does not even climb the mountain; but it simply commands it to disappear, and uses the authority and power of God. This is the way the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those who trust and obey Him and are led by the Spirit of God.

2. The work of the Holy Ghost gives all the glory to God. “He shall bring forth the headstone with shouting, crying, ‘Grace, grace unto it!” Man’s work reflects its honor upon man; but when we become possessed of God, and recognize His all-sufficiency, we can speak of His work without consciousness of ourselves, and say with the apostle, “Not I, but the grace of Christ in me.”

3. The work of the Holy Ghost is a finished work. He does not leave the broken column and the unroofed walls; but He accomplishes His purpose, and He leads us to see our expectation and finish our work. The hands of Zerubabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands also shall finish it, and “Thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.” The work of human ambition and impulse is weak, unstable, and spasmodic; but the work that God inspires is carried through.

4. The work of the Holy Ghost is straight work, and perfectly plumb. “They shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel.” The plummet is the symbol of righteousness. A plumb wall is a straight wall, a perpendicular wall; and so the work that God has is a straight work, pure work, and right work. The work that He inspires and carries forward has no compromises about it, and does not need to try to please men; but it rises on Scriptural foundations, and its walls are righteousness, and its gates, praise.

5. Finally, the work of the Holy Ghost is accomplished through feeble instrumentalities. “Who hath despised the day of small things?” This is the way it begins. “God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and the things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

I never read this text without remembering a cold November afternoon, in the year 1881, when a little company of seven persons met in an upper room in this city to confer and pray about giving the Gospel in its fullness to the neglected and churchless people of this great city. We were all poor, and there were but a few of us at that. We had come together in answer to a public call for a meeting of all who were interested in this subject.

As we sat down in the cheerless hall and gathered round the fire to keep ourselves from freezing, we looked at each other; and, certainly, it was the day of small things. Then we asked God to speak to us. As we opened our Bible that afternoon, the leaves parted at the fourth chapter of Zechariah, and, without thinking, our eye feel on this very verse, “This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts . . . . For who hath despised the day of small things?”

Never, perhaps, did a message come to human hearts with more strange and thrilling power than that message that afternoon. Kneeling down together, we let God pray His own prayer in our hearts; and the years that have followed have brought the blessed answer.

Do not be afraid of small beginnings. We may well fear large and pretentious resources, but God added to seven ciphers will amount to millions every time.

“But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth, for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Mal. 3: 2, 3.

The book of Malachi contains the last message of the Holy Ghost to the old dispensation. It was his high honor to close the prophetic scroll 2,300 years ago, before the silence of 400 years, which was to he broken once more, when “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets,” should at length speak unto us by His Son.

While he is recognized as one of the prophets of the Restoration, strictly speaking, he came just after the Restoration had been accomplished, so far, at least, as the ecclesiastical and political reorganization of the nation was concerned; and his part was rather to be the spiritual reformer of his times, and to rouse his countrymen from the reaction into which their religious life was falling, and summon them to righteousness and faithfulness to God.

His name signifies “My messenger,” and he was indeed the mouthpiece and the messenger of the Holy Ghost to his own age and to ours also, in the very special sense in which these times were typical of our own.

The closing years of the Old Testament dispensation might, very naturally, be expected to correspond to the closing years of the New Testament age. The state of the people in Malachi’s day bore a striking correspondence to the age we live in, and his messages to his own generation have a solemn significance to us “on whom the ends of the world are come.”

I. MALACHI’S MESSAGES TO HIS OWN TIMES. The Restoration had been followed by a period of prosperity, and, as usually happens, this had brought spiritual declension and, indeed, a very mournful condition of a religious life.

The moral condition of the people was indicated, as is usually the case, by the prevalence of divorce and the decay of domestic and social purity and righteousness. The wives of their youth were put away without cause, “the daughters of a strange god” were taken into unholy alliances, and the altar of Jehovah was “covered with tears.” This was done, not only by the people, but the very priests were foremost in this laxity of morals. Malachi was sent to rebuke their wickedness and to tell them that God hated their “putting away” and their unholy lives, and to call them swiftly and solemnly to righteousness and repentance. Then, along with this, there had grown up a spirit of mercenary selfishness. The very service of the sanctuary had become tainted with it so that the priesthood was a self-interested profession. No man would even shut the doors of the temple without a salary. The old spirit of sacrifice, love, and disinterested devotion was dead; and a lot of time-serving parasites had sprung up, and begun to use the very house of God for their selfish aggrandizement and gain.

Growing out of this mercenary spirit on the part of the priesthood there was on the part of the people corresponding selfishness and stinginess. They withheld the tithes and even tried to cheat the Lord by unworthy and dishonest offerings. “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, ‘Wherein have we polluted Thee?’ And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? . . . Who is there among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do you kindle a fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. . . . Ye said also, ‘Behold, what a weariness is it!’ and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this out of your hand? saith the Lord.” “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed rue. But ye say, ‘Wherein have we robbed thee?’ In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

Thus Malachi spoke to the last generation of the Old Testament, and thus he might speak with equal fitness to the last generation of the Christian age. There is the same laxity of morals, the same obliteration of God’s sharp distinctions, the same breaking down of the sanctities of home, the same avarice and love of money, the same mercenary spirit in the very work of God with its hired preachers, hired choirs, hired prayers.The very pulpit is an arena for intellectual gymnasts and a field for ministerial ambition. There is the same worldliness and niggardliness in the Church of God, with millions for our luxuries and pleasures, but pittances for God; splendid frescoed ceilings and costly spires, pointing in proud profession to heaven, but less per head from the people of God to send the Gospel to the world than we pay for our table salt or the egg shell in our coffee. Is not this as truly the portrait of our times, as it was of the days of Malachi? And is not this the same picture which the Holy Ghost in the New Testament has left, as of the last days of the present dispensation: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, . . . lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.”

Already these times have begun to come, and the messages of Malachi and Paul speak to the compromising Christians of today with a terrible aptness and fidelity. It would, indeed, seem as if the professed followers of God in every dispensation had to be tried and found wanting. Adam first failed in Eden; then the Antediluvian age went out in judgment. The patriarchal family sank into Egyptian slavery. The conquest of Canaan ended in the long captivity of the Judges. The kingdom of David terminated in the fall of Israel and the captivity of Judah. And now the glorious Restoration under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah had fallen back into the worldliness and ungodliness of Malachi’s day. Even so shall it be with the closing days of the Christian dispensation. As the pure church of Paul and John became the apostasy of Romanism, even so the church of the Reformation is yet to develop into the Laodicea of the last days; and the signs of Laodicea are not so far to seek already in the spirit of our own times.

But in the days of Malachi there was a faithful remnant, a little Church within the Church, a band of whom the prophet could say: “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth His own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”

And so in our own days there is still “the little flock,” the church of Philadelphia side by side with Laodicea, waiting for the coming of the Lord. There is a larger remnant than we dream in every dark and sinful generation who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. There is today in every church of Christ on earth the strange spectacle of a great, broad mass of professing Christians who know or want to know little of the power of the Holy Ghost, and, within that wider circle, a hidden few, like Enoch, who are walking with God, who are filled with the Holy Ghost, who are watching for the coming of the Lord, and who are the preserving salt of the whole body and the real impelling force of all the Christian activities of the entire church of’ Christ today.

Thus the age of Malachi touches our own with a wonderful correspondence, and the closing messages of the Old Testament ring like a trumpet call to the last age of the New Testament church. Let us receive their solemn warnings. Let us rejoice in their bright and blessed promises. Let us be found among the little remnant of holy and waiting ones.

II. THE SPECIAL PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT IN MALACHI. “There are two special promises in this prophetic book. The first is the coming of John the Baptist. “Behold, I will send my messenger, who shall prepare the way before me.” The second is the coming of the Lord himself in His first advent. “And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.”This, of course, has reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation and earthly ministry. But the promise immediately unfolds into a fullness of meaning which takes in also the ministry of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, the ministry of Christ and of the Holy Ghost are here so linked together that it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. “But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Then, later, there comes a third promise in the next chapter, of the other day that is coming, the other fire that is to consume and burn to ashes all the dross which the fire of the Holy Ghost has not burned away. This, of course, is the day of the Lord’s second coming, to be preceded by the ministry of Elijah in some sense, and to bring to Israel’s returning sons the rising of the Sun of Righteousness and to the waiting saints of God the day of millennial glory.

It is especially to the second of these promises that our subject holds us, the promise of the Holy Ghost.

1. It is, as we have seen, connected directly with the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself. It is spoken of as if it were all Christ’s own work. But we know who it was that brought the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ soap, the blessed Holy Ghost. Yet it is Christ who “baptizeth with the Holy Ghost”; and when He comes it is Christ He brings, so that it is the one life, the one work, through the two persons of the one God.

2. The work He comes to do is to cleanse and purify. He is the Spirit of holiness. But there are two stages of holiness suggested. The first is cleansing from sin; the second is refining the gold and bringing it to a higher measure of purity and beauty. The Spirit comes to do both these works in the believer’s heart. It is one thing to be cleansed from all known sin, but it is quite another to be refined, polished, and transformed into all the fullness of all the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. There is a good, but there is also an acceptable; and then there is the perfect will of God, and the Spirit is longing to bring us up to the highest. The wedding robe of the Bride of the Lamb is represented as not only clean, but bright; that is, glorious and beautiful, like Christ’s own transfiguration robes. Iron can be refined until it is more precious than gold. So our hearts can be not only purified but glorified, even here.

3. Corresponding to this double work is the double figure, the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ soap. The soap is for outward cleansing, the fire is for inward and intrinsic transformation. Fire can penetrate where water cannot reach, and can be used where water and soap are of no avail. Fire can be used to cleanse only that which in its nature is indestructible. The silver and the gold can stand the fire, because they are incombustible. The more you burn them the more you improve them. So the fire of the Holy Ghost can come to us only when we become united with God, and partakers of His divine nature. Then we do not fear the fire. It cannot hurt, but only refines. Beloved, some of us have only passed through soap and water. God wants our garments fire-touched. Then “the King’s daughter” shall be “all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold,” which no flame can deface or destroy.

4. “Heshall sit.” This is very striking. He does not hurry His work; that is, the work of the fire, the deeper, intenser inworking of the Holy Ghost. There is a baptism of the Spirit, a receiving of the Spirit, a cleansing work of the Spirit which is instantaneous and complete. But there is a later work, the following up, the filling out, the burning in of the Refiner which must take time. God is willing to take the time. Let us be, too. The figure suggests the most thoughtful care. He sits down at the crucible. He does not for a moment leave His precious work. He does not let the fire get too hot, or burn too long. And the moment He can see His face on the molten gold, He knows the work is complete, and the fire is withdrawn. It is a great thing to understand rightly the immediate and instantaneous work of the Holy Spirit in converting the soul, and then in entering it and taking up His eternal dwelling there through our obedience and faith, as our Sanctifier and Keeper; and His more gradual and subsequent work, in developing and filling our spiritual capacity, searching and enlarging us, and leading us on and out and up into all the fullness of the mature manhood of Christ.

How wonderful, how gracious, how kind that He will take such trouble with us, and, with love that will not tire,work out in us to the end “all the good pleasure of His goodness,” and make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory, both now and forever. Amen. Oh, that we might let Him have right of way, and ever cry,

“Refining fire go through my heart,
Illuminate my soul;
Scatter Thy life in every part,
And purify the whole.”

5. Finally, all this is for service. “Hewill purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto Him an offering in righteousness.” This is God’s great end in all his work of grace. He will not give us the Holy Ghost to terminate upon ourselves; and if He sees that our object in seeking even spiritual blessing and power is our own delight, aggrandizement, or self-importance, we shall be disappointed. But if our purpose is to be like God Himself, channels of blessing to others, and instruments for His use, He will fill us and use us to the fullest measure of our heart’s desire. The more we give the more we shall receive, until, like God, our only occupation will be to be a blessing. This is the secret of barren hearts and lifeless churches. They are Dead Seas, that have received without an outlet, until they could hold no more, until even what they had has become a stagnant and unwholesome pool.

Side by side, the blessing and service must ever go hand in hand, according to the ancient promise, “Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”

The Old Testament closes with the glorious promise of the Holy Ghost. How wonderfully the New Testament has fulfilled it! Let our lives fulfill it. Let our words and works pass it on until the yet greater promise of His Second Coming shall come to pass, and we shall rise to a richer indwelling of the Holy Ghost and a nobler service in the ages to come than we have ever here been able to ask or think.

We have closed these unfoldings of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We shall next turn, if the Lord will, to the fuller light of the New Testament midday and the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Oh, if, amid the imperfect light of that ancient dispensation, the Spirit accomplished such glorious results and left such illustrious examples of His grace and power, how much more must He not expect of us, the children of the morning, and the heirs of all His truth and grace! God help us to be worthy of our inheritance and true to our trust.