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’ (Matt. xi. 29).

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., Heb. 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’ (Phil. ii. 3-8)

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, 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 organizations. 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 (now Goodwill) 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 on 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. 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?

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’ (Rom. xv. 13) . What cheer is in those words! They ring like the shout of a triumph.

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.

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

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 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. 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.

I. 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 sympathizing with us, tempted in all points as we are, and so able and wise and willing to help us in our struggle and conflict (Heb. 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’ (Heb. 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,’ says Paul (Rom.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’ (Rom. xv. 13).

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, when afflictions overtake us, the Holy Spirit encourages our hope and makes it to abound by many promises. ‘ 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 carried them all the days of old’ (Isa. 1xiii. 9). And He is just the same today. To some He says: ‘ I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction’ (Isa. 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’ (Ps. 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, we can rely on His promise to meet the need, that our hope fail not. The Psalmist 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, 0 God, forsake me not; until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation, and Thy power to every one that is to come’ (Ps. lxxi. 9, 18). And in 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’ (Isa. xlvi. 4). And the Psalmist 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 shew that the Lord is upright’ (Ps. 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’ (Isa. xli. 10).

When all God’s waves and billows swept the Psalmist, and his soul was bowed within him, he cried out: ‘Why art thou cast down, 0 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’ (Ps. 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? ‘

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 criticizing 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 faultfinding 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 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 it becometh the gospel of Christ (Phil. i. 27).

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. 
0 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?’

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 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’ (I Thess. v. 19), and to ‘ grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption’ (Eph. iv. 30).

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 Matt. xii. 3 1:32; Mark iii. 2830; and Luke xii. io. And it may be that this is the sin referred to in Heb. 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, that house 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 has 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 onlybegotten 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.

Someone 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.

For 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 Immanuel’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.

I. 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 lovingkindness 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; they will not and, therefore, are never pardoned. Their sin is eternal.

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

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

0NE 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. 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 ‘ (Rom. 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’ (Heb. 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, tenderhearted, 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. 29V. 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. I – I0), 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 evilspeaking and petty malice, by unkindness and hardheartedness 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 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, selfforgetful, generous love. Then we shall be ‘followers of God, as dear children ‘, then we shall’ walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us ‘ (Eph. v. 1, 2).

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 every thing 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 tap.

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 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 (Ps. 1xviii. 19) had in a measure quenched the Spirit. She had not turned on 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 hands unto’ (Deut. xii, 18). 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, 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 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 baptized 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 heartholiness 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 wholehearted 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, a prophet, 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’ (Isa. 1xiii. 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 0 Thy servant, Lord prepare 
A strict account to give

Help me to watch and pray, 
And on Thyself rely, 
Assured, if I my trust betray, 
I shall for ever die.

HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?

Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is came 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 really to 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. 2 6, 2 7) ; ‘ 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. 2o); 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’ (John xvii. 2 6).

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, 0 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 school master 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; all 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 wrongdoing; 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 over-flowing 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 fellow-men, led to this belief by the Spirit of Truth, or were they misled?

‘ The things of the Spirit of God . . . are spiritually discerned ‘ (I Cor. ii. 14), says Paul. It is not by searching and philosophizing 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 ‘ (Matt. 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 of 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 criticize 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 organization 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’ (I John ii. 2o, 2 7).

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 Pet. i. 2 1), 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 sometime 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, if 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 (Mal. iv. 2) 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 stumblingblock 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?

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, to instruct us what to pray for, and to 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 an 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 (Rom. 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 (Gen. xviii. 23-32); that Moses interceded for Israel, and stood between them and God’s hot displeasure (Exod. 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 (Jas. v. 17, 18).

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 unto the throne of grace ‘ with a wellreasoned 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: selfishness, unbelief, and the darkness of ignorance and foolishness. The baptism with the Spirit sweeps away these obstacles and brings in the three great essentials to prayer: faith, love (divine love), and the light of heavenly knowledge and wisdom.

I. 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, pride, ambition, ease or vainglory. We shall seek only the glory of our Lord and the common good of our fellowmen, 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 paralyses 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’ (Jas. v. 16- 18. R. V.).

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 Jesus 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 faraway Burma. 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. 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’ (Eph. iii. 20). 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 itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered’ (Rom. viii. 26). If my little child asks for a glittering razor, I refuse its request; but when my full-grown son asks for one I grant it. So God cannot wisely answer some prayers, for they are foolish or untimely. Hence, we need not love and faith only, but wisdom and knowledge, that we may ask according to the will of God.

It is this that Paul has in mind when he says that he will not only pray with the Spirit, but ‘ I will pray with the understanding also’ (I Cor. xiv. 15)- Men should think before they pray, and study that they may pray wisely.

Now, when the Holy Spirit comes there pours into the soul not only a tide of love and simple faith, but a flood of light as well, and prayer becomes not only earnest, but intelligent also. And this intelligence increases as, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the word of God is studied, and its heavenly truths and principles are grasped and assimilated.

It is thus men come to know God and become His friends, whose prayers He will assist and will not deny.

Such men talk with God as friend with Friend, and the Holy Spirit helps their infirmities; encourages them to urge their prayer in faith; teaches them to reason with God; enables them to come boldly in the name of Jesus, when oppressed with a sense of their own insignificance and unworthiness; and, when words fail them and they scarcely know how to voice their desires, He intercedes within them with unutterable groanings, according to the will of God (Rom. viii. 26, 27).

A young man felt called to mission work in China, but his mother offered strong opposition to his going. An agent of the mission, knowing the need of the work and vexed with the mother, one day laid the case before Hudson Taylor.

‘Mr. Taylor’, said he,’ listened patiently and lovingly to all I had to say, and then gently suggested our praying about it. Such a prayer I have never heard before! It seemed to me more like a conversation with a trusted friend whose advice he was seeking. He talked the matter over with the Friend from every point of view-from the side of the young man, from the side of China’s needs, from the side of the mother, and her natural feelings, and also from my side. It was a revelation to me. I saw that prayer did not mean merely asking for things, much less asking for things to be carried out by God according to our ideas; but that it means communion, fellowship, partnership, with our heavenly Father. And when our will is really blended with His, what liberty we may have in asking for what we want!

Hallelujah!

My soul, ask what thou wilt, 
Thou canst not be too bold; 
Since His own Blood for thee He spilt, 
What else can He withhold?

HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED? ‘

‘ Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

SINCE God saves men by ‘ the foolishness of preaching ‘, the preacher has an infinitely important work, and he must be fitted for it. But what can fit a man for such sacred work? Not education alone, not knowledge of books, not gifts of speech, not winsome manners, nor a magnetic voice, nor a commanding presence, but only God. The preacher must be more than a man, he must be a man plus the Holy Ghost.

Paul was such a man. He was full of the Holy Spirit, and in studying his life and ministry we get a life-sized portrait of an anointed preacher living, fighting, preaching, praying, suffering, triumphing and dying in the power and light and glory of the indwelling Spirit.

In the second chapter of the First of Thessalonians he gives us a picture of his character and ministry which were formed and inspired by the Holy Spirit, a sample of His workmanship, and an example for all gospel preachers.

At Philippi Paul had been terribly beaten with stripes on his bare back, and roughly thrust into the inner dungeon, where his feet were made fast in the stocks; but that did neither break nor quench his spirit. Love burned in his heart, and his joy in the Lord brimmed full and bubbled over; and at midnight, in the damp, dark, loathsome dungeon, he and Silas, his comrade in service and suffering, ‘prayed, and sang praises unto God’. God answered with an earthquake, and the jailer and his household got gloriously converted. Paul was set free and went at once to Thessalonica, where, regardless of the shameful way he had been treated at Philippi, he preached the gospel boldly, and a blessed revival followed with many converts; but persecution arose, and Paul had again to flee. His heart, however, was continually turning back to these converts, and at last he sat down and wrote them this letter. From this we learn that:

I. He was a joyful preacher. He was no pessimist, croaking out doleful prophecies and lamentations and bitter criticisms. He was full of the joy of the Lord. It was not the joy that comes from good health, a pleasant home, plenty of money, wholesome food, numerous and smiling friends, and sunny, favouring skies; but a deep, springing fountain of solemn, gladdening joy that abounded and overflowed in pain and weariness, in filthy, noisome surroundings, in loneliness and poverty, danger and bitter persecutions. No earth-born trial could quench it, for it was Heaven-born; it was ‘ the joy of the Lord’ poured into his heart with the Holy Spirit.

2. He was a bold preacher. Worldly prudence would have constrained him to go softly at Thessalonica, after his experience at Philippi, lest he arouse opposition and meet again with personal violence; but, instead, he says, ‘We were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention ‘ (I Thess. ii. 2). Personal considerations were all forgotten, or cast to the winds, in his impetuous desire to declare the gospel and save their souls. He lived in the will of God and conquered his fears. ‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion’ (Prov. xxviii. I),

This boldness is a fruit of righteousness, and is always found in those who are full of the Holy Ghost. They forget themselves and so lose all fear. This was the secret of the martyrs when burned at the stake or thrown to the wild beasts.

Fear is a fruit of selfishness. Boldness thrives when selfishness is destroyed. God esteems it, commands His people to be courageous, and makes spiritual leaders only of those who possess courage (Joshua i. 9).

Moses feared not the wrath of the king, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and boldly espoused the cause of his despised and enslaved people. Joshua was full of courage. Gideon fearlessly attacked one hundred and twenty thousand Midianites, with but three hundred unarmed men. David faced the lion and the bear, and inspired all Israel by battling with and killing Goliath.

The prophets were men of the highest courage, who fearlessly rebuked kings and, at the risk of life and often at the cost of life, denounced popular sins, and called the people back to righteousness and the faithful service of God. These men feared God, thus losing the fear of man. They believed God and so obeyed Him, and were entrusted with His high missions and everlasting employments.

‘ Fear thou not; for I am with thee,’ saith the Lord (Isa. xli. 10); and this Paul believed, and so says, ‘We were bold in our God.’ God was his high tower, his strength and unfailing defence, and so he was not afraid.

Paul’s boldness toward man was a fruit of his boldness toward God, and that, in turn, was a fruit of his faith in Jesus as his High Priest, who had been touched with the feeling of his infirmities, and through whom he could come boldly unto the throne of grace and obtain mercy, and find grace to help in every time of need (Heb. iv. 16).

It is the timidity and delicacy with which men attempt God’s work that often accounts for their failure. Let them speak out boldly like men, as ambassadors of Heaven, who are not afraid to represent their King, and they will command attention and respect and reach the hearts and consciences of men.

I have read that quaint old Bishop Latimer, who was afterward burned at the stake, ‘ having preached a sermon before King Henry VIII, which greatly displeased the monarch, was ordered to preach again on the next Sunday, and make apology for the offence given. The day came, and with it a crowded assembly anxious to hear the bishop’s apology. Reading his text, he commenced thus: ” Hugh Latimer, dost thou know before whom thou art this day to speak? To the high and mighty monarch, the king’s most excellent majesty, who can take away thy life if thou offendest. Therefore, take heed that thou speakest not a word that may displease. But, then, consider well, Hugh, dost thou not know from whence thou comest? Upon whose message thou art sent? Even by the great and mighty God, who is allpresent, and who beholdeth all thy ways, and who is able to cast thy soul into Hell! Therefore, take care that thou deliver thy message faithfully.” ‘

He then repeated the sermon of the previous Sunday, word for word, but with double its former energy and emphasis. The Court was full of excitement to learn what would be the fate of this plain-dealing and fearless bishop. He was ordered into the king’s presence, who, with a stern voice, asked, ‘ How dared you thus offend me?’ ‘ I merely discharged my duty,’ was Latimer’s reply. The king arose from his seat, embraced the good man, saying, ‘ Blessed be God I have so honest a servant.’

He was a worthy successor of Nathan, who confronted King David with his sin, and said, ‘ Thou art the man.’ This divine courage will surely accompany the fiery baptism of the Spirit.

What is it but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that gives courage to Salvation Army officers and soldiers, enabling them to face danger and difficulty and loneliness with joy, and attack sin in its worst forms as fearlessly as David attacked Goliath?

‘Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord ‘ (Zech. iv. 6).

Shall I, for fear of feeble man, 
The Spirit’s course in me restrain? … 
Awed by a mortal’s frown, shall I 
Conceal the word of God most high? …

Shall I, to soothe the unholy throng, 
Soften Thy truths and smooth my tongue? . . . 
How then before Thee shall I dare 
To stand, or how Thine anger bear? . . .

Yea, let men rage, since Thou wilt spread 
Thy shadowing wings around my head; 
Since in all pain Thy tender love 
Will still my sure refreshment prove.

3. He was without guile. ‘ For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts ‘ (I Thess. ii. 3, 4).

He was frank and open. He spoke right out of his heart. He was transparently simple and straightforward. Since God had honoured him with this infinite trust of preaching the gospel, he sought to preach it that he should please God regardless of men. And yet that is the surest way to please men. People who listen to such a man feel his honesty, and realize that he is seeking to do them good, to save them rather than to tickle their ears and win their applause, and in their hearts they are pleased.

But, anyway, whether or not they are pleased, he is to deliver his message as an ambassador and look to his home government for his reward. He gets his commission from God, and it is God who will try his heart and prove his ministry. Oh, to please Jesus! Oh, to stand perfect before God after preaching His gospel!

4. He was not a time-server nor a covetous man. ‘ Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is witness,’ he adds.

There are three ways of reaching a man’s purse: (I) Directly. (2) By way of his head with flattering words. (3) By way of his heart with manly, honest, saving words. The first way is robbery. The second way is robbery, with the poison of a deadly, but pleasing, opiate added, which may damn his soul. The third reaches his purse by saving his soul and opening in his heart an unfailing fountain of benevolence to bless himself and the world.

It were better for a preacher to turn highwayman and rob men with a club and a strong hand, than, with smiles and smooth words and feigned and fawning affection, to rob them with flattery, while their poor souls, neglected and deceived, go down to Hell. How will he meet them in the Day of judgment and look into their horror-stricken faces, realizing that he played and toyed with their fancies and affections and pride to get money and, instead of faithfully warning them and seeking to save them, with flattering words fattened their souls for destruction?

Not so did Paul. ‘I seek not yours, but you,’ he wrote the Corinthians. It was not their money, but their souls he wanted.

But such faithful love will be able to command all men have to give. Why, to some of his converts he wrote: ‘ I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me ‘ (Gal. iv. 15). But he sought not to please them with flattering words, only to save them. So faithful was he in this matter, and so conscious of his integrity, that he called God Himself into the witness-box. ‘ God is witness,’ says he.Blessed is the man who can call on God to witness for him; and that man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells in fullness can do this. Can you, my brother?

5. He was not vain-glorious, nor dictatorial, nor oppressive. Some men care nothing for money, but they care mightily for power and place and the glory that men give. But Paul was free from this spiritual itching. Listen to him: ‘ Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome (or, used authority), as the apostles of Christ’ (I Thess. ii. 6).

Said Solomon, ‘ For men to search their own glory is not glory ‘ (Prov. xxv. 2 7), it is only vain-glory. ‘ How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? ‘ asked Jesus (John v. 44)

From all this Paul was free, and so is every man who is full of the Holy Ghost. And it is only as we are thus free that with the whole heart and with a single eye we can devote ourselves to the work of saving men.

6. With all his boldness and faithfulness he was gentle. ‘We were gentle among you,’ he says, ‘ even as a nurse cherisheth her children’ (I Thess. ii. 7).

The fierce hurricane which casts down the giant trees of the forest is not so mighty as the gentle sunshine, which, from tiny seeds and acorns, lifts aloft the towering Spires of oak and fir on a thousand hills and mountains.

The wild storm that lashes the sea into foam and fury is feeble compared to the gentle, yet immeasurably powerful influence, which twice a day swings the oceans in resistless tides from shore to shore.

As in the physical world the mighty powers are gentle in their vast workings, so it is in the spiritual world. The light that falls on the lids of the sleeping infant and wakes it from its slumber, is not more gentle than the ‘ still small voice ‘ that brings assurance of forgiveness or cleansing to them that look unto Jesus.

Oh, the gentleness of God! ‘Thy gentleness hath made me great,’ said David (Ps. xviii. 35). ‘ I . . . beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ’ (2 Cor. x. I), wrote Paul. And again, ‘ The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness ‘ (Gal. v. 22). And as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are gentle, so will be the servant of the Lord who is filled with the Spirit.

I shall never forget the gentleness of a mighty man of God whom I well knew, who on the platform was clothed with zeal as with a garment, and in his overwhelming earnestness was like a lion or a consuming fire; but when dealing with a wounded or broken heart, or with a seeking soul, no nurse with a little babe could be more tender than he.

7. Finally, Paul was full of self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love. ‘ So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us’ (I Thess. ii. 8).

No wonder he shook those heathen cities, overthrew their idols, had great revivals, his jailer was converted, and his converts would have gladly plucked out their eyes for him! Such tender, self-sacrificing love compels attention, begets confidence, enkindles love, and surely wins its object.

This burning love led him to labour and sacrifice, and so live and walk before them that he was not only a teacher, but an example of all he taught, and could safely say, ‘ Follow me.’

This love led him to preach the whole truth, that he might by all means save them. He kept back no truth because it was unpopular, for it was their salvation and not his own reputation and popularity he sought.

He preached not himself, but a crucified Christ, without the shedding of whose Blood there is no remission of sins; and through that precious Blood he preached present cleansing from all sin, and the gift of the Holy Spirit for all who obediently believe.

And this love kept him faithful and humble and true to the end, so that at last in sight of the martyr’s death, he saw the martyr’s crown and cried out: ‘ I am now ready to be offered . . . I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day’ (2 Tim. iv. 6-8).

He had been faithful, and now at the end he was oppressed with no doubts and harassed with no bitter regrets, but looked forward with eager joy to meeting his Lord and beholding the blessed face of Him whom he loved. Hallelujah!

Have you received the Holy Ghost? 
Twill fit you for the fight, 
‘Twill make of you a mighty host 
To put your foes to flight.

Have you received the holy power? 
‘Twill fall from Heaven on you, 
From Jesus’ throne this very hour, 
‘Twill make you brave and true.

0 now receive the holy fire! 
‘Twill burn away all dross, 
All earthly, selfish, vain desire, 
‘Twill make you love the Cross.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?’

“Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.’

‘WHERE is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? ‘ asks Paul. And then he declares: ‘After that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe (I Cor. i. 2o, 21).

What kind of preaching is this? He does not say, ‘foolish preaching’, but the foolishness of such a way as that of preaching. It is not the moral essay or the intellectual, or semiintellectual, kind of preaching that is most generally heard throughout the world today, that is to save men; for thousands of such sermons move and convert no one. Nor is it a mere noisy declamation called a sermon-noisy because empty of all earnest thought and true feeling; but it must be the kind of which Peter speaks when he writes of ‘ them that have preached the gospel . . . with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven’ (I Pet. i. 12).

No man is equipped to preach the gospel and undertake the spiritual oversight and instruction of souls, till he has been anointed with the Holy Ghost.

The disciples had been led to Jesus by John the Baptist, whose mighty preaching laid a deep and broad foundation for their spiritual education, and then for three years they had listened to both the public and private teachings of Jesus; they had been ‘ eye-witnesses of His majesty’, of His life and death and resurrection, and yet He commanded them to tarry in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit. He was to fit them for their ministry. And if they, trained and taught by the Master Himself, had need of the Holy Spirit to enable them to preach and testify with wisdom and power, how much more do you and I need His presence!

Without Him they could do nothing. With Him they were invincible and could continue the work of Jesus. The mighty energy of His working is seen in the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost. The sermon itself does not seem to have been very remarkable; indeed, it is principally composed of testimony backed up and fortified by Scripture quotations, followed by exhortation, just as are the sermons that are most effective today in the immediate conversion and sanctification of men. ‘True preaching is a testimony,’ said Horace Bushnell.

Peter’s Scripture quotations were apt, fitting the occasion and the people to whom they were addressed. The testimony was bold and joyous, the rushing outflow of a warm, fresh throbbing experience; and the exhortation was burning, uncompromising in its demands, and yet tender and full of sympathy and love. But a divine Presence was at work in that vast, mocking, wondering throng, and it was He who made Peter’s simple words search like fire, and carry such overwhelming conviction to the hearts of the people.

And it is still so that whenever and wherever a man preaches ‘ with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven there will be conviction.

Under Peter’s sermon, ‘ they were pricked in their heart ‘. The truth pierced them as a sword until they said, ‘What shall we do?’ They had been doubting and mocking a short time before, but now they were earnestly inquiring the way to be saved. The speech may be without polish, the manner uncouth, and the matter simple and plain; but conviction will surely follow any preaching in the burning love and power and contagious joy of the Holy Spirit. A few years ago a poor black boy in Africa, who had been stolen for a slave and most cruelly treated, heard a missionary talking of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and his heart hungered and thirsted for Him. In a strange manner he worked his way to New York to find out more about the Holy Spirit, getting the captain of the ship and several of the crew converted on the way. The brother in New York to whom he came took him to a meeting the first night he was in the city, and left him there while he went to fulfil another engagement. When he returned at a late hour, he found a crowd of men at the Penitent-form, led there by the simple words of this poor black fellow. He took him to his Sunday-school, and put him up to speak, while he attended to some other matters. When he turned from these affairs that had occupied his attention for only a little while, he found the Penitentform full of teachers and scholars, weeping before the Lord. What the black boy had said he did not know; but he was bowed with wonder and filled with joy, for it was the power of the Holy Spirit.

Men used to fall as though cut down in battle under the preaching of Wesley, Whitefield, Finney and others. And while there may not be the same physical manifestation at all times, there will surely be the same opening of eyes to spiritual things, breaking of hearts and piercing of consciences. The Spirit under the preaching of a man filled with the Holy Ghost will often come upon a congregation like a wind, and heads will droop, eyes will brim with tears, and hearts will break under His convicting power. I remember a proud young woman who had been mercilessly criticizing us for several nights smitten in this way. She was smiling when suddenly the Holy Spirit winged a word to her heart, and instantly her countenance changed, her head drooped, and for an hour or more she sobbed and struggled while her proud heart broke; she found her way with true repentance and faith to the feet of Jesus, and her heavenly Father’s favour. How often have we seen such sights as this under the preaching of the Founder! And it ought to be a common sight under the preaching of all servants of God; for what are we sent for but to convict men of their sin and their need, and by the power of the Spirit to lead them to the Saviour?

And not only will there be conviction under such preaching, but generally, if not always, there will be conversion and sanctification. Three thousand people accepted Christ under Peter’s Pentecostal sermon. Later five thousand were converted, and a multitude of the priests were obedient to the faith. And it was so under the preaching of Philip in Samaria, of Peter in Lydda and Saron and in Caesarea, and of Paul in Ephesus and other cities.

To be sure, the preaching of Stephen in its immediate effect only resulted in enraging his hearers until they stoned him to death; but it is highly probable that the ultimate result was the conversion of Paul, who kept the clothes of those who stoned him, and through Paul the evangelization of the Gentiles.

One of the greatest of American evangelists sought with agonizing prayers and tears the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and received it. He said he then preached the same sermons, but where before it had been as one beating the air, now hundreds were saved.

It is this that has made Salvation Army officers successful. Young, inexperienced, without special gifts and without learning, but with the baptism, they have been mighty to win souls. The hardest hearts have been broken, the darkest minds illuminated, the most stubborn wills subdued, and the wildest natures tamed. Their words have been with power and have convicted and converted and sanctified men, and whole communities have been transformed by their labours.

But without this Presence great gifts and profound and accurate learning are without avail in the salvation of men. We often see men with great natural powers, splendidly trained, and equipped with everything save this fiery baptism, who labour and preach year after year without seeing a soul saved. They have spent years in study; but they have not spent a day, much less ten days, fasting and praying and waiting upon God for His anointing that should fill them with heavenly wisdom and power for their work. They are like a great gun loaded and primed, but without a spark of fire to turn the powder and ball into a resistless lightning bolt.

Men need fire, and they get it from God in agonizing, wrestling, listening prayer that will not be denied; and when they get it, and not till then, will they preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven, and surely men shall be saved. Such preaching is not foolish.

I. It is reasonable. It takes account of man’s reason and conforms to the dictates of common sense. We read that Paul reasoned with the people in the synagogues (Acts xvii. 2; xviii. 4, 19). His preaching was not a noisy harangue, nor a rose-water essay of pretty, empty platitudes, but a life and death-eternal life and deathgrapple with the intelligence of men. God is the Author of man’s intellectual powers, and He endowed him with reason. The Holy Spirit respects these powers, and appeals to reason when He inspires a man to preach to his fellows.

2. It is persuasive. ‘ Come now, and let us reason together, saith ‘the Lord’ (Isa. 1. 18). He takes account of man’s feelings, sensibilities, fears, hopes and affections, and persuades them. It appeals to the whole man. Man is not all intellect, a mere logic machine. He is a bundle of sensibilities as well; and true preaching -the kind that is inspired by the Holy Ghost-appeals to the intelligence of men with reasons and arguments. But they are penetrated through and through with such a spirit of compassionate persuasiveness, that wholesome fears are aroused, shame of sin is created, conscience is unshackled, desires for purity and goodness are resurrected, tender affections are quickened, the will is energized, and the whole man is fired and illuminated by a flame of saving emotions, kindled by the fire in the preacher’s heart, that enables him to see and feel the realities of things eternal, of God and judgment, and of Heaven and Hell, of the final fixedness of moral character, of the importance of immediate repentance, and acceptance of God’s offer of mercy in Jesus Christ.

3. It is scriptural. The gospel is not opposed to natural religion and reason, but it has run far ahead of them. it is a revelation from God of facts, of grace and truth, of mercy and love and of a plan of redemption that man could not discover for himself. And this revelation is recorded in the Scriptures. So we find that Paul ‘ reasoned with them out of the Scriptures ‘. The truths of the Bible cover man’s moral needs as a glove covers his hand; fits his moral nature and experience as a key fits its lock; reveals the condition of his heart as a mirror reveals the state of his face.

No man can read the Bible thoughtfully without, either hating it or hating his sins.

But, while it reveals man’s sin and his lost condition, it at the same time declares God’s love and His plan of redemption. It shows us Jesus Christ and the way by which we come to Him, and through Him get deliverance from sin and become a new creation. It is in the Bible, and only there, that this revelation can be found. And it is this the Holy Ghost inspires men to preach.

‘ We preach Christ crucified,’ wrote Paul (I Cor. i. 2 3) ; and again, We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord (2 Cor. iv. 5). And he exhorted Timothy to ‘preach the word’ (2 Tim. iv. 2). It is ‘ the unsearchable ‘, but revealed, ‘ riches of Christ’ that we are to preach (Eph. iii. 8).

The Holy Spirit makes the word alive. He brings it to the remembrance of the preachers in whom He abides, and He applies it to the heart of the hearers, lightening up the soul as with a sun until sin is seen in all its hideousness, or cutting as a sharp sword, piercing the heart with resistless conviction of the guilt and shame of sin.

Peter had no time to consult the Scriptures and prepare a sermon on the morning of Pentecost; but the Holy Spirit quickened his memory, and brought to his mind the Scriptures appropriate to the occasion.

Hundreds of years before, the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of the prophet Joel, had foretold that in the last days the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh, and that their sons and daughters should prophesy (ii. 28-32). And the same Spirit that spoke through Joel now made Peter to see and declare that this pentecostal baptism was that of which Joel spoke.

By the mouth of David He had said: ‘Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption’ (Ps. xvi. 10); and now Peter, by the inspiration of the same Spirit, applies this Scripture to the resurrection of Jesus, and so proves to the Jews that the One they had condemned and killed was the Holy One foretold in prophecy and psalm.

And so today the Holy Spirit inspires men who receive Him to use the Scriptures to awaken, convict and save men.

When Finney was a young preacher, he was invited to a country school-house to preach. On the way there he became much distressed in soul, and his mind seemed blank and dark, when all at once the words spoken to Lot in Sodom by the angels came to his mind: ‘Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city’ (Gen. xix. 14). He explained the text, told the people about Lot and the wickedness of Sodom’ and applied it to them. While he spoke they began to look exceedingly angry, and then, as he earnestly exhorted them to give up their sins and seek the Lord, they began to fall from their seats as though stricken down in battle, and to cry to God for mercy. A great revival followed; many were converted, and a number of the converts became ministers of the gospel.

To Finney’s amazement, he learned afterward that the place was called Sodom because of its extreme wickedness, and the old man who had invited him to preach was called Lot, because he was the only God-fearing man in the place. Evidently the Holy Spirit worked through Finney to accomplish these results. And such inspiration is not uncommon with those who are filled with the Spirit.

But this reinforcement of the mind and memory by the Holy Spirit does not do away with the need of study. The Spirit quickens that which is already in the mind and memory, as the warm sun and rains of spring quicken the sleeping seeds that are in the ground, and only those. The sun does not put the seed in the soil, nor does the Holy Spirit without our attention and study put the word of God in our minds. For that we should prayerfully and patiently study.

‘We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word,’ said the apostles (Acts vi. 4).

‘ Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth,’ wrote Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. ii. 15)

Those men have been best able rightly to divide the word, and have been most mightily used by the Holy Spirit, who have most carefully and prayerfully studied the word of God, and most constantly and lovingly meditated upon it.

4. This preaching is heating and comforting. Preaching with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven’ is indescribably searching in its effects. But it is also edifying, strengthening, comforting to those who are wholly the Lord’s. It cuts, but only to cure. It searches, but only to save. It is constructive, as well as destructive. It tears down sin and pride and unbelief, but it builds up faith and righteousness and holiness and all the graces of a Christian character. It warms the heart with love, strengthens faith, and confirms the will in all holy purposes.

Every preacher baptized with the Holy Ghost can say with Jesus: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord’ (Luke iv. 18, 19).

Seldom is there a congregation in which there are only those who need to be convicted. There will also be meek and gentle ones to whom should be brought a message of joy and good tidings; brokenhearted ones to be bound up; wounded ones to heal; tempted ones to be delivered; and those whom Satan has bound by some fear or habit to be set free; and the Holy Spirit who knows all hearts will inspire the word that shall bless these needy ones.

The preacher filled with the Holy Spirit, who is instant in prayer, constant in the study of God’s word, and steadfast and active in faith, will surely be so helped that he can say: ‘The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary’ (Isa. 1- 4) and as with little Samuel, the Lord will ‘ let none of his words fall to the ground’ (I Sam. iii. 19).

He will expect results, and God will make them follow his preaching as surely as corn follows the planting and cultivating of the farmer.

‘HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?

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

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me’ (Isa. lxi. 1), is the testimony of the workman God sends.

God chooses His own workmen, and it is the office of the Holy Spirit to call whom He will to preach the gospel. I doubt not He calls men to other employments for His glory, and would still more often do so, if men would but listen and wait upon Him to know His will.

He called Bezaleel and Aholiab to build the tabernacle. He called and commissioned the Gentile king, Cyrus, to rebuild Jerusalem and restore His chastised and humbled people to their own land. And did He not call Joan of Arc to her strange and wonderful mission? And Washington and Lincoln?

And, no doubt, He leads most men by His providence to their life-work; but the call to preach the gospel is more than a providential leading; it is a distinct and imperative conviction.

Bishop Simpson, in his Lectures on Preaching, says: Even in its faintest form there is this distinction between a call to the ministry and a choice of other professions: a young man may wish to be a physician; he may desire to enter the navy; he would like to be a farmer; but he feels he ought to be a minister. It is this feeling of ought, or obligation, which in its feeblest form indicates the divine call. It is not in the aptitude, taste or desire, but in the conscience, that its root is found. It is the voice of God to the human conscience, saying, ‘ You ought to preach.’ Sometimes the call comes as distinctly as though a voice had spoken from the skies into the depths of the heart.

A young man who was studying law was converted. After a while he was convicted for sanctification, and while seeking he heard, as it were, a voice, saying, ‘Will you devote all your time to the Lord?’ He replied: ‘I am to be a lawyer, not a preacher, Lord.’ But not until he had said, ‘ Yes, Lord ‘, could he find the blessing.

A thoughtless, godless young fellow was working in the corn-field when a telegram was handed him announcing the death of his brother, a brilliant and devoted Salvation Army field officer; and there and then, unsaved as he was, God called him, showed him a vast Army with ranks broken, where his brother had fallen, and made him to feel that he should fill the breach in the ranks. Fourteen months later he took up the sword and entered the Fight from the same platform on which his brother fell, and is today one of our most successful and promising field officers.

Again, the call may come as a quiet suggestion, a gentle conviction, as though a gossamer bridle were placed upon the heart and conscience to guide the man into the work of the Lord. The suggestion gradually becomes clearer, the conviction strengthens until it masters the man, and if he seeks to escape it, he finds the silken bridle to be one of stoutest thongs and firmest steel.

It was so with me. When but a boy of eleven I heard a man preaching, and I said to myself, ‘ Oh, how beautiful to preach! ‘ Two years later I was converted, and soon the conviction came upon me that I should preach. Later, I decided to follow another profession; but the conviction increased in strength, while I struggled against it, and turned away my ears and went on with my studies. Yet in every crisis or hour of stillness when my soul faced God, the conviction that I must preach burned itself deeper into my conscience. I rebelled against it. I felt I would almost rather (but not quite) go to Hell than to submit. Then at last a great ‘woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel’, took possession of me, and I yielded, and God won. Hallelujah! The first year He gave me three revivals with many souls; and now I would rather preach Jesus to poor sinners and feed His lambs than to be an archangel before the Throne. Some day, some day, He will call me into His blessed presence, and I shall stand before His face, and praise Him for ever for counting me worthy and calling me to preach His glad gospel and share in His joy of saving the lost. The ‘woe’ is lost in love and delight through the baptism of the Spirit and the sweet assurance that Jesus is pleased.

Occasionally, the call comes to a man who is ready and responds promptly and gladly. When Isaiah received the fiery touch that purged his life and purified his heart, he ‘ heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? ‘ And in the joy and power of his new experience, he cried out, ‘ Here am I ; send me’ (Isa. vi. 8).

When Paul received his call, he says, ‘ Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood ‘ (Gal. i. 16), and he got up and went as the Lord led him.

But more often it seems the Lord finds men preoccupied with other plans and ambitions, or encompassed with obstacles and difficulties, or oppressed with a deep sense of unworthiness or unfitness. Moses argued that he could not talk: ‘ 0 my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since Thou hast spoken unto Thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.’

And then the Lord condescended, as He always does, to reason with the backward man. ‘Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say ‘ (Exod. iv. 10- 12).

When the call of God came to Jeremiah, he shrank back, and said, ‘Ah, Lordd God! behold, I cannot speak for I am a child.’ But the Lord replied: ‘ Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee (Jer. i. 6-8).

And so the call of God comes today to those who shrink and feel that they are the most unfit, or most hedged in by insuperable difficulties.

I know a man, who, when converted, could not tell A from B. He knew nothing whatever about the Bible, and stammered so badly that, when asked his own name, it would usually take him a minute or so to tell it; added to this, he lisped badly, and was subject to a nervous affliction which seemed likely to unfit him for any kind of work whatever. But God poured light and love into his heart, called him to preach, and today he is one of the mightiest soul-winners in the whole round of my acquaintance. When he speaks the house is always packed to the doors, and the people hang on his words with wonder and joy.

He was converted at a camp meeting, and sanctified wholly in a corn field. He learned to read; but, being too poor to afford a light in the evening, he studied a large-print Bible by the light of the full moon. Today, he has the Bible almost committed to memory, and when he speaks he does not open the book, but reads his lesson from memory and quotes proof texts from Genesis to Revelation without mistake, giving chapter and verse for every quotation. When he talks his face shines, and his speech is like honey for sweetness and like bullets fired from a gun for power. He is one of the weak and foolish ones God has chosen to confound the wise and mighty (i Cor. i. 27).

If God calls a man, He will so corroborate the call in some way that men may know that there is a prophet among them. It will be with him as it was with Samuel. ‘And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of His words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan even to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord’ (I Sam. iii. 19,20)

If the man himself is uncertain about the call, God will deal patiently with him to make him certain, as He did with Gideon. His fleece will be wet with dew when the earth is dry, or dry when the earth is wet; or he will hear of some tumbling barley cake smiting the tents of Midian, that will strengthen his faith and make him to know that God is with him (Judges vi. 36-40; vii. 9-15),

If the door is shut and difficulties hedge the way, God will go before the man He calls and open the door and sweep away the difficulties (Isa. xlv. 2-3)

If others think the man so ignorant and unfit that they doubt his call, God will give him such grace or such power to win souls that they shall have to acknowledge that God has chosen him. It was in this way that God made a whole National Headquarters, from the Commissioner downward, to know that He had chosen the elevator boy for His work. The boy got scores of his passengers on the elevator saved, and then he was commissioned and sent into the Field to devote all his time to saving men.

The Lord will surely let man’s comrades and brethren know, as surely as He did the church at Antioch, when ‘ the Holy Ghost said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them ‘ (Acts xiii: 2).

Sometimes the one who is called will try to hide it in his heart, and then God stirs up some officer or minister, some soldier or mother in Israel, to lay a hand on his shoulders, and ask, ‘ Are you not called to the work? ‘ and he finds he cannot hide himself or escape from the call, any more than could Adam hide himself from God behind the trees of the garden, or Jonah escape God’s call by taking ship for Tarshish.

Happy is the man who does not try to escape, but, though trembling at the mighty responsibility, assumes it and, with all humility and faithfulness, sets to work by prayer and patient, continuous study of God’s word to fit himself for God’s work. He will need to prepare himself, for the call to the work is also a call to preparation, continuous preparation of the fullest possible kind.

The man whom God calls cannot safely neglect or despise the call. He will find his mission on earth his happiness and peace, his power and prosperity, his reward in Heaven, and probably Heaven itself, bound up with that call and dependent upon it. He may run away from it, as did Jonah, and find a waiting ship to favour his flight; but he will also find fierce storms and billowing seas overtaking him, and big-mouthed fishes of trouble and disaster ready to swallow him.

But if he heeds the call and cheerfully goes where God appoints, God will go with him; he shall nevermore be left alone. The Holy Spirit will surely accompany him, and he may be one of the happiest men on earth, one of the gladdest creatures in God’s universe.

‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,’ said Jesus, as He commissioned His disciples to go to all nations and preach the gospel (Matt. xxviii. 2o). ‘ My presence shall go with thee,’ said Jehovah to Moses (Exod. xxxiii. 14)

And to the boy Jeremiah, He said, ‘Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee. . . . And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee ‘ (Jer. i. 8, 19).

I used to read these words with a great and rapturous joy, as I realized by faith that they were also meant for me and for every man sent of God, and that His blessed presence was with me every time I spoke to the people or dealt with an individual soul or knelt in prayer with a penitent seeker after God; and I still read them so.

Has He called you into the work, my brother? And are you conscious of His helpful, sympathizing, loving presence with you? If so, let no petty offence, hardship, danger, or dread of the future cause you to turn aside 9or draw back. Stick to the work till He calls you out, and when He so calls you can go with open face and a heart abounding with love, joy and peace, and He will still go with you.

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