The Holy Spirit

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 4, 1903

Of all the gifts that Heaven could bestow upon the human family, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the most precious. It is a complete revelation of the Father and the Son, and it brings to the individual who receives it the joy of heaven. It is a foretaste of the future glory. It is more precious to the human family than the personal presence of Christ when he was here eighteen hundred years ago; for he said that it was necessary for him to go away in order that the Comforter might come. There was something in his presence in the flesh that prevented the disciples from receiving the Holy Spirit in the sense that the Saviour desired them to have it. And the Saviour’s heart was drawn out in a special manner toward his people that they might receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

When it is received, it never takes away a man’s judgment, but it sanctifies his judgment. It elevates the soul, and connects it with heaven. Fanaticism results from the surrender of the judgment to impressions thought to be of the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit does make impressions; it teaches, it instructs the soul. But because of man’s fallen nature, he could never know what was the Holy Spirit were it not for the Word of God. So God has given his Word as a guide for a correct understanding of what the Holy Spirit is. The Word is our infallible guide, but when men depart from it, and follow what they suppose is the leading of the Holy Spirit, they make a mistake. Even the angels are controlled by restraining influences. A person may be inspired by the love of God, but unless there is a controlling influence to direct his impulses, he may make mistakes. When Christ hung upon the cross, the angels would gladly have taken him from earth to heaven, and would have done it instantly had not a tall, commanding angel restrained them. So we need the restraining influence of God’s arrangement, as revealed in his Word; and we shall always need it. That is why order was established in heaven.

I make these remarks lest you should misunderstand me before I get through with the application of some scriptures I wish to read. I want it distinctly understood that God has perfect order in heaven and in earth, and this order is revealed in his Word, so none can discard the Word of God for an impression that is not in harmony with the Word. The leading of the Spirit and the Word go together.

O that we could realize how near heaven is to this earth! The education that God wants to give his people is an education of heaven, a training of the soul, so that when this earth has passed away, we shall be prepared to enter heaven. It is a connection between heaven and earth, a straight channel, which has its beginning on this earth, and ends in glory. It is the ladder that Jacob saw, with its base resting upon the earth and its topmost round upon the throne of God. We have to learn the song on earth; we have to keep step with the angels and with God on earth, then we can walk with God in this vale of tears. When this is done, the training received, the lessons learned, we are prepared to enter the joys of the eternal.

The Holy Spirit is the divine agency to accomplish this; because, as I said before, through God’s appointed agencies it educates the soul so that there is perfect harmony between the soul and God. Of all the promises that are found in the Bible none are more fully and freely expressed than the promise of the Holy Spirit. I wish to read a few verses in the eleventh chapter of Luke, where the promise of the Spirit is stated ten times in five verses. There is not another promise like this in the Bible. You may count the promises as I read them: “And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” What wondrous words! If the Saviour were to speak to us here this morning, he would say the same words that he spoke on this occasion. Now the Saviour turns the statement around, and puts it another way: “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” Here are six times that the promise is made, and now he puts it another way: “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?” Think of it, fathers and mothers! If your child should come to you and ask bread, would you give him a stone? If he asked a fish, would you give him a serpent that would bite him? If he asked an egg, would you give him a scorpion that would sting him? Why, your very soul would revolt at the idea?

You already have that promise repeated nine times. Now comes the application: “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” The Saviour longs to impress every heart with his willingness to give the Holy Spirit, and so he presents the promise, the assurance, ten times in the five verses, first one way, then another, and then appeals to the natural desire of parents to give good things to their children. Human nature would cry out, Yes, we would gladly do this. “How much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Could God’s willingness to impart his Spirit be more fully expressed in words? I thank God for this scripture. If we only had hearts to appreciate it, every one of us would accept it. We would be thankful that we could have something right from heaven that represented the Father and the Son here on earth. God would come into our hearts; he would rule the soul, and erect his throne there. He will comfort the despondent; he will lift up the downcast; he will heal the wounded spirit; for that is the mission of the Holy Spirit. It is sin and Satan that wound, but the Holy Spirit is to restore, to heal, to lift up, to purify.

Let me read you another text in this same book, fourth chapter. You are familiar with it; it refers directly to the mission of Christ. Verse 18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.” Now notice, he has anointed me to what?—To preach the gospel to the poor. Who?—Christ. Who does he represent?—Every one who has the Holy Spirit. Then every person who receives the Holy Spirit is anointed to preach the gospel to the poor; that is evidence of the anointing. “He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, 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.” That is what the Holy Spirit does. I wish we could fathom these words. He does not come to wound a soul on earth. He does not come to cast down; but he does come to lift up. He does not come to make a single wound in the heart, but he comes to heal it, and bind it up. Are you bound by the power of the enemy in any way? Christ comes to set you free. Ten times he says you may have that freedom. Will you take it? In the name of the Lord say, Yes, I believe it. Take the Holy Spirit, and it will set you

free. It will give you boldness. A soul that is set free by the Holy Spirit can not be bound. Fetters may be put upon the limbs, but the soul will rejoice in God just the same; it will soar above the bondage of sin and the power of the enemy. The Spirit sets the captive free. I wish I could so present it that you would see it, and would believe it. “Well,” says one, “I have been so sinful.” Do you not suppose that the Lord knows all about that?—Of course he does; and he has come to set you free from sin, and to deliver you from the bondage of corruption, that your soul may be free in Jesus Christ. The Lord wants us to see it in just that light, and believe it; and when we do, we begin to connect with heaven.

Let me read now in the sixteenth chapter of John a few verses which I think you must all see beauty in; for there is very much in the words that I shall read. Beginning with the seventh verse: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.” Remember we are talking about the Holy Spirit. “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” I have sometimes asked a congregation of fifty, seventy-five, or even a hundred, before reading this scripture, this question: “What will the Holy Spirit do when it comes into your heart?” and in nine cases out of ten the answer will be, “It will give joy.” But suppose you have sinned; will you then rejoice? The first work is to get sin out of the heart by convicting you of sin; that is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is to let you know the very thing in the soul that hinders the joy and the peace which the Holy Spirit brings. So it begins to clean out the house. It begins to clear out the rubbish. It turns on the light so you can see what there is that prevents the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and then, if you co-operate with God and with the Spirit, you will put that away. You will begin to cleanse the heart by confessions of sin, and when this is done, you will see such beauty in Christ, such loveliness in him, that you will long to have the heart cleansed from sin, and the very soul united with the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Then he goes further: “Of sin, because they believe not on me.” Now one word on this: I fully believe, and I know you do too, that in the common acceptation of the term, there is no Christian on earth who does not accept Christ in that way; but, my brethren and sisters, do you know that God has a special truth, and that to receive that truth is to receive Jesus Christ? The truth is a revelation of Jesus Christ, and that is a hard thing for people to believe; and not believing it, how prone we are to go back to the murky waters that we have left, and be satisfied with the old theories that we had when we were connected with other denominations. But God has called you, as he did the children of Israel from Egypt, to teach you his ways. He will lead you; he will succor you; he will bear you as an eagle bears her young upon her wings. Do you know how an eagle does this?—First, it stirs up the nest until the eaglets are pushed out. This has to be done, or the eaglets would never learn to fly. An eaglet, pushed out of the nest, begins to use his wings in an effort to save himself, but it is in vain,—down, down, he goes. Just before he reaches the rocks below, the old eagle swoops down under him, and he alights on her back, and is borne aloft. This is kept up until the young eagle learns to fly. The Lord promises to bear his children as an eagle beareth her young upon her wings. That is the way God is dealing with every soul.

He is calling us out by the truth, and by the truth he will lead us, and train and educate us, so that the Holy Spirit may abide with us. God has given us a precious truth, just as he gave the message concerning the building of the ark, and the destruction of the world by a flood, in the days of Noah. When the ark was built, and the flood came, no man’s sincerity or faith could save him outside of the ark. “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.” God has a truth that will separate his people from the world, as in the days of Noah, and as in the days of John the Baptist and the first advent of Christ. That truth, and that truth alone, will save. And unless that truth is accepted and obeyed, no matter how much sincerity nor what faith a people may profess to have, it avails them nothing in the great final reckoning. The Jews believed on Christ, but they did not believe in his first advent, and in what was then revealed for that people. We may become stereotyped, fixed, unchangeable. God wants us just as pliable to his will, just as submissive to his requirements, as clay is in the hands of the potter; so he can mold us, and change us, and fashion us as he will.

But, says one, the circumstances are so bad. No circumstances are bad to the Christian. What words can I use to make that clear? It was the devil that stirred up those Sabeans to take away Job’s cattle, and slay his servants; it was the devil that caused that fire to burn up the sheep, and a great wind to blow down the house in which his sons and daughters were feasting, and kill them. All this was to get Job to curse God. But when the devil had finished, and Job realized what had taken place, he said: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” You see the devil was not in it a minute: he was taken out of the way, and in the place of the devil the righteousness of Christ was put in. So if you are passing through a trying experience, and circumstances seem to be against you, and you feel to complain of them, just put the righteousness of Christ in it by believing Christ, and you will get the devil out in an instant. But if the devil can make you see him in it, he has accomplished his purpose. The more we look at the devil, the more we shall be like the devil; for by beholding we become changed. My dear brethren, I wish you could see Jesus Christ in it, and that he is molding you, and that he desires to make you like himself. This is believing in Christ.

It was demonstrated when Christ died on the cross that he conquered by love. In John 16: 12 are these words: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye can not bear them now.” What do you suppose he wanted to say to those disciples? One thing was that he was going to be crucified the next day: they would be disappointed; for you know they thought he was going to reign on earth. He had told them, a little time before, that he was to be crucified; but instead of believing it, they fell to discussing it. “How can it be that you who have raised the dead, and have performed so many miracles,—how is it that wicked men can come and take you and put you to death?” So Peter said: “Be it far from thee, Lord;” and the margin says, “Pity thyself;” but the Saviour said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” The Christian has no business to pity himself. His business is to go forward and serve Jesus Christ. As long as you do that, you will find a wonderful transformation in every circumstance of life. God wants to do that with us all; and what I want this morning is to tell you something that will lead you to do it; and if I could only help some poor, tempted soul to seek Christ, to find in Jesus Christ that which has satisfied my own soul, I would be so glad; for I know what Jesus Christ is. I have been acquainted with him for many years, and although I have sinned and done many things that are wrong, yet I love my Saviour, and have seen his wonderful workings.

(To be concluded)