THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 14.

THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

BY ELDER S. N. HASKELL.

No LANGUAGE can overestimate the importance of the Spirit of God. By it every agency for good is quickened in the accomplishment of the work of God in the earth. As Christ opened before the disciples the great work that was to be done, he promised them the Holy Spirit to reveal to them truths which were new only in the sense that their finite minds had not before comprehended them. They were to present the greater and glorious truths of God's holy word that would convict and convert souls through this agency,—the Holy Spirit.

If the story of astronomers be true, that not only secondaries revolve around their planets, and planets their suns, but that suns revolve around the center of immense systems, and all these centers throughout the immensity of space move around one great center, who can conceive the magnitude of a force or power that can thus operate through infinite space with precisely the same law of attraction for vast worlds and infinitesimal atoms? Think of the magnetic power which makes the steel filings, though in a mass of dust and rubbish, and clippings of tin and iron, leave them all and fly up and kiss the magnet. It touches the pivoted needle, and lives and treasure are secure upon the stormy ocean in the darkest night by its unerring guidance. The winds may blow ever so fiercely, the waves may roll ever so furiously, and the vessel pitch and sink as though it would be submerged, and yet that strange influence, unheeded, unfelt even by the most sensitive nerves, holds the needle in its place.

Who can tell what is power? We see it in its effects, we measure it in its results. So with spiritual power. We cannot tell "whence it cometh or whither it goeth." It breathes upon the human spirit, the stormy passions subside, and truth, purity, meekness, and love reign in the soul. It is beyond the philosopher's fabled stone, whose touch would transmute into gold. Spiritual power is not beauty of presence nor dignity of form. It is not learning, nor rhetoric, nor logic, nor oratory; but it can use these for its one great end. It can burn and shine in the highest periods of the most eloquent speaker, and it can thrill in the accents of the unlettered man. It can use all there is of a human being for the glory of God and the advance of his work.

It is a spiritual force in its highest manifestation, committed to God's people for the accomplishment of his work in the earth. It uses the power of thought, which is immense in its character—thoughts not only of good men but of angels and of God. It causes light to shine on God's thoughts from eternity which are expressed in his sacred word. It uses the power of language in all its various forms. It is a tongue of fire to preach among all nations, and to carry to every heart the knowledge of the power and love of God.

If there was a power in the eloquence of Demosthenes when he stirred the people of Athens as a sea is stirred by the storm; if there was power with Napoleon that could inspire his soldiers under the most discouraging circumstances to lay down their lives for the accomplishment of nothing but his own stubborn will; if there be, as some claim, a magnetic power which kindles in the eye and sparkles responsively from the speaker to the hearer, and from the hearer to the speaker, if there be some subtle current established between them, which is manifested in the energy of the speaker and the rapt attention of the hearer—all of this is subservient to the child of God, who receives from heaven that "unction from the Holy One."

It was promised by God through the prophets Joel, Isaiah, and Daniel. It was what the Saviour referred to when he said, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you," and again, "Wait for the promise of the Father which ye have heard of me." It was the "Comforter" whom the Father would send in his name; it was the "power from on high," and was to be manifested like power seen occasionally in ancient times, as when the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied, and was turned into another man, so that the people said, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" or when Moses "gathered the seventy men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the tabernacle. And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him, and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders; and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease." Num. 11: 24, 25.

This power is not only "from on high," but it is a connecting link between the throne of God and our hearts. It is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not simply for conversion, but to use the whole of a purified nature, and especially the tongue, for aggressive Christian work. It enabled the receiver to see that there is a divine power which can save and rescue fallen man, that this power is in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that it is exercised through the preaching of the word. It involves the idea of expectancy on the part of the minister. He believes that while he preaches, and as he preaches, a divine power accompanies his word, and is mysteriously working in the hearts of his congregation.