p. 100 | THE SPIRIT OF GOD

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 17, 1859

THE SPIRIT OF GOD.

"My Spirit shall not always strive with man," was the declaration of God as he beheld the corruption of the earth in the days of Noah. This declaration can be no less true when applied to the present generation, between which and the days of Noah our Saviour himself has instituted a comparison: "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man."

Why will not God's Spirit always strive? It is not that God will arbitrarily take it away from us, and leave us to ourselves, without provocation on our part: he does not thus deal with fallen humanity. It is only when men persistently put it from them, refuse to listen to its gentle whisperings, or yield to its influence, or follow its leadings, that God lets his grieved Spirit return to himself, and abandons men to the promptings of their own evil imaginations. If people wish to put themselves beyond the pale of God's love, and have the Holy One cease from before them [Isa. xxx, 11], there is no compulsion to be used either for good or bad: they can have their wish.

But how fearful a condition to be thus left! To be separated wholly from good and given up wholly to evil! Imagine, if you can, the world with every emotion of love, mercy and humanity forever gone, and all the dwellers thereon transformed to demons in human shape, and you have then before you a world with which God's Spirit has ceased to strive; for whatever there is of good on earth, whatever there is to alleviate the woes of our fallen state, of hope to lighten the burden of our present condition, of sunshine to penetrate the darkness of the way, of joy to offset against our sorrow, comes from the Spirit of God, sent abroad in all the earth, the effects of which have not yet ceased to be seen and felt. But it will not always strive. The limits of its strivings will be marked by that time when all who will yield, shall have yielded, and turned their feet into the way of truth, and laid hold on the covenant of God. So long it strove in the days of Noah; and so long will it now.

This Spirit is the life-principle of the church of God; and the degree in which that Spirit is possessed by the church, marks the exact ratio of her acceptance with him, and the strength of that life which she lives "by the faith of the Son of God."

This is shown by God's dealing with his people in times past. Read the history of Israel during the first years of their settlement in the promised land. The record runs something on this wise: "And Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord delivered them into the hands of their enemies." They did evil; they rejected the counsel of God's Spirit, and grieved it away; and he chastised them. And then what was the first token of returning victory, and a restoration to God's favor? Answer: some manifestation of this same Spirit.

See Judges xiii. 1. "And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord delivered them into the hands of the Philistines forty years." Forty years long had they been in bondage. Year after year rolled away, and still the hand of the enemy was upon them. Children had been born and grown to the vigor of manhood, since their servitude commenced, and yet it continued; and probably no ray of hope appeared to that suffering people to penetrate the deep and settled gloom of their captivity. But God had thoughts of mercy; and to a family more advanced perhaps than their brethren in heartfelt piety, and more susceptible of the influence of his Holy Spirit, God chose to manifest himself. He sent his angel to the wife of Manoah, with promise of a deliverer. She and her husband communed with him. Manoah prepared his sacrifice, and in the flame of it the angel ascended to heaven.

Here was a manifestation calculated to make the sluggish pulse of Israel beat quick with hope. How they looked upon it, we know not. Perhaps they thought that if God designed to bring them deliverance, he would have made some great and public manifestation to the people, instead of a private one to a single family. Perhaps they looked upon it as altogether small and insignificant, as human nature is wont, at the present day, to regard the manifestations of the power of God. But however humble might be the circumstances attending it, the event itself was no less significant. It showed them that God had not utterly cast them off; that he was still mindful of them; and that deliverance was at hand. In due time Samson arose to exert his unparalleled strength in behalf of his people.

The manifestation of the Spirit of God is a great thing. It is a sure ground of hope. It tells us that God has not left us, and that we can yet hope in his mercy. It matters not how humble the circumstances under which the manifestation may be made, or in what part of the broad field: if God is there, it is enough; for the body—the church—is a sympathetic body, and when one member rejoices, all the other members rejoice with it. Therefore we are equally cheered when we hear of God's graciously manifesting himself to his children by his Holy Spirit, though it be in Maine or Minnesota, as though it was here in Michigan, and in our very midst. The children of God throughout the length and breadth of the land, are all interested in each other's prosperity in spiritual things. Let us strive to give this Spirit freer course in our midst, that its manifestations may be of greater frequency and more power.

Reader, can you conceive of a more dark and chilly theory, and one better calculated to lie like an iceberg on the heart of the church, than the view which some hold, that there is no Holy Spirit? Be it our lot ever to be free from this unhallowed sentiment, and those who hold it.

"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God," says the Apostle, "whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." Eph. iv, 30. If we would be living members of the body of Christ, if we would prosper in spiritual things, if we would be fruitful branches of the great vine, if we would be fit for our Master's use here, and fit for his kingdom hereafter, we must have his Holy Spirit, maintain it in our hearts, and show forth its fruit in our lives. So far as we enjoy this, so far we have a pledge and earnest of our future inheritance; for it is by the Spirit that dwells in us, that our mortal bodies are to be quickened. Rom. viii, 11. Without it, brethren, we shall utterly fail in the great mission in which we are engaged. May it then rest upon us more and more.