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every man severally as He will” (1 Cor. 12:11). There is no truth about the Holy Spirit that is of greater importance for us to learn than this. If we are-to get in right relation with Him, we must learn this first of all, that He is absolutely sovereign, and that'we must submit to His will and not seek to get Him to submit to ours. (4) The Holy Spirit like the wind is life-giving. When man and beast and vegetation on a torrid day droop and almost die, if an invigorating breeze, comes up everything changes in a moment, life, takes the place of death: So it is with the Holy Spirit; when He breathes upon a man dead in tres passes and sins, that dead man lives (Eph. 2:1-5; John 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Ezek. 37:9-14) ; the Holy Spirit blows upon a dead church, that church lives; the Holy Spirit blows upon a dead preacher, and he becomes at once a preacher full of life and power; the Holy Spirit breathes upon a dead sermon, apd it becomes a sermon full of life, vigor and effectiveness. This thought of the wind as life-giving per meates the whole context in which oUr verse is found, and is the governing thought in the passage in Ezekiel that our Lord had in.mind as He spoke to Nicodemus, and to which he refers further down (v. 10; cf. Ezek. 36:25-27; 37:1-14). (5} The Holy Spirit like the wind is indispensible. The wind is simply air in motion: if the wind should absolutely cease to blow, if the air should become absolutely stagnant, in a very short time every man and higher order of animal would die. A human adult requires a gallon of fresh air every minute. In the “Black Hole” in Calcutta 146 Eng lish civilians and soldiers were placed in a room 18 feet square, and in one night 123 of them perished for want of fresh air. Just so the Holy Spirit is absolutely indispensible, without Him life is impossi ble, “Except any one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (6) The Holy Spirit like the wind is audible, “thou hearest the sound thereof (or, thou hearest the voice of Him).” You cannot see the wind, but you
translated uniformly throughout the New Testament “wind,” and if we had thus come to know the Holy Spirit as “the Holy Wind” (or “Holy Breath”), which is what His name, the Holy Spirit, really signifies; but as it was not go translated, and as con sequently we have come to know the third person of the Trinity as the Holy Spirit and not as the Holy Wind, it saves con fusion for the ordinary reader of the Bible to have the word translated as it is here, i.e., “wind” in the \first part of the verse, and “Spirit”, in the latter part of the verse, though it needs to be explained, if the verse is to be properly understood and its pre cious lessons grasped, that it is precisely the same Greek word that in the one casé is translated “wind,” and in the other case is translated “Spirit.” The word which is here translated “wind” and “Spirit” is not the word for wind-which is generally used for wind in the New Testament. The reason why this particular word for wind is used here is that there might be no mistaking Jesus’ meaning, viz., that the wind in this instance ,was a symbol of the Spirit; and herein lies much of the rich significance of the verse. There are seven reasons why “the Spirit” or “the Wind” is so named: (1) The Spirit, like the wind is invisible, but none the less real and per ceptible; though none of us have ever seen the wind, we have all “heard the sound thereof." (2) The Holy Spirit like the wind is inscrutable and mysterious: “thou knowest not whence He (or it) cometh, and whither He (or it) goeth.” The doctrine which our Lord was here trying to teach Nicodemus seemed to him toó mysterious to be believed (see vs. 4, 9), but Jesus said to him in effect, “Is it any more mysterious, than the wind which you hear outside there?” (3) The Holy Spirit like the wind is sovereign, “bloweth where it (or He) will."' There is no use trying to dic tate to the wind: it blows when it will and where it will. Just so it is with the Holy Spirit, no, one can dictate to Him, He is sovereign (because He is Divine), “He bloweth where He will,” He “divideth to
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