THE KING’S BUSINESS
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those laws are is clearly revealed in the Bible, and the first and greatest of those laws has already been indicated in what has just been said, viz., that we surrender ourselves absolutely and unreservedly to His control. While the Holy Spirit is absolutely Sovereign, we must never forget that His sovereignty is not arbitrariness. The wind bloweth where it will, but it acts according to laws (laws many of which are now well known) : so the Holy Spirit in the exercise of His Sovereignty is governed by His own wisdom and His own love (governed not by something outside Himself, but by what He Himself is). (4 ) . Because 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 comés 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 trespasses 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 and it becomes a living church; 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 and it becomes a sermon full of life, vigor and effectiveness. What is most needed in our individual lives to-day, and in our churches, and in our preachers, is a breath' from Heaven, the wind of God, the Holy Spirit. This thought of the wind as life-giving permeates 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 ) . Because the Holy Spirit, like the wind, is Indispensable. 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 English 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 Indispensable, without Him life is impossible, “Except anyone be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The Holy Spirit is the One Indispensable one for the individual, for the church, for the preacher and for the commun ity- \ (6). Because the Holy Spirit, like the wind, is Audible, “ thou hearest the sound thereof (or, thou hearest the voice of Him).” You can’t see the wind, but you can hear it; and just, so, you can’t see the Spirit, but you can hear Him. The word translated “sound” in the A. V. means primarily and usually “voice,” as in the R. V. It is .used in rare instances of other sounds than an articulate, intelligible voice (Rev. 9:9; 14:2), but this is its usual and exact significance. The reason why it is used here evidently is because the whole passage is dominated by the thought not merely of the figure, the wind, but of that which is figured, the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit speaks, He makes. Himself known in an articulate, intelligible! voice. The Spirit’s method* of working is always through His spoken (or written) Word (Eph. 6:17. Compare Eph. 5 :18-20 with Col. 3 :16, 47, and note how what is said in the one place to be due to being filled with the Spirit is said in the other place' to be due to being filled with the Word). It is particularly in the matter here before us that the Holy Spirit’s meth-
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