December 1928
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s
757
TELL ME, CLASS: How would you say that we are like sheep and Christ like the shepherd? Can you think of anything the shepherd would do for the sheep that Christ has not done or would not do for us? How is it, would you say, that when “Christ died for us” that was a greater thing than for one tq die for another? (5:7-8.) Does Christ save us from something, or to something, or both? Of which group do you think you are a part, the ninety-nine or “that which is lost” ? Texts: Joel 2:28-29; Lk. 11:9-13; Jn. 3:5-8; 14:16, 17, 26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15; Acts 2:1-21, 32, 33; Rom. 8:1-17, 26, 27; 1 Cor. 12:1-13; Eph. 1:13, UBWBIMB 4:1-6, 30. L esson in O utline I. The Personality of the Holy Spirit. 1. The attributes of Personality are attributed to Him : “is he. will,” 1 Cor. 12:11; “love of the Spirit,” Rom. 15:30; etcl ' 2. He is spoken of as a person: “And he, when he is come, will convict,” etc. II. One o f the Trinity. 1. He is one of the Divine Personal ities of Deut. 6:4 ¡«‘Hear, O Israel, Jehovah, our Gods, is Jehovah a Unity” (Literal Translation). 2. He is the third one mentioned in Isa. 48:16: “The Lord Jehovah has sent .Me and His Spirit.” 3. He is’ the third one mentioned in the Baptismal Formula: ¡»Into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19). III. Work of the Holy Spirit. 1. Continuing Work of Christ. Jno. 16:7-15. _■_ 2. The Christian Dispensation under Him. 2 Cor. 3:8. 31 Born of Spirit, regenerated a n d cleansed by Spirit. Jno. 3:5; 1 Cor. 6:11; Tit. 3:5. 4. Sanctified by Spirit. 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2. 5. Strengthened by Spirit. Rom. 8:13. I N order for us to find the way to heaven, two things are necessary. We must have an inspired chart external to us to tell us God’s appointed way. That January 27, 1929 The Holy Spirit
shows Him to have individual substance, intelligence and will. He is a living| thinking, acting Being and may person ally possess any body yielding to Him in the way God’s Word prescribes, even as Satan or demon spirits may inhabit the soul of one who tampers with the laws of the occult. The personality of the Spirit appears from the attributes and works ascribed to Him in the Bible. He is omnipotent. He shared in the work of creation (Gen. 1: 2; Job 24:13; 33:4; Psa. 104:30). He strives with men (Gen. 6:3). He en lightens men (Job 32:8). He gives strength (Jud. 14:6, 19). He gives ex ecutive ability and wisdom (Jud. 3:10). He is omnipresent (Psa. 139:7), The personal pronoun is applied to Him throughout Scripture (20 times in John 14, 15, 16). Thus we see He is not an influence which we may use, but a divine Person who desires to use us. It skiauld be thoroughly understood that apart from the illumination of the mind by the Holy Spirit no person can under stand the chart showing the way to heav en. “The natural man receiveth not the things o f the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually dis cerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). Of course any person may read the Bible like'any other book; but to read it and so to understand it that, instead of being mere outer truth, it may exercise an influence within, over coming the hostility of the heart, sancti fying its governing principles and giving new life and energy within, depends upon some degree of yieldedness to the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who fills every symbol in the Bible with celestial glory, who inspires every truth with life, gives to every promise sweet music, and who communicates to the heart that studies, its receptive power and thus makes the: Book the guide unto life everlasting. Spiritual intelligence has to be given of God. It is not evolved out of the natural intellect. There are many saying the Bible is foolishness, the plan of salvation non sense. Here is the explanation of such an attitude. But the Holy Spirit who in spired the writers ..of Scripture, waits wherever there is a praying heart or lips that can move, to warm that soul into spiritual life and make God’s Word to him “quick and powerful" (Heb. 4:12). Another essential fact to understand is that no man can truly acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord “but by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor. 12:3). One may say the words without any special work of the Spirit in him. A parrot could do as much. But to say Christ is Lord believingly, re quires the Spirit of God to be in the heart. Christ is the door that opens into God’s presence (Jn. 10-9) and lets the soul into His very bosom. Faith is the key that unlocks the door (Rom. 10:17). The Holy Spirit is He who makes the key and helps the Christian to turn it iii prayer (Eph. 2:8; Rom. 8:26) so as to get ac cess to God. It is the sails of a ship that carry it into harbor, but what are sails unless filled with a favorable breeze? We may say “Lord, Lord” (Mt. 7:22),‘ and not come into His presence, because we have not the Spirit whose work it is to fill the heart and carry us to the throne. Thus we see the utter impossibility of approaching God apart from the Holy Spirit. The first movings of grace are of
the Holy Spirit (Jn. 16:7-9). The Holy Spirit leads the seeking soul to Christ as a mother leads her two-year-old child by the hand, or as a person who can see, leads one who is blind. No man ever found Christ apart from the Holy Spirit (Jn. 6:44). No man has ever been born into God’s family but by the Spirit (Jn. 3:5). “The wind bloweth where it list- eth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but' canst not tell whence it someth and whither it goeth: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit“ (Jn. 3:8). The silent nature of the Spirit’s operations has caused some to deny His agency. Many of the most powerful of the agents of nature are unseen and only to be discov ered by their fruits. We cannot explain the new birth, but thousands can testify to the experience of having been made “new creatures in Christ." Let the unsaved man take heed how he uses the Spirit when He comes knocking at the door of his heart (Heb. 10:29). Open at His knock and He will be your Guest for life. Repulse Him and you have no promise that He will ever knock again. If He ceases to strive with you and to bring you under conviction, you are lost forever. An old writer said: “The Holy Spirit is both tide and wind to"' set the soul afloat and carry it on, or else it lies like a ship on dry ground which cannot stir.” To be born of the Spirit is also to be “sealed by'the Spirit” (Eph, 1:12-14). A seal is a mark of ownership. It is to pre vent molestation. The. tomb of Christ was sealed so that no human fingers should dare to interfere (Mt. 27:63-65). God seals His child for time and eternity by putting the Holy Spirit into him to dwell permanently, the moment he truly accepts Christ. No one can counterfeit or obliterate that seal. It is “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased' possession unto the praise of His glory.” The indwelling Spirit is the pledge of salvation until completely consummated at the second coming of Christ (1 Cor. 1:8). The “seal” is God’s claim upon the believer. The “earnest" is the believer’s claim upon God. “I f any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). “The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God” (v. 16), The witnessing of the Spirit admits of degrees but is, nevertheless, unmis takable. A man who is a child of God, even though he be a wayward son, will know it. The operations of the Spirit are at times more manifest. If a true child of God sins and grieves the Spirit (Eph. 4: 32), he will be made miserable because of it (Psa. 32:1-4). We need not wonder that the enjoyment of His presence is sometimes clouded, for “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh" (Gal. 5:17). Nevertheless, the saved soul does not doubt His presence because his experience is variable. The New Testament makes a distinc tion between being born of the Spirit and being "filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18; Acts 2:4; 4:31). We receive the Spirit through UNION with Christ (Jn. 3:5; 7:39; Eph. 1:13). We become filled with the Spirit when we fully YIELD to Christ, Eleven times we are told, in the first nine chapters of Acts,' of believers being “filled with the Spirit." Those who know they are Christians, should take the constant attitude of yielding, as they would throw open the windows of their
chart is the Bible, which reveals the Saviour and His p l a n of salvation. But we must also h a v e an inspired heart, internal to us, to enable us to un derstand the chart
and to empower us to walk in the way. The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity, is the Agent of our new birth, the One given to enlighten us and em power us. The Holy Spirit is not an “it,” but a divine Personality; that is, the Scripture
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