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THE K I N G ’ S ' B U S I N E S S said, “ Lo, I am with.you all the days to the end of the age.” We should believe it and act accordingly without insulting Him by asking Him to give us further proof that He spoke the truth Our Lord said, “ I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter that he may abide with you forever” (John 14:16). Shall I seek a sign that He told the truth and thus' dishonor His Word, or shall I believe without sign that His Word is true and the Holy Spirit is with me all the time? Are not the words of Jesus as true now as when He spoke them: “ An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign”:' (Matt. 12:39)? To claim that one cannot have the Holy Spirit with! out the sign of speaking with tongues or any other sign is to manifest a spirit of unbelief. A Grief to the Spirit. Indeed, to seek any sort of spectacu lar manifestation of the Holy Spirit is to grieve the Spirit. His mission is to testify of Jesus Christ and not of Himself. “ He shall not speak of him self” (John 16:13), Jesus said, “ He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and snow it unto you” (John 16:14). Those who are seeking their Pentecost, as they tell us, by spending days and weeks in prayer for the bap tism of the Holy Spirit which will vali date itself by the gift of tongues are seeking to induce the Holy Spirit to speak of Himself, a thing He declares that He never does. God Does New Tilings. To seek the signs of Pentecost is to attempt to induce God to repeat what is no longer needed, now that the Holy Spirit is with Fis church ready to work in answer to faith. Jehovah said to Isaiah, “ I will do a new thing” (Isaiah 43:19). Solomon said, “ There is noth ing new under the sun,” and the course of this old world under the sun is dread fully monotonous, but He who made the sun apd sits enthroned above it delights
in doing new things. No two leaves, no two experiences are exactly- alike. Every revival has its distinctive features and to try to make one like another is to make a counterfeit. Many a sin ner has made the mistake of seeking Paul’s experience on the way to Damas cus, and many a saint has made the mistake of seeking the experience of Finney, Whitefield or Moody, when what he needs is his own experience through implicit faith in Christ and His Word, which will fit him for the work to which God has called him. The God of Sinai and Pentecost lives forever, and works as He will. But Sinai with its thunder and lightning has not been re peated. Nor has Pentecost with its visible fire and audible wind and “ other tongues” been repeated by the Holy Spirit. The essentials of it in thp con viction of sin and conversion of sinners through the preaching of the Word in the power of the Spirit are constantly repeated in ali parts of the world every time a penitent sinner accepts Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. ■? The Supreme Test. There is one supreme test by which we can tell whether anything is of God and that test is the Word of God. Is it according to the Word? If so, it is of God; if not, it is not of God. In this way we can “ try the spirits” and see whether they are of God. If they speak and act according to the Word, they are of God. Let us apply this test to pres ent-day phenomena. ' « 1. The claim that no one has the baptism of the Spirit unless he speaks with tongues is not of God, because •it contradicts the Word of God which places the gift of tongues at the bottom of the list of the Spirit’s gifts and plain ly tells us that it is not one of the best gifts; that speaking God’s message in a language that can be understood is better. (I Cor. 12:28 and 14:5.) It is a wresting of Scripture to .make Acts 10:46 or 19:6 mean that no one
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