CHAPTER II (3)

Then, the Holy Spirit in us is one thing, and the Holy Spirit on us is another; and if these Christians had gone out and went right to preaching then and there, without the power, do you think that scene would have taken place on the day of Pentecost? Don’t you think that Peter would have stood up there and beat against the air, while these Jews would have gnashed their teeth and mocked him? But they tarried in Jerusalem; they waited ten days. What! you say. What, the world perishing and men dying! Shall I wait? Do what God tells you. There is no use in running before you are sent; there is no use in attempting to do God’s work without God’s power. A man working without this unction, a man working without this anointing, a man working without the Holy Ghost upon him, is losing his time after all. So we are not going to lose anything if we tarry till we get this power. That is the object of true service, to wait on God, to tarry till we receive this power for witness-bearing. Then we find that on the day of Pentecost, ten days after Jesus Christ was glorified, the Holy Spirit descended in power. Do you think that Peter and James and John and those apostles doubted it from that very hour? They never doubted it. Perhaps some question the possibility of having the power of God now, and that the Holy Spirit never came afterward in similar manifestation, and will never come again in such power.

FRESH SUPPLIES.

Turn to Acts iv, 31, and you will find He came a second time, and at a place where they were, so that the earth was shaken, and they were filled with this power. The fact is, we are leaky vessels, and we have to keep right under the fountain all the time to keep full of Christ, and so have a fresh supply.

I believe this is a mistake a great many of us are making; we are trying to do God’s work with the grace God gave us ten years ago. We say, if it is necessary, we will go on with the same grace. Now, what we want is a fresh supply, a fresh anointing and fresh power, and if we seek it, and seek it with all our hearts, we will obtain it. The early converts were taught to look for that power. Philip went to Samaria, and news reached Jerusalem that there was a great work being done in Samaria, and many converts; and John and Peter went down, and they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost for service. I think that is what we Christians ought to be looking for—the Spirit of God for service—that God may use us mightily in the building up of His Church and hastening His glory. In Acts xix we read of twelve men at Ephesus, who, when the inquiry was made if they had received the Holy Ghost since they believed, answered: “We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.” I venture to say there are very many, who, if you were to ask them, “Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?” would reply, “I don’t know what you mean by that.” They would be like the twelve men down at Ephesus, who had never understood the peculiar relation of the Spirit to the sons of God in this dispensation. I firmly believe that the Church has just laid this knowledge aside, mislaid it somewhere, and so Christians are without power. Sometimes you can take one hundred members into the Church, and they don’t add to its power. Now that is all wrong. If they were only anointed by the Spirit of God, there would be great power if one hundred saved ones were added to the Church.

GREEN FIELDS.

When I was out in California, the first time I went down from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and dropped into the Valley of the Sacramento, I was surprised to find on one farm that everything about it was green—all the trees and flowers, everything was blooming, and everything was green and beautiful, and just across the hedge everything was dried up, and there was not a green thing there, and I could not understand it; I made inquiries, and I found that the man that had everything green, irrigated; he just poured the water right on, and he kept everything green, while the fields that were next to his were as dry as Gideon’s fleece without a drop of dew; and so it is with a great many in the Church to-day. They are like these farms in California—a dreary desert, everything parched and desolate, and apparently no life in them. They can sit next to a man who is full of the Spirit of God, who is like a green bay tree, and who is bringing forth fruit, and yet they will not seek a similar blessing. Well, why this difference? Because God has poured water on him that was thirsty; that is the difference. One has been seeking this anointing, and he has received it; and when we want this above everything else God will surely give it to us.

The great question before us now is, Do we want it? I remember when I first went to England and gave a Bible reading, I think about the first that I gave in that country, a great many ministers were there, and I didn’t know anything about English theology, and I was afraid I should run against their creeds, and I was a little hampered, especially on this very subject, about the gift of the Holy Spirit for service. I remember particularly a Christian minister there who had his head bowed on his hand, and I thought the good man was ashamed of everything I was saying, and of course that troubled me. At the close of my address he took his hat and away he went, and then I thought, “Well, I shall never see him again.” At the next meeting I looked all around for him and he wasn’t there, and at the next meeting I looked again, but he was absent; and I thought my teaching must have given him offense. But a few days after that, at a large noon prayer meeting, a man stood up and his face shone as if he had been up in the mountain with God, and I looked at him, and to my great joy it was this brother. He said he was at that Bible reading, and he heard there was such a thing as having fresh power to preach the Gospel; he said he made up his mind that if that was for him he would have it; he said he went home and looked to the Master, and that he never had such a battle with himself in his life. He asked that God would show him the sinfulness of his heart that he knew nothing about, and he just cried mightily to God that he might be emptied of himself and filled with the Spirit, and he said, “God has answered my prayer.” I met him in Edinburgh six months from that date, and he told me he had preached the Gospel every night during that time, that he had not preached one sermon but that some remained for conversation, and that he had engagements four months ahead to preach the Gospel every night in different churches. I think you could have fired a cannon ball right through his church and not hit any one before he got this anointing; but it was not thirty days before the building was full and aisles crowded. He had his bucket filled full of fresh water, and the people found it out and came flocking to him from every quarter. I tell you, you can’t get the stream higher than the fountain. What we need very specially is power. There was another man whom I have in my mind, and he said, “I have heart disease, I can’t preach more than once a week,” so he had a colleague to preach for him and do the visiting. He was an old minister, and he couldn’t do any visiting. He had heard of this anointing, and said, “I would like to be anointed for my burial. I would like before I go hence to have just one more privilege to preach the Gospel with power.” He prayed that God would fill him with the Spirit, and I met him not long after that, and he said, “I have preached on an average eight times a week, and I have had conversions all along.” The Spirit came on him. I don’t believe that man broke down at first with hard work, so much as with using the machinery without oil, without lubrication. It is not the hard work breaks down ministers, but it is the toil of working without power. Oh, that God may anoint His people! Not the ministry only, but every disciple. Do not suppose pastors are the only laborers needing it. There is not a mother but needs it in her house to regulate her family, just as much as the minister needs it in the pulpit or the Sunday-school teacher needs it in his Sunday-school. We all need it together, and let us not rest day nor night until we possess it; if that is the uppermost thought in our hearts, God will give it to us if we just hunger and thirst for it, and say, “God helping me, I will not rest until endued with power from on high.”

MASTER AND SERVANT.

There is a very sweet story of Elijah and Elisha, and I love to dwell upon it. The time had come for Elijah to be taken up, and he said to Elisha, “You stay here at Gilgal, and I will go up to Bethel.” There was a theological seminary there, and some young students, and he wanted to see how they were getting along; but Elisha said, “As the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” And so Elisha just kept close to Elijah. They came to Bethel, and the sons of the prophets came out and said to Elisha, “Do you know that your master is to be taken away?” And Elisha said, “I know it; but you keep still.” Then Elijah said to Elisha, “You remain at Bethel until I go to Jericho.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord liveth and my soul liveth, I will not leave thee.” “You shall not go without me,” says Elisha; and then I can imagine that Elisha just put his arm in that of Elijah, and they walked down together. I can see those two mighty men walking down to Jericho, and when they arrived there, the sons of the prophets came and said to Elisha, “Do you know that your master is to be taken away?” “Hush! keep still,” says Elisha, “I know it.” And then Elijah said to Elisha, “Tarry here awhile; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan.” But Elisha said, “As the Lord liveth and my soul liveth, I will not leave thee. You shall not go without me.” And then Elisha came right close to Elijah, and as they went walking down, I imagine Elisha was after something; when they came to the Jordan, Elijah took off his mantle and struck the waters, and they separated hither and thither, and the two passed through like giants, dry-shod, and fifty sons of the prophets came to look at them and watch them. They didn’t know but Elijah would be taken up right in their sight. As they passed over Jordan, Elijah said to Elisha, “Now, what do you want?” He knew he was after something. “What can I do for you. Just make your request known.” And he said, “I would like a double portion of thy Spirit.” I can imagine now that Elijah had given him a chance to ask; he said to himself, “I will ask for enough.” Elisha had a good deal of the Spirit, but, says he, “I want a double portion of thy Spirit.” “Well,” says Elijah, “if you see me when I am taken up, you shall have it.” Do you think you could have enticed Elisha from Elijah at that moment? I can almost see the two arm in arm, walking along, and as they walked, there came along the chariot of fire, and before Elisha knew it, Elijah was caught up, and as he went sweeping towards the throne, the servant cried, “My Father! My Father! The chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” Elisha saw him no more. He picked up Elijah’s fallen mantle, and returning with that old mantle of his master’s, he came to the Jordan and cried for Elijah’s God, and the waters separated hither and thither, and he passed through dry-shod. Then the watching prophets lifted up their voices and said, “The Spirit of Elijah is upon Elisha;” and so it was, a double portion of it.

May the Spirit of Elijah, beloved reader, be upon us. If we seek for it we will have it. Oh, may the God of Elijah answer by fire, and consume the spirit of worldliness in the churches, burn up the dross, and make us whole-hearted Christians. May that Spirit come upon us; let that be our prayer in our family altars and in our closets. Let us cry mightily to God that we may have a double portion of the Holy Spirit, and that we may not rest satisfied with this worldly state of living, but let us, like Sampson, shake ourselves and come out from the world, that we may have the power of God.