SCRIPTURE LESSON.

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HOW TO RECEIVE HIM.

Receive ye the Holy Spirit. St. John 20:22.

Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed? Acts 19:2.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:4.

Who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we. Acts 10:47.

They laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 8:17.

I believe in the Holy Ghost. Apostles Creed. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Gal. 3:14

The great need of the Jews was to receive Jesus Christ the Savior, but they not knowing their day of visitation, rejected him and are scattered to the ends of the earth unto this day. The great need of the disciples was to receive the Comforter. Jesus did not request nor entreat them, but commanded them to wait till he came. When there was a revival in Samaria the Apostles at Jerusalem sent Peter and John that the young converts might receive the Comforter, and when Paul reached Ephesus he asked this question, — “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?”

The Universal Church for eight hundred years has been repeating the sentence in the Apostles Creed, — “I believe in the Holy Ghost,” and yet there are a great many people in the church, that do not know whether there is a Holy Spirit for them or not; and if they know that there is a Holy Spirit they do not know how to receive him, or what his work is when he comes.

There are several things concerning the Holy Spirit that I want you especially to remember.

I. The Holy Spirit is a Divine person who has a will, a mind and desires; not that he is limited in person as we are, as we think of a person, but that he is a divine person, having a divine will and a divine character and a divine mind. If the Holy Spirit is not a person then the Trinity is an impossibility.

The Holy Spirit is the personal successor of the Son of God. In His official ministry on earth Christ taught that men were sinners. The Spirit makes this truth a conscious fact. Christ taught that men were spiritually dead. The Spirit makes men spiritually alive from the dead. Without the work of the Spirit the teaching and work of Christ would avail nothing.

There is no contention as to the relative value of these persons. The incoming and abiding of the Holy Spirit is a more conclusive proof of the Deity of Jesus Christ than his own life, miracles, resurrection or ascension.

The anointing with the Holy Spirit on Jesus of Nazareth constituted him the Christ, the Anointed One. Our baptism with the Holy Spirit, makes us Christly men and women, reproducing the Christ-life, thus showing Jesus to the world.

The reason of failure in much devoted work that is being done is because, while we recognize Jesus Christ as our personal Lord in Heaven, we do not recognize the Holy Spirit as our personal Lord on earth.

We must not expect the one person to do what he has expressly told us the other person will do.

Our relation to the Holy Spirit is that of one person to another. He is nearer to us than any other person — divine or human. Nearer to us than either the Father or the Son — for it is through Him that we know Them.

The relation between Him and us is one of perfect wisdom, strength and compassion on his side, and of ignorance, weakness and need on our side; authority and independence on his side, obedience and dependence on our side.

When we pray let us pray to the Holy Spirit for Himself as well as to the Father or the Son, to give us the Spirit. We pray God, the Father, to sanctify us, let us pray to the Holy Spirit to do it Himself, for that is His work.

Let the soul-winner be conscious that he has a Divine Helper in himself to work in the hearts of the unsaved for that is His work. Let the mother be conscious when she speaks to the children that she has the presence of the Divine Friend and Helper to carry her words to the hearts of her loved ones. So the Sunday school teacher, the evangelist and the minister may have this personal Divine Friend to work through them effectually. Thus honoring him in living, He will give us the needed grace — in service He will give us the needed strength, in prayer He will make the needed intercession, in affliction He will impart the needed comfort, so that everywhere and all the time time we will triumph.

But if we neglect or dishonor, grieve or offend this Divine Personal Friend, Guide and Helper, is it strange that disastrous circumstances should come to ourselves, the church and the world?

We have an impression that the Holy Spirit is an influence or an emanation that comes from God, just as a kind of atmosphere that comes to us from people when we associate with them. A great many people pray or seek for the Holy Spirit and when he is poured out upon them and they realize that the answer has come, they say they have received a great blessing. They put the Comforter in the neuter gender and grieve the Spirit because they do not appreciate that he is the living God, the very person that dwelt in Jesus, that controlled his will, his mind, his life and that He has a special work to do in us and with us, a special will to dwell in our wills, a special mind to superintend our minds, and a special life to impart to our life, that no other being in heaven or earth can give us.

1. The same terms are used in regard to the Holy Spirit that are used in regard to the Father or the Son; and the Bible is very careful on this point not to leave us in the dark. The Bible attributes to him all the characteristics that it does to the Father or the Son. All the Divine attributes are ascribed to Him, — omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence and eternity of being.

2. The Bible says that the Spirit strives with men, and then that He ceases to strive. The Spirit can be pleased or He can be displeased.

Jesus says that the Spirit will manifest himself, that He, when He is come, will do certain things in the world and certain things in the church. He will comfort the believers. He would teach them and guide them. Worldly people are never to receive Him or know Him. The regenerated people are to be conscious of His presence, — He is to convince the wicked of sin, to reveal righteousness to them and to give them clear judgment about sin. Jesus says that “He” — the Holy Ghost — “will testify of me,” and that “He will glorify me” and that “He will show you things to come and He will abide with you forever.”

3. Another proof of his personality is that belief in Him is the last test of orthodoxy. In the dispensation of the Father the test of allegiance was the worship of One God. In the dispensation of the Son the test was the reception of Jesus Christ as the Atoning Savior, the Divine Mediator between God and man. “Ye believe in God — believe also in me.” In the third dispensation the last test is to receive the Comforter as the Divine Commissioner and dispenser of Mercy and Power. Thus we have God existing as the Father, revealing himself to all men in his Son, and communicating Himself by the Holy Spirit to all believers. Joseph Cook has given the most perfect definition of the Trinity we have ever examined, — 1st, “The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one and only one God, 2nd — each has a peculiarity incommunicable to the others, 3rd — Neither is God without the others, 4th — Each with the others is God.”

4. The most solemn and awful proof of His personality is that the sin against Him can never be forgiven, and this fact is not asserted of the Father or the Son, and no such prominence could be given to an influence, attribute or an impersonality.

II. The Holy Spirit is a Gift. The next thing I want you to remember is, the Holy Spirit is an absolutely free gift to the believers. Jesus Christ is God's great gift to the world, — “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son." He is a gift. The Holy Spirit is the great gift of the Father and the Son to the believers that they may know the Lord and reveal Him to the world. We talk about pardon being a gift, and peace with God being a gift. We come to the Lord to get pardon and go away carrying our gift. We take peace when we are in trouble, we take rest when in burdens, and deliverance when we are in bondage — we take all these things as gifts but we do not appreciate the fact that the author of all these gifts is a Gift. Now, while peace and pardon and forgiveness and cleansing and purity and sanctification and holiness and all these things are gifts to the church of God, the author of them is also a Gift. And it seems to me that we would be more in line with the Lord Jesus Christ if we would seek for the Author rather than for His gifts, — if we should seek, not only for a part, but for the whole of the gift. You know that when you make an offer of a gift to anybody and he is not willing to take all of it, it grieves you, because he is not willing to receive the hospitality from the fullness of your heart. Now when the Lord has purchased for us at such a sacrifice the gift of the Holy Spirit, it seems to me that we shall be more in harmony with His will if we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ should receive the Gift, and then let the manifestations of the Gift be according to His own will.

III. The Gift of the Holy Spirit is not always manifested to our senses. We must distinguish between the Holy Spirit and His manifestation. There is a vast difference between having Him and having His manifestations. So many times we are seeking in this world for what are called manifestations of the Spirit. We want a sense of the Holy Spirit. We are not willing to say by faith, we receive the Holy Spirit unless we have a sense of His presence — unless His Spirit works upon our senses and gives us from the standpoint of the flesh a manifestation of His presence.

Now, the Spirit of God is lodged in your spirit, so that in your new spirit which has been given you from the Father, the Holy Spirit is to dwell when He is come into you. His manifestations are to be according to His will. We are so anxious to have the manifestations that we neglect to receive the Author of them, and want Him to give them to us without having submitted to Him. One man comes seeking peace. Well, peace is simply one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Another comes seeking joy. Well, joy is simply the Holy Spirit manifesting Himself through our sensibilities. We may have the Spirit and not have the manifestations of peace or of joy, because He may want to give us some other manifestation.

An acquaintance of mine in Chicago sought for this baptism of the Spirit one whole night in prayer. In the morning she was no nearer the reception of the Spirit than the evening before. She was in great trouble until it was suggested to her that what she' was seeking was not the Holy Spirit, but the joy of the Spirit. She wanted the manifestation of joy, she wanted to be happy. When she saw her mistake she said, “I see my blunder. I have not been seeking Him at all. I have been seeking some manifestation of Him. I receive Him now by faith. I just receive Him whether I ever have a moment's happiness or not. I will not question about that. I will just take Him,” and instantly she became conscious, — not of joy, — she didn’t seem to have any joy — not of peace, she didn’t seem to have any peace, it was not a sense of power or glory, but she had the consciousness that the Holy Spirit had come into her body and mind and was dwelling in her. It was a sense of the presence of Jesus. There was no cloven tongue of fire, there was no special manifestation at that time, but when she came to the place where she needed peace, then the Spirit that dwelt in her manifested His presence by peace; and when she came to the place where she needed joy, the Spirit imparted to her consciousness the joy of the Lord; and when she came to the place where she needed patience, the Holy Spirit imparted patience to her. And so she found all these things as the fruit of the Spirit by having received Him.

If you are seeking for the manifestations of the Spirit, you may have some manifestations; you may have some increase of peace, or some increase of pleasure or happiness, but you will not receive Him unless you abandon all your desires for manifestations to Him and let Him manifest Himself just as He pleases. He is not given to us as a possession of which we have the control, but He comes as the Master to control us and use us, and all the manifestations that follow the incoming of the Spirit, are at His disposal. The manifestation of the Spirit of God is according to His own will and wherever He sees it is profitable He will manifest Himself. I have not shouted for a good while. I used to shout very frequently in religious meetings in my early experience, until I saw that the disposition to shout was not always an evidence of the presence of the Spirit. I saw that other things moved on men’s sensibilities and made them feel like shouting just as the Spirit had moved on my sensibilites and made me feel like shouting, and I saw that the shouting might come from the Holy Spirit or some other person. I have no desire about it. If He wants me to sink down in peace, or if He wants me to be lifted up into joy, I am willing. If He wants me to withdraw and be quiet and rest, I will withdraw and rest a while. Whatever He wants me to do, that I must be willing to do. So if we are to receive the Holy Spirit, we must remember that He is a spiritual person and not purchased by service nor by money, but is obtained as a free gift from God to be obeyed.

IV. Put away Human Standards. Now, let us remember another thing in seeking this baptism of the Spirit — that we ought to put away human standards. It impresses itself upon me, that we ought not to be looking around and saying, “I want to have an experience like somebody else.” If any two of you were exactly alike you would have reason to think that the Holy Spirit would work just alike, but as it is now, no two are alike. The Holy Spirit must be free to operate upon your mind according to His own pleasure, and you must not under any circumstances sit down and say, “I am going to have an experience just like this man’s.” A great many Christians are doing that. They are not satisfied with what the Lord gives them. They want to have something more brilliant, or joyful, a little more suited to their mind. Every moment you do that, you depreciate or discount what the Lord does for you, and you must not discredit the Lord’s work. You must be willing to allow the Lord to operate on your body, on your mind, on your Spirit just as he will. Then be as glad of that, as though you were Moses or David or Paul or an angel of God. It is better for a man to be wrapped up in the Holy Spirit, to be just what he is and let God do with him as he desires, than it is for him to get another’s experience, even if it be that of an apostle. What God wants you to be and do is the best for you. Daniel’s experience will not fit you. It would be like Saul’s armour on David — you would have to throw it away after all and take what the Lord prepared for you to use.

V. Right Motive. We must seek for the baptism with the Holy Spirit with right motives. We must have the same motive which Jesus says the Spirit has in coming, — “When He is come He will testify of me” and “when He is come He will glorify me.” Now, I am afraid that sometimes people seek the Holy Spirit to glorify themselves. That is to say, either to give themselves some rest, where they have not rest, or some freedom, where they have not freedom, or ease, or celebrity, or honor or position. Now the Spirit will never minister to your pride. If you are seeking the Spirit to have renown or reputation, you will not be likely to receive Him. Very often we read of the Wesleys, Whitefield, Finney, Olin, Hamline, Cookman, Moody and other men, who have been wonderfully honored of the Lord, and then after we read their lives, we begin to pray for the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

There comes to us that itching desire; we would like to have the honor or the position, or do the work, or be like these people of whom we have read, — so instead of praying for the Holy Spirit, we are praying for celebrity, for renown, or position and the praise of men.

Many of the disciples upon whom the baptism of the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost never made any record of their lives. There is nothing known in the history of the world, what became of the men or what became of the women. What they did after they were baptized with the Spirit is unknown to this day. It was not theirs to seek. If God wants you to go in and out, up or down, to live or die, that is what you are willing to do if you give yourself to Him. If we seek the Holy Spirit for gratification, so we won’t have so much trouble with ourselves, we shall not get Him for that purpose. A great many people want their children to be religious so they can have a good time and when the children commit faults, they will throw it up to them and say, “I thought you were religious, I thought you signed a card the other day, or joined the church, and here you are doing this.” They want them to be religious so that they will not have any trouble with them. A great many people seek the Holy Spirit so that they will not have so much trouble with themselves, so that they won’t have to be careful for themselves, nor watch so much nor pray so much, nor repent so much, so that they can abandon themselves. You will not get the Holy Spirit for that purpose, for He does not come to do that kind of work.

Jesus Christ tells us why He sends the Comforter, — “He shall glorify me, He shall take the things of mine and show them to you, He shall convince the world of sin.” When you want to make the world better, to lift up Jesus Christ, then you will be very likely to receive the Spirit; but if you are thinking of yourself, trying to perpetuate yourself, seeking for position or fame, you will hardly receive the Holy Spirit. You must seek Him with pure unselfish motives.

VI. How to Receive Him.

1. Obedience. Suppose you want to receive him so that he will abide in you, the real condition, the main condition, for the reception of the Holy Spirit is “obedience.” Jesus said to his disciples: “If ye love me keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father and He will send you another Comforter.” Now, the reception of the Comforter depended upon their keeping the commandments. Peter says in Acts 5 132 that “God gives the Holy Spirit to them that obey him.” We must seek first to obey God just as we are. A good many people are mistaken about this. They want the Holy Spirit to help them to obey God — to make them loyal to God. Now, the Lord will never send the Spirit to dwell in you to make you loyal to Him. You must become loyal to Him as his child. You must determine of yourself that you will be loyal to God anyhow. Loyalty is always the prerequisite of power. Power never creates loyalty in any government. No man ever gets power in any government in order to be made loyal to that government. Every pastor commits an awful blunder when he gives a man a position in the church in order to make him loyal to the church. If a man has a few talents and uses them wrong he need not pray for the Spirit, for when a man uses his talents in a wrong way he is simply declaring to God what he would do if he had more talents.

Now, in order to be in a position to receive the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to be loyal to God in little things. There are no trivial things in this life — things that do not amount to anything. A spider's web is a little thing, but it is said that once in Japan the telegraph wires would not operate. They sent men out along the line to see what was the matter. They found that the line was not broken anywhere. It was not connected with anything else, it was not disturbed, it was not disconnected in any way, and they could not discover why the messages would not go. Finally in passing through some thick forests the men discovered that little spiders had been weaving webs from the wires to the ground, and these webs took off the current so that no messages could be sent between the stations.

In the Christian life there are little spider webs — we call them little things, trivial things — no matter what they are, it makes no difference, these are the very things that take away the current and cause us to fail in doing the will of God and in receiving the Holy Spirit as we ought to receive Him.

Now, if we are obedient, it is our privilege to receive the Holy Spirit. If we are not obedient then we must begin to obey God. If there is anything in your life, your mental life, your spiritual life, your physical life — if there is anything in which you are doing wrong, you must turn away from it and do wrong no more. If you are cherishing anything in your heart you know not to be right, you must cease to cherish it. We need not expect the Holy Spirit to come and abide with us if there is in us any love or affiliation for any of that gang of thirteen outlaws which Jesus denounced as coming from the heart. The Holy Spirit will not come into our souls if they are fetid or chilled with the atmosphere of worldliness or befouled with passion of any kind. We must absolutely separate ourselves from these things. If we are not doing the will of God we must begin to obey. I do not know what God will say to any man. If you have not been an obedient child of God, perhaps He would say to you, ‘There is an unforgiven enemy that you must go and forgive,” or perhaps he would say “There is an unsettled difficulty, you must go and settle it.” There is some neglected duty which you must do. “If in anything you are otherwise minded, the Spirit will show it unto you.” You begin to do what God tells you to do. The Holy Spirit maketh intercession for you. If you follow His promptings He will show you and it will not be long till you will come into the right place. He may show you a Bible covered with dust that you have not been reading. He will show you a closet that has not been visited for a long time. It may be a family altar all broken down and you may have to put it up. He may show you some unpaid vow you have made and you will have to pay that vow. You cannot rush into the baptism of the Holy Spirit without preparation; you cannot receive the Holy Spirit without searching yourself and without knowing whether you are trying to walk with God or not, and trying to do the very best you can, so that, if you want to receive the Holy Spirit, you must begin to do whatever He tells you to do. Wherever he tells you to go you must go, and suffer whatever he tells you to suffer.

By the price of your own soul, by the price of your eternal reward, by the price of a glorious eternity into which you may enter, I beg of you, begin to follow the Holy Spirit.

2. Receive Him by faith. Did you ever notice how Paul puts this in Galatians 3:4? “This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?” — How did you receive the Spirit, by the works of law or by the hearing of faith? — Then he goes on down, as you will find by reading this chapter until the 13th and 14th verses and says we do not receive by the works of the law — that Christ took our place in the law and fulfilled all the law for us. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being a curse for us.” Why did He do that? “That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

Now, if you want to receive the Holy Spirit, you will have to receive him through faith. “Oh,” says someone, “I will not believe I receive the Holy Spirit until I know I have Him.” Are you going to deal with God in that way? You can deal with any common liar on that ground. You can deal with any rascal on the face of the earth on that ground and have no faith in him at all. God requires you to have faith in His word. When God says a thing is so, you are to believe His word, and trust Him, and take the promise, and have the gift through the promise by faith in the promise. If you want to receive the Holy Spirit, fulfill the conditions He requires. Submit yourself to the Lord, and then fulfilling the conditions, ask Him definitely for the Spirit, and believing that God is as good as His word, as true as His word, begin to reckon that He gives you the Spirit, and go on trusting Him that He does give you the Spirit, and that He will keep you filled with the Spirit, and according to your faith it shall be unto you. “What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them.” “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” This does not apply to the Jews alone, for Peter says, “The promise is to you and to your children, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call.,, You do not need to go away and fail to receive this baptism. You can receive it where you are, without waiting another moment of time, if you are willing to do the will of God.

A woman came from California to Richmond, Indiana, seeking for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She came all the way across the plains, that she might receive the Baptism of the Spirit, and then found after she had come that long distance that she had to receive the Spirit by faith, had to receive the Spirit by just turning around and accepting God's word. And she said, “I have come from California to Indiana with my back to the Lord, when all I had to do at the very start was to turn my face to the Lord and receive His word.”

This is all you have to do. Just turn around and open your heart to the Lord and say, “Lord, thou askest me to give myself to Thee. Thou knowest my inmost thought and purpose. Thou knowest every atom of my being. I now yield to thee. Now give me the Holy Spirit. Lord I believe.”

VII. What am I to believe?

1. There is such a blessing to be had, as the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Christ received it at the beginning of His ministry on the Jordan: the disciples received it at Pentecost. The believers in Samaria who were rejoicing in Christ, afterwards received the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The believers at Ephesus received this baptism after they believed. Paul said, — “After that ye believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit.” There is such an experience. This I firmly believe.

2. The Baptism is for me. Peter says, — “The promise is unto you and to your children, to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” God has called me. There is such an experience. It is for me.

3. I do not have it. I either had it and lost it or I never had it. I do not have it now. How do I know that I do not have it now? — The Bible is not interesting, prayer is dull and heavy, Jesus seems away off. I have no power over sin. No saving power over others. My temper and habits overcome me. I confess it. There is such a baptism. It is for me. I have not got it.

4. I want this baptism, I am hungry for it: I feel my deficiency; I want the supply of the Spirit; if there is anybody in the world wants it, I am that one.

5. I will make any sacrifice to obtain this baptism. If there is anything wrong in me, if I am doing anything wrong, I'll give it up. “I'll go where you want me to go, over mountain or plain or sea, I'll say what you want me to say, and I’ll be what you want me to be.”

6. I give myself to Christ that he may cleanse and fill me. It is Christ who baptizes. “He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.” The risen Lord whose hands were pierced for me is the one to baptize me with the Holy Spirit. Oh blessed privilege, that Jesus will give to me the very same Holy Spirit that dwelt in Him, that carried him through His mission, to carry me through my life work, and for this purpose I consecrate all to Him to be cleansed and kept. He can not cleanse my heart unless it is all consecrated to him, he must have all. Mr. Moody says, “God does not want gold or silver vessels, but He does want clean vessels.”

If a contagious disease had been in a house you would not enter till every room was cleaned. If every room was fumigated but one little one, you would not go into it. We went into a parsonage once where there had been Scarlet Fever and every room but one was fumigated, (the committee supposed my predecessor had fumigated that one, but he had not) and four children had the Scarlet Fever, and one was taken away because we slept in a house with one unfumigated room.

Don’t expect the Holy Spirit to abide in an unclean temple.

7. And now fixing my eyes on Jesus and not on self, I take the promise of the Spirit by faith. “Jesus bore the curse of the law that I might receive the promise of the Spirit by faith,” and I now take the promise of the Spirit.

If my brother gives me a check on the bank I take it and claim the money and I say it is mine, and I realize on it. My elder Brother has given me the Promise of the Holy Spirit. I take His promise and claim it as my own; just as I received my Savior by faith to forgive me and give me a new heart, so I take the Comforter to abide in me forever.