AFTER
THE HOLINESS MEETING
Were
you at the holiness meeting? Did you come out to the Penitentform?
Did Jesus make your heart clean? And did you receive the Holy Ghost?
If
you gave yourself to God in the very best way you knew of; but did
not receive the Holy Ghost, I beg of you not to be discouraged. Do
not take a backward step. Stand where you are, and hold fast your
faith. The Lord means to bless you. Keep looking to Jesus, and fully
expect Him to satisfy your heart's desire. Tell Him you expect it,
and plead His promises. He says: "I know the thoughts I think
toward you, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an
expected end. Then you will call on Me, and you shall go and pray to
Me, and I will hearken to you. And you will seek Me, and find Me,
when you seek Me with all your heart. And I will be found of you"
(Jer. 29:11, 14). This is a wonderful promise, and it is for you.
Has
the devil tempted you, more than ever, since then? Well, here is
another promise for you: "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest,
and not comforted, behold, I will lay your stones with fair colours,
and lay your foundations with sapphires. And I will make your windows
of agates, and your gates of carbuncles, and all your borders of
pleasant stones ... in righteousness shalt thou be established"
(Isa. liv. 11, 12, 14). God is going to do wonderful things for you,
if you will not cast away your faith and your boldness.
No
doubt some of you not only gave yourselves to God, but God gave
Himself to you. You did receive the Holy Ghost. When He came in, self
went out. You abhorred, you loathed yourself; and sank into
nothingness, while Jesus became all and in all. That is the first
thing the Holy Ghost does when He comes into the heart in all His
fullness - He glorifies Jesus. We see Jesus as we never saw Him
before; we love Him; we adore Him; we ascribe all honour and glory
and power to Him, and we realize, as we never did before, that
through His precious Blood we are saved and sanctified. The Holy
Spirit will not call your attention to Himself; but will point to
Jesus. "He shall not speak of Himself ... He shall glorify Me:
for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it to you," said
Jesus; and again: "He shall testify of Me" (John 16:13, 14;
15:26). Nor does He come to reveal to us any new truth, but rather to
make us understand the old truth that Jesus spoke, and which the
Prophets and Apostles, whom He inspired, spoke. "He shall teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever
I have said to you" (John 14:26). He will make your Bible a new
book to you. He will make you remember it. He will teach you how to
apply it to your everyday life, so that you will be safely guided by
it.
The
reason why people get mixed up over the Bible is because they have
not the Holy Spirit to show them the meaning. A cadet or humble
soldier who is full of the Holy Ghost can tell more about the real,
deep, spiritual meaning of the Bible than all the doctors of divinity
and theological professors in the world who are not baptised with the
Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will make you love your Bible, and you
will say with Job, "I have esteemed the words of His mouth more
than my necessary food - (Job 23:12); and with the Psalmist you will
declare His judgements to be "sweeter also than honey and the
honeycomb" (Ps. 19:10). No book or paper can take its place;
but, like the "blessed" man, you will "meditate
therein day and night" (Ps. 1. 2; Josh. 1:8). He will make you
tremble at the warnings of God's word (Isa. 66:2), exult in His
promises, and take delight in the commandments. You can be satisfied
with nothing less than the whole Bible, and you will say with Jesus,
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4); and you will
understand what Jesus meant when He said, "The words that I
speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life" (John 6:63).
While
you walk in humble obedience and childlike faith, trusting in the
Blood of Jesus to cleanse you from all sin, the Comforter will abide
with you, and the "low-water mark" of your experience will
be "perfect peace." I will not dare to say what the
high-water mark may be! Like Paul, you may get "caught up to the
third heaven" at times, and hear "unspeakable words, which
it is not lawful for a man to utter "(2 Cor. 12:4). Oh, there
are unspeakable breadths, and lengths, and depths, and heights of
the love of God for you to revel in and discover by the telescope and
microscope of faith! Glory to God! You need not fear that the
experience will wear out or grow tame. God is infinite, and your
little mind and heart cannot exhaust the wonders of His wisdom and
goodness and grace and glory in one short lifetime. Bless the Lord!
Hallelujah!
Do
not think, however, when the tide flows out to "low-water mark"
that the Comforter has left you. I remember well how, after I had
received the Holy Ghost, I walked for weeks under a weight of divine
joy and glory that was almost too much for my body to bear. Then the
joy began to subside, and there would be alternate days of joy and
peace; and on the days when there was no special experience, the
devil would tempt me with the thought that I had in some way grieved
the Holy Spirit and that He was leaving me. But God taught me it was
the devil's lie, and that I must "hold fast the profession of"
my "faith without wavering" (Heb. 10:23). So I may say to
you, Do not think He
has
left you because you are not overflowing with emotion. Hold fast your
faith. He is with you, and will not leave you, after the hard time He
has had to get fully into your heart, without first letting you know
just why He goes. The Holy Spirit is not capricious and fickle. He
has to strive long to get into your heart, and He will strive long
before He will leave it, unless you wilfully harden your heart and
drive Him from you. I am not writing this, however, for those who are
careless and would as soon grieve Him as not, but for you whose
hearts are tender, who love Him, and would rather die than lose Him
out of your hearts. I say to you, trust Him! When I had almost
yielded to the lie of Satan that the Lord had left me, God gave me
this text: "The children of Israel ... tempted the Lord, saying,
Is the Lord among us, or not?" (Ex. 17:7). I saw that to doubt
God's presence with me, even though I felt no special sign of His
presence, was to tempt Him; so I promised the Lord then that I would
not doubt, but would be strong in faith. Glory to God for ever! He
has not left me yet, and I am persuaded He never will. I can trust my
wife when I cannot see her, and so I have learned to trust my Lord,
even if I do not always feel the same mighty stirrings of His power
in me. I tell Him that I trust Hint, and I do believe He is with me,
and I will not please the devil by doubting.
Just
at this stage, after having received the Holy Ghost, many people get
into confusion. In time of temptation they think He has left them;
and instead of trusting and acknowledging His presence and thanking
Him for stooping so low as to dwell in their poor hearts, they begin
to seek Him as though He had not already come, or had gone away. They
should stop seeking at once, and go to fighting the devil by faith,
and telling him to get behind them, and go on praising the Lord for
His presence with them. If you will seek light when you have light,
you will find darkness and confusion; and if you begin to seek the
Holy Spirit when you already have Him, you will grieve Him. What He
wants
is that you have faith. Therefore, having received Him into your
hearts, continually acknowledge His presence, obey Him, glory in Him,
and He will abide with you for ever, (John 14:16), and His presence
will be power in you.
Do
not keep seeking and crying for more power; but rather seek by prayer
and watchfulness and study of your Bible and the honest improvement
of every opportunity to be a perfectly free channel for the power of
the Holy Ghost, who is now in you. Believe God, and do not obstruct
the way of the Holy Ghost, that He may work through you. Ask Him to
teach and guide you, that you may not hinder Him in His work. Seek to
think His thoughts, to speak His words, to feel His love, and
exercise His faith. Seek to be so guided by Him that you will pray
when He wants you to pray, sing when He wants you to sing, and last,
but not least, be silent when He wants you to be silent. "Live
in
the
Spirit," "Walk in the Spirit," (Gal. 5:25), "Be
filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18). Finally, do not be
surprised if you have very unusual temptations. You remember that it
was after Jesus was baptised with the Holy Ghost that He was led into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil for forty days and forty
nights (see Matt. 3:16, 17 and 4:1-3). "The disciple is not
above his Master" (Matt. 10:24). But when you are tempted count
it all joy (James 1:2). Your very trials and temptations will lead
you into a deeper acquaintance with Jesus; for, as He was, so are you
to be in this present world. Remember He has said: "My grace is
sufficient for you "(2 Cor. 12:9), and it is written of Him:
"For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able
to succour those who are tempted" (Heb. 2:18); and again: "We
have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our weakness; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin" (Heb. 4:15). But, "What shall we then say to
these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Rom.
8:31).
Be
true, be full of faith, and you will be able to say with Paul: "In
all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved
us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom.
8:37-39).
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