_HOW LONG BETWEEN?_
It is often asked what time must elapse between the regenerating by the
Spirit and the filling with the Spirit? for be it remembered the Filling
is as real and distinct and definite a blessing as the regenerating. Many
people know the moment of their new birth; they were conscious of the
change; so also many know when they were "filled with the Holy Ghost;" it
was a blessed, bright, conscious experience, and it is as impossible to
argue them out of the one experience as out of the other. On the other
hand, some people do not know the time when they were born "again;" they
simply have come to know by many infallible signs that the great change
has taken place; so in like manner some do not know when the Fullness
came to them, but they have been gently awaked to the fact that "Jesus
came, He filled my soul;" and such people may be as truly "filled with
the Spirit" as those who can tell when and where and how the blessing
came to them. Now as to the period intervening between the two blessings,
we know that in the case of the apostles in Acts ii. 4, three or three
and a half years elapsed between the day when they heard the "Follow Me,"
and the day when they were "filled;" in the cases of the Samaritans in
Acts viii. 17, and of the Ephesians in Acts xix. 1-7, some weeks; in the
case of Saul in Acts ix. 17, three days. But as we have already noticed
in the case of Cornelius and his household in Acts x. 44, they were
regenerated and filled the same day. From this we gather that, as far as
God is concerned, there is no needs-be for any intervening period, but
that the believer _may_ be "filled" as soon as he is "born again;" the
"Life" almost as soon as we get it may blossom into "Life abundantly." If
we did not "receive the Holy Ghost _when_" we believed, and if we have
not "received" Him _since_ we believed, and are not living _now_ the
Spirit-filled life, at whose door then does the blame lie?