That is the condition as suggested by one of our texts--'a man full of
faith,' and therefore 'of the Holy Ghost.' Now, of course, I believe,
as I suppose all people who have made any experience of their own
hearts must believe, that before a soul exercises confidence in Jesus
Christ, and passes into the household of faith, there have been playing
upon it the influences of that divine Comforter whose first mission is
to 'convince the world of sin.' But between such operations as these,
which I believe are universally diffused, wheresoever the Word of God
and the message of salvation are proclaimed--between such operations as
these, and those to which I now refer, whereby the divine Spirit not
only operates upon, but dwells in, a man's heart, and not only brings
conviction to the world of sin, there is a wide gulf fixed; and for all
the hallowing, sanctifying, illuminating and strength-giving operations
of that divine Spirit, the pre-requisite condition is our trust. Jesus
Christ taught us so, in more than one utterance, and His Apostle, in
commenting on one of the most remarkable of His sayings on this
subject, says, 'This spake He concerning the Holy Spirit which _they
that believed_ in Him were to receive.' Faith is the condition of
receiving that divine influence. But what kind of faith? Well, let us
put away theological words. If you do not believe that there is any
such influence to be got, you will not get it. If you do not want it,
you will not get it. If you do not expect it, you will not get it. If
professing to believe it, and to wish it, and to look for it, you are
behaving yourself in such a way as to show that you do not really
desire it, you will never get it. It is all very well to talk about
faith as the condition of receiving that divine Spirit. Do not let us
lose ourselves in the word, but try to translate the somewhat
threadbare expression, which by reason of its familiarity produces
little effect upon some of us, and to turn it into non-theological
English. It just comes to this,--if we are simply trusting ourselves to
Jesus Christ our Lord, and if in that trust we do believe in the
possibility of even _our_ being filled with the divine Spirit, and if
that possibility lights up a leaping flame of desire in our hearts
which aspires towards the possession of such a gift, and if belief that
our reception of that gift is possible because we trust ourselves to
Jesus Christ, and longing that we may receive it, combine to produce
the confident expectation that we shall, and if all of these combine to
produce conduct which neither quenches nor grieves that divine Guest,
then, and only then, shall we indeed be filled with the Spirit.
I know of no other way by which a man can receive God into his heart
than by opening his heart for God to come in. I know of no other way by
which a man can woo--if I may so say--the Divine Lover to enter into
his spirit than by longing that He would come, waiting for His coming,
expecting it, and being supremely blessed in the thought that such a
union is possible. Faith, that is trust, with its appropriate and
necessary sequels of desire and expectation and obedience, is the
completing of the electric circuit, and after it the spark is sure to
come. It is the opening of the windows, after which sunshine cannot but
flood the chamber. It is the stretching out of the hand, and no man
that ever, with love and longing, lifted an empty hand to God, dropped
it still empty. And no man who, with penitence for his own act, and
trust in the divine act, lifted blood-stained and foul hands to God,
ever held them up there without the gory patches melting away, and
becoming white as snow. Not 'all the perfumes of Araby' can sweeten
those bloody hands. Lift them up to God, and they become pure.
Whosoever wishes that he may, and believes that he shall, receive from
Christ the fulness of the Spirit, will not be disappointed. Brethren,
'Ye have not because ye ask not.' 'If ye, being evil, know how to give
good gifts to your children,' shall not 'your Heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?'
III. Lastly, if we are filled with the Spirit we shall be 'full of
wisdom, grace, and power.'
The Apostles seemed to think that it was a very important business to
look after a handful of poor widows, and see that they had their fair
share in the dispensing of the modest charity of the half-pauper
Jerusalem church, when they said that for such a purely secular thing
as that a man would need to be 'full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom.'
Surely, something a little less august might have served their turn to
qualify men for such a task! 'Wisdom' here, I suppose, means practical
sagacity, common sense, the power of picking out an impostor when she
came whining for a dole. Very commonplace virtues!--but the Apostles
evidently thought that such everyday operations of the understanding as
these were not too secular and commonplace to owe their origin to the
communication to men of the fulness of the Holy Spirit.
May we not take a lesson from that, that God's great influences, when
they come into a man, do not concern themselves only with great
intellectual problems and the like, but that they will operate to make
him more fit to do the most secular and the most trivial things that
can be put into his hand to do? The Holy Ghost had to fill Stephen
before he could hand out loaves and money to the widows in Jerusalem.
And do you not think that your day's work, and your business
perplexities, come under the same category? Perhaps the best way to
secure understanding of what we ought to do, in regard to very small
and secular matters, is to keep ourselves very near to God, with the
windows of our hearts opened towards Jerusalem, that all the guidance
and light that can come from Him may come into us. Depend upon it,
unless we have God's guidance in the trivialities of life, ninety per
cent., ay! and more, of our lives will be without God's guidance;
because trivialities make up life. And unless my Father in heaven can
guide me about what we, very mistakenly, call 'secular' things, and
what we very vulgarly call trivial things, His guidance is not worth
much. The Holy Ghost will give you wisdom for to-morrow, and all its
little cares, as well as for the higher things, of which I am not going
to speak now, because they do not come within my text.
'Full of grace,'--that is a wide word, as I take it. If, by our faith,
we have brought into our hearts that divine influence, the Spirit of
God does not come empty-handed, but He communicates to us whatsoever
things are lovely and of good report, whatsoever things are fair and
honourable, whatsoever things in the eyes of men are worthy to be
praised, and by the tongues of men have been called virtue. These
things will all be given to us step by step, not without our own
diligent co-operation, by that divine Giver. Effort without faith, and
faith without effort, are equally incomplete, and the co-operation of
the two is that which is blessed by God.
Then the things which are 'gracious,' that is to say, given by His
love, and also gracious in the sense of partaking of the celestial
beauty which belongs to all virtue, and to all likeness in character to
God, these things will give us a strange, supernatural _power_ amongst
men. The word is employed in my third text, I presume, in its narrow
sense of miracle-working power, but we may fairly widen it to something
much more than that. Our Lord once said, when He was speaking about the
gift of the Holy Spirit, that there were two stages in its operation.
In the first, it availed for the refreshment and the satisfying of the
desires of the individual; in the second it became, by the ministration
of that individual, a source of blessing to others. He said, 'If any
man thirst, let him come to Me and drink,' and then, immediately, 'He
that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water.' That is to say, whoever lives in touch with God, having that
divine Spirit in his heart, will walk amongst men the wielder of an
unmistakable power, and will be able to bear witness to God, and move
men's hearts, and draw them to goodness and truth. The only power for
Christian service is the power that comes from being clothed with God's
Spirit. The only power for self-government is the power that comes from
being clothed with God's Spirit. The only power which will keep us in
the way that leads to life, and will bring us at last to the rest and
the reward, is the power that comes from being clothed with God's
Spirit.
I am charged to all who hear me now with this message. Here is a gift
offered to you. You cannot pare and batter at your own characters so as
to make them what will satisfy your own consciences, still less what
will satisfy the just judgment of God; but you can put yourself under
the moulding influences of Christ's love. Dear brethren, the one hope
for dead humanity, the bones very many and very dry, is that from the
four winds there should come the breath of God, and breathe in them,
and they shall live, 'an exceeding great army.' Forget all else that I
have been saying now, if you like, but take these two sentences to your
hearts, and do not rest till they express your own personal experience;
If I am to be good I must have God's Spirit within me. If I am to have
God's Spirit within me, I must be 'full of faith.'