"Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you."
A MINISTER of the Gospel, after listening to an eminent servant
of God preaching on entire sanctification through the baptism
with the Spirit, wrote to him, saying: "I like your teaching on
the baptism with the Holy Ghost. I need it, and am seeking it;
but I do not care much for entire sanctification or heart-cleansing.
Pray for me that I may be filled with the Holy Ghost."
The brother knew him well, and immediately replied: "I am so glad
you believe in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, and are so
earnestly seeking it. I join my prayer with yours that you may
receive that gift. But let me say to you, that if you get the
gift of the Holy Ghost, you will have to take entire sanctification
with it, for the first thing the baptism with the Holy Ghost does
is to cleanse the heart from all sin."
Thank God, he humbled himself, permitted the Lord to sanctify
him, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit, and mightily
empowered to work for God.
Many have looked at the promise of power when the Holy Ghost is
come, the energy of Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost,
and the marvellous results which followed, and they have hastily
and erroneously jumped to the conclusion that the baptism with
the Holy Ghost is for work and service only.
It does bring power--the power of God, and it does fit for
service, probably the most important service to which any created
beings are commissioned, the proclamation of salvation and the
conditions of peace to a lost world; but not that alone, nor
primarily. The primary, the basal work of the baptism, is that of
cleansing.
You may turn a flood into your millrace, but until it sweeps away
the logs and brushwood and dirt that obstruct the course, you
cannot get power to turn the wheels of your mill. The flood first
washes out the obstructions, and then you have power.
The great hindrance in the hearts of God's children to the power
of the Holy Ghost is inbred sin--that dark, defiant, evil
something within that struggles for the mastery of the soul, and
will not submit to be meek and lowly, and patient and forbearing
and holy, as was Jesus; and when the Holy Spirit comes, His first
work is to sweep away that something, that carnal principle, and
make free and clean all the channels of the soul.
Peter was filled with power on the day of Pentecost; but
evidently the purifying effect of the baptism made a deeper and
more lasting impression upon his mind than the empowering effect;
for years after, in that first Council in Jerusalem, recorded in
the fifteenth chapter of Acts, he stood up and told about the
spiritual baptism of Cornelius, the Roman centurion, and his
household, and he said: "And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare
them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us;
and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts
by faith." Here he calls attention not to power, but to purity,
as the effect of the baptism. When the Holy Ghost comes in to
abide, "the old man" goes out. Praise the Lord!
This destruction of inbred sin is made perfectly plain in that
wonderful Old Testament type of the baptism with the Holy Ghost
and fire recorded in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. The prophet was
a most earnest preacher of righteousness (see Isaiah i. 10-20),
yet he was not sanctified wholly. But he had a vision of the Lord
upon His Throne, and the seraphims crying one to another: "Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His
glory." And the very "posts of the door moved at the voice of him
that cried"; and how much more should the heart of the prophet be
moved! And so it was; and he cried out: "Woe is me! for I am
undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the
midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the
King, the Lord of Hosts."
When unsanctified men have a vision of God, it is not their lack
of power, but their lack of purity, their unlikeness to Christ,
the Holy One, that troubles them. And so it was with the prophet.
But he adds: "Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a
live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off
the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath
touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin
purged." Here again, it is purity rather than power to which our
attention is directed.
Again, in the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel, we have another
type of this spiritual baptism. In Isaiah the type was that of
fire, but here it is that of water; for water and oil, and the
wind and rain and dew, are all used as types of the Holy Spirit.
The Lord says, through Ezekiel: "Then will I sprinkle clean water
upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and
from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I
give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an
heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause
you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and
do them."
Here again, the incoming of the Holy Spirit means the outgoing of
all sin, of "all your filthiness, and of all your idols." How
plainly it is taught! And yet, many of God's dear children do not
believe it is their privilege to be free from sin and pure in
heart in this life. But, may we not? Let us consider this.
1. It is certainly _desirable_. Every sincere Christian--and
none can be a Christian who is not sincere--wants to be free from
sin, to be pure in heart, to be like Christ. Sin is hateful to
every true child of God. The Spirit within him cries out against
the sin, the wrong temper, the pride, the lust, the selfishness,
the evil that lurks within the heart. Surely, it is desirable to
be free from sin.
"He wills that I should holy be:
That holiness I long to feel;
That full Divine conformity
To all my Saviour's righteous will."
2. It is _necessary_, for "without holiness no man shall see
the Lord." Sometime, somehow, somewhere, sin must go out of our
hearts--all sin--or we cannot go into Heaven. Sin would spoil
Heaven just as it spoils earth; just as it spoils the peace of
hearts and homes, of families and neighbourhoods and nations
here. Why God in His wisdom allows sin in the world, I do not
know, I cannot understand. But this I understand: that He has one
world into which He will not let sin enter. He has notified us in
advance that no sin, nothing that defiles, can enter Heaven, can
mar the blessedness of that holy place. "Who shall ascend into
the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He
that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up
his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully" We must get rid of
sin to get into Heaven, to enjoy the full favour of God. It is
necessary.
"Choose I must, and soon must choose
Holiness, or Heaven lose.
If what Heaven loves I hate,
Shut for me is Heaven's gate!
"Endless sin means endless woe;
Into endless sin I go
If my soul, from reason rent,
Takes from sin its final bent.
"As the stream its channel grooves,
And within that channel moves;
So does habit's deepest tide
Groove its bed and there abide.
"Light obeyed increaseth light;
Light resisted bringeth night;
Who shall give me will to choose
If the love of light I lose?
"Speed, my soul, this instant yield;
Let the light its sceptre wield.
While thy God prolongs His grace,
Haste thee to His holy face."
3. This purification from sin is _promised_. Nothing can be
plainer than the promise of God on this point. "Then will I
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from
_all_ your filthiness and from _all_ your idols will I cleanse
you." When all is removed, nothing remains. When all filthiness
and all idols are taken away, none are left.
"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans
v. 20, 21). Grace reigns, not through sin, but "through
righteousness" which has expelled sin. Grace brings in
righteousness and sin goes out.
"If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have
fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John i. 7). Hallelujah!
"Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of
righteousness" (Romans vi. 18).
These are sample promises and assurances any one of which is
sufficient to encourage us to believe that our Heavenly Father
will save us from all sin, if we meet His conditions.
4. And that deliverance is _possible_. It was for this that
Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, came into the world, and suffered
and died, that He might "save His people from their sins"
(Matthew i. 21). It was for this that He shed His precious blood:
to "cleanse us from all sin." It was for this that the word of
God, with its wonderful promises, was given: "That by these ye
might be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust" (2 Peter i. 4); by
which is meant, escape from inbred sin. It was for this that
ministers of the Gospel--Salvation Army Officers--are given, "for
the perfecting of the saints" (Eph. iv. 12), for the saving and
sanctifying of men (Acts xxvi. 18). It is primarily for this that
the Holy Ghost comes as a baptism of fire: that sin might be
consumed out of us, so that we might be "made meet for the
inheritance of the saints in light"; that so we might be ready
without a moment's warning to go into the midst of the heavenly
hosts in white garments, "washed in the blood of the Lamb." Glory
be to God for ever and ever!
And shall all these mighty agents and this heavenly provision,
and these gracious purposes of God, fail to destroy sin out of
any obedient, believing heart? Is sin omnipotent? No!
If you, my brother, my sister, will look unto Jesus just now,
trusting the merits of His blood, and receive the Holy Spirit
into your heart, you shall be "made free from sin"; it "shall not
have dominion over you." Hallelujah! Under the fiery touch of His
holy presence, your iniquity shall be taken away, and your sin
shall be purged. And you yourself shall burn as did the bush on
the mount of God which Moses saw; yet you, like the bush, shall
not be consumed; and by this holy fire, this flame of love,
that consumes sin, you shall be made proof against that
unquenchable fire that consumes sinners.
"Come, Holy Ghost, Thy mighty aid bestowing;
Destroy the works of sin, the self, the pride;
Burn, burn in me, my idols overthrowing:
Prepare my heart for Him, for my Lord crucified."
"HAVE YE RECEIVED THE HOLY GHOST SINCE YE BELIEVED?"