A Gospel Promise

A Gospel Promise

(No. 3519)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JULY 6, 1916.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will keep My judgments, and do them." Ezekiel 36:27.

THE blessing here promised is one of the most essential that men can
need, or that God can give. Without this blessing, all the other
benefits of the Covenant would be null and void. It is vain to have a
Savior if we have not spiritual power to believe in Him! Of what use is
it to us that there should be provided precious promises if we have no
faith worked in us by the Holy Spirit whereby we can grasp those
promises, plead them in prayer and obtain their fulfillment? Without
holiness, no man shall see the Lord, but holiness grows not in any
human heart by nature. Therefore, without the Spirit of God, who is the
Author of holiness, no man could ever become an heir of immortality, or
enter into the rest which remains for the people of God! The Holy
Spirit is needed for the very least form of spiritual life and is
equally necessary for its highest development. Without the Holy Spirit,
we cannot go through the first gate–and without the Spirit we cannot
pass the last. No man can say in his heart that Jesus is the Christ but
by the Holy Spirit–much less can any man attain to the perfection
which is necessary to Heaven except through the work and power of the
Spirit of the living God!

I am always apprehensive lest by any means in my ministry I should even
seem to obscure this blessed and indispensable agency of the Holy
Spirit. Oh, if the Spirit of God is not honored–if He takes offense at
our neglect–if He withdraw from us–of what use will be our
congregations? Of what use our earnestness, even if we could maintain
it? To what purpose your assembling for prayer if you had not any wish
to gather? Without Him, we can do nothing! He breathes all the
animation into the Christian Church! Jesus is gone from us into Heaven,
but He continues to reign and rule in our midst by His Vicegerent, the
Holy Spirit! Let us honor Him. Let us rely upon Him. Let us earnestly
seek Him. Let it be ours to declare Him, those of us who have to speak,
and yours to receive Him, those of you who have to hear!

I. WHO IS THIS SPIRIT?

He is spoken of in this text and often elsewhere. It is very necessary
that we should talk over the commonplaces of the Gospel and the
simplicities of the Word of God. I do not doubt but that there are some
here who do not understand the Doctrine of the Divine Trinity. I have
been annoyed–I would have been amused but for the sadness of the
reflection–at the ignorance of some who have come in here and learned,
for the first time, the most elementary Truths of the Gospel. They know
them, now, and rejoice in them! They are even able to teach others. But
when they first came, though not uneducated people, but well versed in
some other matters–they had no more knowledge of the plan of
Salvation, or even of the plain and simple fundamental Truths of the
Gospel of Jesus–than if they had come here from the center of China,
or some region into which our Bible had never been carried! Let it then
be understood that the Holy Spirit, of whom we so often speak, is a
Person. He is not a mere influence. We speak of "the influences of the
Holy Spirit," and very properly so, but those influences proceed from a
Person who works upon the minds of men by His influence. It is right to
pray for the influences of the Holy Spirit, but it is not right to
think of the Holy Spirit, Himself, as though He were an influence, for
He is a Person!

Actions are ascribed to Him which could not be ascribed to influences.
He is said to be grieved, to be vexed, to have despite done unto Him.
Wonderful things are ascribed to Him, which influences could not
accomplish! The Spirit of God brooded over this earth when it was as
yet without form and void–and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
He brought order out of confusion. He garnished the heavens. The beauty
of the Tabernacle is attributed to the skill that He Inspired. Or,
turning to the holier Tabernacle of our Savior's body, it was formed
and fashioned by the power of the Ho-

ly Spirit! The holy Thing that was born of Mary was not born of natural
generation, but by the energy of the Holy One of Israel. Not an
influence, but a Person was the agent! And when our Lord was raised
again from the dead, His Resurrection is ascribed in Scripture to the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit worked many signs and wonders in the early
Church. He enabled the Apostles to speak with many tongues. Through Him
they had power to work many miracles. He even gave commandment to
separate Paul and Barnabas for the work whereunto He had called them.
And still, Beloved, He is in the Church and we have fellowship with
Him! We commune with Him! We can bear our witness that He makes
intercession for us with groans that cannot be uttered, that He helps
our infirmities and performs for us a thousand offices of love which
make us feel, experimentally and consciously, that the agent of such
things is a very Person!

He is, moreover, God–truly God! Never let us think lightly of the Holy
Spirit, as though He were in any secondary sense, Divine. In your
Baptism the three names were put together. You were baptized into the
triple name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Take
care that the three Persons be always associated in your minds with
equal affection and with equal awe! The Benediction, which so
constantly concludes our worship, gives to each His place– "May the
Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of the Father, and the
fellowship or communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The Holy
Spirit, then, is Divine! We do not now attempt to prove that which it
is our business at present dogmatically to assert. The thing is capable
of abundant proof from Holy Writ. Let it suffice that we teach you the
fact. How is it that the Father is God, that the Son is God and that
the Holy Spirit is God–and yet that there are not three Gods, but one
God? I cannot tell you. I know it is so, for so it is revealed–but how
it is so, it is not for us to guess because it is not revealed or
explained. Our understanding can adventure as far as the testimony and
no farther! Many attempts have been made by Divines to find parallels
in Nature to the Unity and the Trinity of God, but they all seem to me,
to fail. Perhaps the very best one is that of St. Patrick, who, when
preaching to the Irish and wishing to explain this matter, plucked a
shamrock and showed them its three leaves all in one–three, yet one.
Yet there are flaws and faults even in that illustration! It does not
meet the case. It is a Doctrine to be emphatically asserted as it is
expounded in that Athanasian Creed, the soundness of whose teaching I
do not question, for I believe it all, though I shrink with horror from
the abominable anathema which asserts that a man who hesitates to
endorse it, will, "without doubt perish everlastingly."

It is a matter to be reverently accepted as it stands in the Word of
God and to be faithfully studied as it has been understood by the most
scrupulous and intelligent Christians of succeeding generations. We are
not to think of the Father as though anything could detract from the
homage due to Him as originally and essentially Divine, nor of the only
begotten Son of the Father as though He were not "God over all, blessed
forever," nor of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the
Son, as though He had not all the attributes of Deity! We must abide by
this, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Jehovah." But we must
still hold to it that in three Persons He is to be worshipped, though
He is but One in His essence. Understand, then, you who know but little
of the Doctrines of the Gospel, that you must worship the Holy Spirit
and exercise your faith on Him as God! Lay particular stress upon this,
because it is written, "Whoever shall speak a word against the Son of
Man, it shall be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the
world to come." Such awful sanctity surrounds the Spirit of God! As I
think of Him, I seem to see Sinai in a blaze with a bound set around
about–and I hear a Voice that says to me, "Draw not near here, for
this is holy ground."

That unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit, I know not what it
is–in vain might I assay to define it. It stands like a beacon, as if
God saw that an ungodly and stiff-necked generation would vex the Holy
Spirit and venture far in blasphemy! Therefore, while all manner of
blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men, the sin against the Holy Spirit
shall never be forgiven. Take heed you do not harden your heart, lest
you should commit it! I do not believe you have. I know you have not if
you desire to be saved. I am sure you have not if you are willing to
come and put your trust in Jesus Christ. Still, I admonish you to take
care and treat with reverence the very thought of the Holy Spirit, the
Comforter, the Instructor of your souls. Your second question will be–

II. HOW DOES HE FULFILL THIS PROMISE?

We understand by these words that those who formerly loved sin shall be
made to love righteousness. That those who found it hard, at one time,
to break off their evil ways, shall be induced to run with alacrity in
the way of God's Commandments. Now this is a great thing to be promised
and a very great thing to be obtained! By no human power could it

be brought to pass. As easily might the Blackamoor change his skin to
whiteness, or the leopard get rid of his spots, as could the man who is
accustomed to do evil reverse the entire current of his habits and
instincts–and learn to do well! The Divine Power that first fashioned
the soul of man must re-mold it. Only the Creator who made the
instrument can re-tune it, or restore its harmony! No unskillful hands
can mend it. People sometimes quibble at the Doctrine of Human
Impotence, but I can assure you that the actual evidence is far more
convincing than the abstract theory! The practical pastoral experience
that some of us have had would soon convince anyone that there is ample
evidence of its truthfulness. We meet with those who have been a little
awakened at our Prayer Meetings and revival services. What, do you
think, is the first thing we have to concern about them? Why, some of
them have never been in the habit of thinking about their souls,
before, and the moment they do begin to think, like a lad introduced
into a carpenter's shop who has never seen tools, before, they cut
themselves with every tool they attempt to handle! These poor souls
never were introduced to the spiritual world. Self-examination is a
novelty to them. If they think of sin, it drives them to despair! Or if
they think of mercy, that drives them to presumption! Whatever Truth of
God we put before them, they misuse and pervert it. They do not seem to
have the sense or the wit to use any Truth in a right way! You may
teach the young enquirer with much earnestness, but you will find it
difficult to guide him.

For instance, if he seems resolved to despair, you shall try to comfort
him and use as many arguments as you can, but he will despair if he has
made up his mind to do it! Some of these remind me of certain game that
sportsmen try to hunt out of their holes. It seems in vain to send the
ferret after them. When I have used arguments to get them out of one
hole, they take refuge in another! And when I have stopped up scores of
holes and have said to myself, "I shall have you now– you cannot
answer that!" Suddenly they seem to have found out quite another branch
of lies and delusions. They are gone from me and all my work is lost!
Ah, then it is that the pastor feels that he must have the power of the
Holy Spirit to help him, or else even the awakened and anxious sinner
will evade conversion, put away from himself eternal life and perish in
his sin! Yes, Brothers and Sisters, experience will often prove more
than controversy is prone to allow of the necessity of work of the Holy
Spirit! And if in merely dealing with the elementary lessons of
religion we find such palpable evidence of human inability, how much
more is this the case in the matter of making a lover of sin become a
lover of holiness? You may show him the proprieties of morality. You
may lay before him the inevitable results of sin. You may charm him
with the rewards of virtue, but the adder is too deaf for all your
charming–and when you have charmed, and charmed, and charmed again–he
still retains his venom and is still an adder!

But how does the Holy Spirit effect this? He operates, it is true, in
many ways. He does it often by His quickening power. The Holy Spirit is
the Author of all spiritual life. Speak of regeneration, the Holy
Spirit is the Regenerator. No man can receive that Divine Life which
comes into him at the new birth except by the Spirit of God. We are
raised from our death in sin into a new and holy life by the working of
the Holy Spirit, and by that alone. Now, if someone here, hitherto
incapable of a holy life, or of serving God right because of his
natural depravity, should be quickened by the Holy Spirit, what a
change would be at once worked upon him! What the spiritually dead man
cannot do, the spiritually enlivened man can readily perform. How the
Spirit quickens we know not. "The wind blows where it will, and you
hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from where it comes, or where
it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." The effects are
visible enough. You soon perceive that the man who was callous, without
feeling, without emotion, becomes tender of conscience, eager in
desires and sensitive in his anxieties. He becomes, in fact, a living
man, though he was steeped in death before!

The Holy Spirit continues to make a man practically new by the
illumination He bestows. The man is blind–the Holy Spirit touches his
eye with heavenly eye-salve and he begins to see. The sinner, with the
Bible in his hand, though anxious to understand it in a measure, makes
a sorry muddle of its Doctrines and precepts apart from the
instructions of that blessed Commentator–the Holy Spirit! The Bible is
full of the Light of God, but the heart of man is very dark. To what
purpose is the Scripture opened to the understanding if the eyes of the
understanding are covered with a thick film? It is the Holy Spirit who
irradiates the Truth of God which He has revealed broadcast over every
object that lies in our path. In reading the Bible to find comfort and
direction, take care to lift up your hearts to Him who wrote it! As an
author best understands his own books, so will the Spirit, who Inspired
the volume, let you at once into the secret meaning of that which the
pens of Inspired men have recorded. Wait upon God for instruction–His
instruction is sure to lead you to holiness, for He instructs you in
the evil of sin! He lets you see its heinousness, its demerit, its
ingratitude and infamy. He instructs you in the beauty of holiness and
shows you the example of your Master. He teaches you the Law of God and
writes it upon the fleshly tablets of your heart. In this way, as an
Illuminator as well as a Quickener, He makes us run in the ways of
God's statutes!

Moreover, the Holy Spirit operates as a Comforter. Many men are
wretched by reason of their sins, yet unwilling to renounce them. We
have known people continue in present transgression because they are
utterly hopeless of ever being forgiven their misdeeds in the past. But
when the Spirit of God breathes holy comfort into the desponding
sinner's mind, he then says to himself, "I will not fling myself away
after all. It is not meet that I, who have a better destiny before me,
should live like those who have resolved to follow their own lusts,
reckless of consequences–those who have made a covenant with Hell and
a league with death! No, a thousand times no! If God does all this for
me, and brings His dear Son to me, and tells me of pardons bought with
blood, then away shall go my old sins and henceforth it shall be my joy
to serve with all my might the Heavenly Friend who has been so kind to
me." The Holy Spirit is always to His people the Comforter. Are any of
you sad? Does that sadness make you unbelieving? Does the unbelief act
upon you as a temptation to sin? Go to the Comforter to take away the
root of the mischief! So shall you run in the way of God's Commandments
because He has enlarged your heart and guided your footsteps!

The Holy Spirit also operates in the hearts of some as an Intercessor,
helping their prayers. Some of you are downcast and desponding because
you cannot pray. "Oh," you think, "if I could but pray!" What strange
ideas possess people's mind as to praying! One who took my hand the
other day said to me, "I wish I could pray as you do, Sir, but pray I
cannot." Poor soul, when I saw his tears and heard his cries to God,
very broken as they were, I wished that I could pray as he did, then!
What is the use of fit words, fine sentences, fluent speech? These seem
to me full often to be such deceitful acquirements that I would gladly
dispense with them, if I might stammer out my soul's desires and feel
myself to be all the more sincere because I lacked expression to clothe
my thought! Oh, no–the Lord does not require your long addresses! A
groan, a sigh, a sob that seems to swell in your soul and become too
big to find a way of escape–that is prayer! When you cannot pray,
remember the Spirit also helps our infirmities. It is His office to
utter groans for us which we cannot utter. And by enabling the man to
pray, He enables the man to be holy, for prayer is a mainstay of
holiness. To draw near to God, the Fountain of all perfection, is to be
helped against besetting sin–and the blessed Helper in prayer also
becomes, in this respect, a Help to us in the paths of righteousness.

I do hope that any of you who have been saying, "I cannot do this,"
and, "I cannot do that," will understand that it is quite true that you
cannot–but it is equally true that the Holy Spirit can help you to do
all things! You can do everything through His almighty aid! Wait upon
Him with earnest desires and say to Him, "Come, Holy Spirit, help a
poor feeble worm. Help me to mourn my sin. Help me to look to Jesus
with the eyes of faith. Help me to give up my sins. Help me when I am
tempted, that I may withstand the subtle arts of Satan. Help me to
overcome my bad temper, to get rid of the pride and naughtiness of my
heart. Kill my sloth. Take away my disposition to put off and
procrastinate. Enable me to decide for Christ right now and to come,
all guilty as I am, and wash in the Fountain of His precious blood,
that I may be saved." I tell you it is the Holy Spirit's office to do
this! He is never so happy, if I may use such a phrase concerning the
ever-blessed One, as when He is thus, by His quickening, His
illuminating, His comforting influences, bringing poor guilty souls to
Jesus and, by Him, to the paths of holiness!

Furthermore, one of the Holy Spirit's proper offices is to sanctify the
people of God. Jesus Christ gives us a justifying righteousness which
is imputed to us–the Holy Spirit gives us a sanctifying righteousness
which is imparted to us. The blessed Jesus brings to us His own
righteousness and clothes us with it. The Holy Spirit works in us a
personal conformity to the will of God in our hearts, productive of
fruit in our lives as a sequel to that obedience even unto death,
wherewith Christ made satisfaction for our offenses and discharged the
high obligation of that obedience we owed. This holiness is not the
holiness of Christ, as some vainly say, but it is a personal holiness
worked in us by the operation of the Holy Spirit. You, dear Hearers,
have perhaps said to yourselves, "I cannot be saved because I am not
holy." The truth is you cannot be holy because you are not saved–being
saved comes first! Holiness is never the root–it is always the fruit!
It is not the cause, it is the effect! You must come to Jesus as you
are and trust Him–and then He will give you the Holy Spirit to work in
you the new heart, the new desire–and to make you a new creature. You
say, "I cannot make myself holy." That is true. You ought to do so, but
the power is gone and alas, the will likewise! But if God has given you
the will,

He points you to Him with whom the power is rested, namely, the Holy
Spirit, who will dwell in you and sanctify you through the Word of
Truth and the application of the precious blood and water which flowed
from the side of Christ.

Nor must I omit to notice that one of the Spirit's great works is to
dwell in His people. The Holy Spirit dwells in every believer in
Christ! He has never been absent from him since he became a disciple.
We may invoke His Presence as we sing–

"Come Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, With all Your quickening powers."

But that is a prayer for His special manifestation. The Holy Spirit is
here. He lives in the Church. He has come as a Comforter who shall
abide with us forever. He dwells in the bodies of His people–God is in
His Temple. And, mark you, it is by this indwelling that the holiness
of the Believer is kept up. If the Holy Spirit left him, he would
return, like a dog to his vomit, but because the Holy Spirit looks out
of these eyes and throbs in this hear and moves these hands, when the
man is freely obedient to the Divine Power, the man is kept in the
paths of integrity and his end is everlasting life! To gather up all
these thoughts in one, whatever offices the Holy Spirit sustains to
God's people, the result of all these offices will be to keep the man
from going back to his old ways and to cause him to walk in God's
statutes, and to keep God's judgments and do them! Do you wish, then,
to be saved from sin and to be made holy? Look to the wounds of the
bleeding Savior and remember that He has promised to give you the Holy
Spirit, by whom you shall be made holy and kept in holiness till you
stand hereafter without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, before the
Eternal Throne! In closing, I want to–

III. SAY A FEW GOOD AND COMFORTABLE WORDS TO SOME OF YOU WHO MAY BE
ANXIOUS TO POSSESS THIS SPIRIT OF GOD IN YOUR HEARTS.

"Ah," complains one, "the Holy Spirit would never look on me!" Why do
you have such a thought? Do you think to honor Him by such reflections?
Far rather do you shame yourself. Know you not that He has looked on
many such as you are and they are alive to tell of His condescending
love? Will you look to Jesus? Will you cast yourself upon the Great
Surety who has deigned to become the Scapegoat for sinners? If so, the
Holy Spirit has looked on you! The first desire you have towards God
comes from Him! These inward strivings which you feel now (tenderly do
I wish that you may not stifle or quench them) come from Him! That
fear, that anxiety, that longing may be and I trust they are, the
initiative of a blessed work of the Holy Spirit within your soul! Judge
not of the Holy Spirit as though He were reluctant. Nehemiah spoke of
the Spirit of God as "the GoodSpirit." So He is! He is the very essence
of goodness, taking goodness in the sense of benevolence. He is good to
men, full of generous love towards them. We read of "the love of the
Spirit." Sweet words! What must it be to appreciate them and to prove
their meaning! The love of the Spirit! I marvel that the Spirit of God
should come down into the valley of dry bones. I wonder that He should
have contact with such corruption as ours and make us live! I am
surprised that He has not left us long ago, dullards as we are in His
school, yet He patiently teaches us. It is amazing to me that He should
dwell in such poor temples as our clay bodies. Still, He does. He
condescendingly abides with us. You speak of the love of Jesus in
coming down to earth and enduring all its misery and shame–you cannot
speak too well of that–but do not forget that the Holy Spirit has been
abiding here these 1,800 years and still the dispensation of His
government lasts–He is still waiting and striving, persuading,
preciously illuminating, grandly quickening! Thus He will continue to
do until the Lord Jesus, Himself, shall descend from Heaven with a
shout and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit shall be perfected in the
world to come! The Holy Spirit, then, is a good Spirit, and that should
encourage you to go to Him with a full confidence in His Person and
works.

He is sometimes called, "the free Spirit." David says, "Uphold me with
Your free Spirit." He is not bound by our bondage. He is not retrained,
thank God, by the restriction of our desires. He is not withheld, even
though our inability and our iniquity entangle us. He waits not for
man, neither tarries He for the sons of men. As the dew comes in the
morning on the dumb grass that cannot speak for it. As the stiff breeze
blows over the silent mountains that cannot ask for it. And as on the
sea, which cannot lift up its billows until the wind shall stir them,
which comes unsought, unasked–even so is the Spirit's advent! So
freely in real truth does He come. Oh, you vilest of sinners, you
outcast, you who are turned off by those who once loved you–the Holy
Spirit can even come to you! He is a free Spirit–not even your sins
can withhold Him! He can conquer your desperate depravity and come to
reign and rule in your breast where devils have held a carnival these
many years!

I adore the power of God that He exerts over the minds of men, insomuch
as that while I stand here to preach to you, willing or not willing as
you may be to heed His message, my Lord and Master will have His own
way! What though you may be in the most unfit state to attend to the
Gospel call–though you may have come to ridicule the preacher, or
catch him tripping in his speech, or it may be you have designed to
spend a merry hour–the Divine Fiat is mightier than your fitful mood!
How often has the Eternal Archer shot His arrows through and through
the scorners and left them as though they were dead, and then, having
touched them with His life-giving finger, He has said, "Live!" The
change has been worked, though they knew nothing of it at the time! The
Lord, according to His good pleasure, has done the work and thus can
this blessed free Spirit effect His purpose. Oh, my beloved Brothers
and Sisters, pray for the unsaved! Pray for sinners, you who can pray!
Full often have I thought what a blessed thing it is that the Spirit of
God can obtain admission where we cannot. There is a house that is
closed and barred against the Gospel. The squire of the parish,
perhaps, says that any of his servants going to the Meeting House, he
will discharge. He will take care that he will have none of this
Methodism anywhere in his district! Very well, Sir, if you propose to
keep it out, you will need to have a great many watchmen, for, you
know, if there is a sweet perfume in your house, you must use your
diligence to keep it hermetically sealed, or else it will escape and
diffuse its odor through every room by degrees! The name of Jesus
Christ is "like ointment poured forth"–it has a wonderful
diffusiveness about it!

Ere long the squire will discover that one of his servants has caught
the sweet infection. Gladly would he turn her away, were she not such a
good nurse-girl that he cannot afford to lose her! And I have noticed
that there is a Divine contagion in the Grace of God that brings
salvation. In families, neighborhoods, townships and great cities it
will spread with strange rapidity! One or two conversions, like drops
of rain, portend a shower! I knew a man who burned all the Bibles he
had in his house–at least he thoughthe had burned them all–but he had
two daughters who kept their books secreted under their pillows. When
he found it out, he was mad with rage. What he was going to do, I do
not know. His wife told him at length that she was of their mind and
took their part. "Ah, well," he said, "it is a nuisance that I cannot
live without being pestered with this religion." Yes, and by the Grace
of God they shall not "live without being pestered." If they will not
come and hear the Word from the minister, they shall hear it somehow
else! A tract shall find him over whose head a sermon flies–and half a
sentence shall break a rock in pieces where appeals from the pulpit
might have been of no use! Have good courage, then, you who seek the
salvation of others, and you that are afar off from God, yourselves–do
not despair for the Spirit of God is a free Spirit–He can come even to
you!

Very powerful, too, is the Spirit of God, as well as good and free.
There is no form of human obstinacy which He cannot overcome. Some
operations of the Holy Spirit may be resisted and defeated. This I say
without feeling that I cast any slur upon His Deity. A man, though he
may be ever so strong, need not put out all his strength, and when he
puts out only a little of his strength a child may be able to overcome
him. He may, perhaps, intend that it should be so. So the Holy Spirit,
in His common operations is vexed, and grieved, and quenched by the
ungodly. Quite otherwise when He comes to "the exceeding greatness of
His power to us who believe," or when the Lord makes bare His arm in
the eyes of all the people–then the Spirit comes as a Spirit of
Irresistible Power! Who shall stay His hand, or say unto Him, "What are
You doing?" See how Saul of Tarsus, foaming at the mouth against the
Church of God, cries, "What must I do to be saved? Who are You, Lord?"
Soon he rises up to be led by the hand for three days in brokenness of
heart to seek for the Light of God's Countenance! How quickly can God
turn the most fierce persecutors into the most earnest preachers of the
Gospel! Be of good heart, dear Friends, for God's cause in the world!
We shall see yet greater things if we do but ask for them in faith and
faithfully expect them.

If God does not raise up good men in the colleges to preach the Gospel,
He will find them in the warehouses and offices of our merchants. Or
failing these, He will call them from the dregs of the population–it
may be even from the dens and kens of thieves if nowhere else! Who
knows but He may provoke us to jealousy by a people of a strange
tongue. My Master knew how to find Luther among the monks and to fish
out some of the bravest Reformers from among the idolatrous priests!
And He can do the same again! The Church may come to a very bad tide,
but there never shall be such a bad tide but the Church, like a galley
with oars, shall be able to float! She shall not strike on the rocks.
Have hope, you soldiers of Christ! While the ministry of the Holy
Spirit can be invoked, never whisper of despair! Oh, Sinner, have hope
for yourself, willful and wicked as you may have been! If you cannot
amend your ways and change your heart, He can do it for you! The iron
bands of habit He can snap. The adamantine net of lasciviousness He can
break in pieces! From the

degrading abominations of drunkenness He can extricate you! All the
charms of worldliness He can dissolve! He can set you free, though you
are now a captive fast in the inner prison with your feet in the
stocks! While the Holy Spirit lives, while Jesus intercedes, while the
Father is willing to receive prodigals, let no one despair! Grace makes
the most worthless creatures welcome to the most inestimable blessings!
What Paul said to saints I venture to say to sinners, "Covet earnestly
the best gifts." Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN 14:21-31.

In this "sacred farewell" talk of our Lord's, He gives us many a
Revelation of the soul's way of communion with Him.

21, 22. He who has My commandments, andkeeps them, he it is who loves
Me: andhe who loves Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love
him, and will manifest Myself to him. Judas said unto Him, not
Iscariot, Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us, and
not unto the world?Many a time have we asked that question with great
admiration of the special Sovereign Grace of God, that He should
manifest Himself to us, and not to the world. It is an unanswerable
question. It is, "even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your
sight."

23. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves Me, he will keep
My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and
make Our abode with him. Where the Grace of God has created love
between us and Christ, there is a window through which Christ can
manifest Himself to us. Why He gave us that love, we do not know, but
when He has given us that love He will not deny us communion with
Himself.

24-26. He that loves Me not, keeps not My sayings: and the word which
you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me. These things have I
spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which
is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach
you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
have said unto you.The Holy Spirit does not teach us any new Doctrine!
Fix that in your minds, for in the present age we have numbers of
persons who talk about being inspired with the Holy Spirit, and who
come with all kinds of crudities and fooleries. Believe them not! The
Holy Spirit says no other and no more than the Lord Jesus Christ,
Himself, said, "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to
your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you." The canon of
Revelation is closed! None can add to it without a curse. Do not accept
any testimony that would add to it. Keep to what is here found and pray
the Holy Spirit to lead you into the clear understanding of it.

27, 28. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the
world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither
let it be afraid. You have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and
come again unto you. If you loved Me, you would rejoice, because I
said, I go unto the Father: for My Father is greater than I. Christ
had, Himself, less than the Father in His state of humiliation. And now
He is returning to the Father to be re-clothed with honor and majesty.
Should we not rejoice in that?

29-31. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it is
come to pass, you might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with
you: for the prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. But
that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave
Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go. And He went to His
death bravely determined to do the Father's will, though it meant the
drinking up of that bitter cup which made His very soul to tremble
within Him! God give us such love to Christ as Christ had to the
Father!