The Heavenly Wind

DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, MAY 27, 1877,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but
cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that
is born of the Spirit." John 3:8.

THE Holy Spirit is to be admired, not only for the great Truths of God
which He teaches us in Holy Scripture, but also for the wonderful
manner in which those Truths are balanced. The Word of God never gives
us too much of one thing or too little of another. It never carries a
doctrine to an extreme, but tempers it with its corresponding doctrine.
Truth seems to run at least in two parallel lines, if not in three, and
when the Holy Spirit sets before us one line He wisely points out to us
the other. The truth of Divine Sovereignty is qualified by human
responsibility and the teaching of abounding Grace is seasoned by a
remembrance of unflinching Justice. Scripture gives us, as it were, the
acid and the alkali–the rock and the oil which flows from it–the
sword which cuts and the balm which heals.

As our Lord sent forth His Evangelists two and two so does He seem to
send out His Truths two and two, that each may help the other for the
blessing of those who hear them. Now in this most notable third of John
you have two Truths of God taught as plainly as if they were written
with a sunbeam and taught side by side. The one is the necessity of
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that whoever believes in
Him is not condemned. This is a vital doctrine, but there is a
possibility of preaching it so baldly and so out of relation to the
rest of God's Word that men may be led into serious error.
Justification by faith is a most precious Truth of God. It is the very
pith and heart of the Gospel and yet you can dwell so exclusively upon
it that you cause many to forget other important practical and
experimental Truths and so do them serious mischief.

Salt is good, but it is not all that a man needs to live upon, and even
if people are fed on the best of dry bread and nothing else they do not
thrive. Every part of Divine teaching is of practical value and must
not be neglected. Therefore, the Holy Spirit, in this chapter, lays
equal stress upon the necessity of the new birth or the work of the
Holy Spirit and He states it quite as plainly as the other grand Truth
of God. See how they blend–"You must be born again," but, "whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." "Except a
man is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God," but, "He that believes on Him is not condemned."

Two great Truths are written in letters of light over the gate of
Heaven as the requisites of all who enter there– Reconciliation by the
blood of Jesus Christ and Regeneration by the work of the Holy Spirit.
We must not put one of these Truths of God before the other, nor allow
one to obliterate or hide the other. They are of equal importance, for
they are revealed by the same Divine Spirit and are both necessary to
eternal salvation. He who cares to preach either of these ought, also,
diligently to teach the other, lest he be found guilty of violating
that salutary precept, "What God has joined together let no man put
asunder."

Avoid all neglect of faith and equally shun all undervaluing of the
work of the Holy Spirit and so shall you find that narrow channel in
which the way of the Truth of God lies. You must rest in Christ that
you may be accepted before God, but the work of the Holy Spirit within
you is absolutely necessary that you may be able to have communion with
the pure and holy God. Faith gives us the rights of the children of
God, but the new birth must be experienced that we may have the nature
of children! Of what use would rights be if we had not the capacity to
exercise them?

Now, it is of the work of the Spirit of God and of the man in whom the
Spirit of God has worked, that I shall speak this morning, according to
the tenor of the text. The text may be read two ways. First it may
evidently refer to the Holy Spirit Himself. Do you not expect the text
to run thus–"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of
it, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so, also,
is the Spirit of God"? Is not that the way in which you,

naturally expect the sentence to end? Yes, and I doubt not that such
was really the Savior's meaning, but frequently, according to the New
Testament idiom, the Truth of God is not stated as our English modes of
speech would lead us to expect.

For instance, "The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that sowed good
seed in his ground." Now the kingdom is not like the man, but like the
whole transaction of the parable in which the man is the principal
actor. "The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman seeking goodly
pearls," but the kingdom is not like the man, but the comparison runs
into all that the man does. So here the Lord Jesus lays hold of one
grand sphere of the Spirit's operations and puts it down, intending,
however, a wider sense. There are certain readings of our text which
would make this more clear if we could think them allowable, as, for
instance, that which does not render the Greek word by, "wind," at all,
but translates it "Spirit," and makes it run, "The Spirit blows where
He wishes, and you hear the sound of Him." I do not adopt that reading,
but there are several great authorities in its favor and this tends to
show that our first head is correct.

When we have spoken upon that, we will take the language in its second
sense–in reference to the regenerate man–and then we read, "The wind
blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell
from where it comes, and where it goes: so is every man that is born of
the Spirit." He himself, like the Spirit of which he is born, is free
and is mysterious in his ways, but discerned by the sound of his works
and life.

I. Take the text in reference to THE HOLY SPIRIT HIMSELF. The figure is
the wind and, as most of you know, the Hebrew word for, "wind," and
for, "spirit," is the same. And it is interesting to note that the same
is true with the Greek word, "pneuma," which signifies both, "breath,"
and, "spirit," so that the figure which the Savior used might very
naturally grow out of the word which He employed. The wind is air in
motion and is, of course, material. But air is apparently more
spiritual than any of the other elements, except fire, since it is not
to be grasped by the hand nor seen with the eyes.

It is certain that wind really exists, for we hear the sound of it and
observe its various effects, but it is not to be touched, handled, or
gazed upon. Men cannot traffic in it, or measure it in scales, or weigh
it in balances. We may watch the clouds for hours as they hasten along
like winged birds, but the wind which drives them is out of our sight.
We observe the waves roused to fury in the tempest, but the breath
which so excites them we cannot see. Therefore the word becomes all the
more excellent a figure of that mighty power, the Holy Spirit, of whose
existence no man ever doubts who has come under His influence, but who,
nevertheless, is not to be tracked in His movements, nor to be seen as
to His Divine Person. He is mysterious, incomprehensible and Divine.

The metaphor of the wind cannot fully set forth the Holy Spirit, as you
know, and, consequently, many other natural figures are employed, such
as fire, dew, water, light, oil and so on, in order to exhibit all the
phases of His influence. But still, the wind is a most instructive
metaphor, as far as it goes, and as we cannot draw forth all its
teaching in one sermon, let us be content to keep as closely as we can
to the text. First, the wind is a figure of the Holy Spirit in its
freeness–"the wind blows where it wishes." We speak of the wind as the
very image of freedom. We say to those who would enthrall us, "go bind
the winds." As for ourselves, we claim to be "free as the winds which
roam at their own will." No one can fetter the wind.

Xerxes threw chains into the Hellespont to bind the sea, but even he
was not fool enough to talk of forging fetters for the winds! The
breezes are not to be dictated to. Caesar may decree what he pleases,
but the wind will blow in his face if he looks that way. The Pope may
command the gale to change its course, but it will blow around the
Vatican neither less nor more for the "holy father" and the cardinals.
A conference of plenipotentiaries from all the powers of Europe may sit
for a week and resolve unanimously that the east wind shall not blow
for the next six months, but it will take no heed of the arrangement
and will cast dust into the counselors' eyes and whistle at their
wisdom!

No proclamation nor purpose under Heaven will be able to affect the
wind by so much as half a point of the compass. It will blow according
to its own sweet will, where it pleases, when it pleases, how it
pleases and as it pleases, for "the wind blows where it wishes." So is
it, only in a far higher and more emphatic sense, with the Holy Spirit,
for He is most free and absolute! You know that the wind is in the
hands of God and that He ordains every breeze and each tornado– winds
arise and tempests blow by order from the supreme Throne, but as for
the Holy Spirit, He is God Himself and absolutely free. He works
according to His own will and pleasure among the sons of men.

One nation has been visited by the Holy Spirit and not another–who
shall tell me why? Why do the heathen lands lie in the dense darkness
while on Britain, the Light of God is concentrated? Why has the
Reformation taken root in England and among the northern nations of
Europe, while in Spain and Italy it has left scarcely a trace? Why
blows the Holy Spirit here and not there? Is it not that He does as He
wills? "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion" is the declaration of the
Divine Sovereignty–and the Spirit of God, in His movements, confirms
it.

Among the nations where the Spirit of God is at work, how is it that He
blesses one man and not another? Why is it that of two men hearing the
same sermon and subject to the same influences at home, one is taken
and the other left? Two children nursed at the same breast and trained
by the same parents grow up to different ends? He who perishes in sin
has no one to blame but himself, but he who is saved ascribes it all to
Divine Grace–why came that Grace to him and not to the other? We never
dare to lay the fault of man's not repenting and believing upon
God–that rests with the evil will which refused to obey the
Gospel–but we dare not ascribe the saving difference in the case of
the one who believes to any natural goodness in himself! We attribute
it all to the Grace of God and believe that the Holy Spirit works in
such to will and to do according to His own good pleasure.

But why works He in us? Why in any of the chosen? Ah, why? "The wind
blows where it wishes." So, too, is it with the blessing which rests
upon ministries. One man wins souls to God and, as a joyous reaper,
returns with full sheaves. But another who goes forth with strong
desires and seems to be as earnest as his fellow, comes home with a
scanty handful of ears which he has painfully gleaned. Why is one man's
net full of fish and another's utterly empty? One servant of the Lord
seems, whenever he stands up to preach the Gospel, to attract men to
Jesus as though he had golden chains in his mouth which he did cast
about men's hearts to draw them in joyful captivity to his Lord! But
another cries in bitterness of soul, "Who has believed our report?"
Truly, "the wind blows where it wishes."

Yes, and these changes happen to each man differently. One day the
preacher shall be all alive, his spirit shall be stirred within him and
he shall speak evidently with the Holy Spirit sent down from Heaven.
But tomorrow he shall find himself dull and heavy, even to his own
consciousness and even more so to his people's experience, for the
power rests not upon him. One day he speaks like the voice of God and
another day he is but as a reed shaken of the wind. His fat time of
years gone by are devoured by the lean cattle of the present! He has
his famine as well as his plenty. You shall see him come forth today
with the unction of the Lord upon him and his face shining with the
Glory of fellowship with the Most High! And tomorrow he shall say,
"Look not upon me, for I am evil," for the glory shall have departed.

We know what it is to come forth like Samson when his locks were shorn
and to shake ourselves as at other times and discover that the Lord is
not with us. Why all this? Is it not because "the wind blows where it
wishes"? The Holy Spirit, for His own wise reasons, puts not forth an
equal power upon any man at all times. We cannot control nor command
the Spirit of the living God! He is, in the highest sense, a free
agent. "Your Free Spirit" is a name which David gave Him and a most
appropriate name it is.

Yet, Beloved, do not fall into a misapprehension. The Holy Spirit is
absolutely free in His operations, but He is not arbitrary. He does as
He wills, but His will is Infallible Wisdom. The wind, though we have
no control over it, has a law of its own, but the Holy Spirit is a law
unto Himself. He does as He wills, but He wills to do always that which
is for the best. Moreover, we know, with regard to the wind, that there
are certain places where you will almost always find a breeze–not
here, in the teeming city, nor down in the valley shut in by the
mountains, nor on yonder steaming marsh! But lift up your eyes to the
hills and mark how the breeze courses along the downs and sweeps the
summits of the mountain ranges!

In the morning and the evening, when the inland air is hot as an oven,
gentle winds come to and from the sea and fan the fishermen's cheeks.
You may find places where the air seems always stagnant and men's
hearts grow heavy amid the feverish calm, but there are elevated
hillsides where life is easy, for the air exhilarates by its perpetual
freshness. Brothers and Sisters among lively saints, in the use of the
means of Grace, in private prayer, in communion with the Lord, you will
find the wind that blows where it wishes always in motion! The wind,
too, has, at least in some lands, its times and seasons. We know that
at certain times of the year we may expect winds and if they come not
to a day or two, yet, as a rule, the month is stormy. And there are,
also, trade winds, monsoons which blow with remarkable regularity and
are counted upon by mariners.

And so with the Spirit of God. We know that at certain times He visits
the Churches and under certain conditions puts forth His power. If, for
instance, there is mighty prayer, you may be sure the Spirit of God is
at work. If the people of God meet together and besiege the Throne of
Grace with cries and tears, the spiritual barometer indicates that the
blessed wind is rising. Besides, the Holy Spirit has graciously
connected Himself with two things, truth and prayer. Preach the Truth
of God, publish the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is the habit of the
Holy Spirit to make the Word of God quick and powerful to the hearts of
men. If we falsify His Word, if we keep back part of the Truth of God,
if we become unfaithful–we cannot expect the Holy Spirit to bless us.

But if our teaching is Christ Crucified, lovingly set forth, and if the
Grace of God in its fullness is really declared, the Holy Spirit will
attend the Truth and make it the great power of God. I will not say
that it is always and without exception so, but I think exceptions must
be rare. Almost invariably the Spirit bears witness with the Truth of
God in the conversion of men. So, too, with prayer. The Holy Spirit is
pleased to connect Himself with that, also, if it is believing prayer.
Here the connection is exceedingly intimate because it is the Spirit of
God who Himself gives the believing prayer and it is not only true that
the Spirit will be given in answer to prayer, but the Spirit is already
given or the believing prayer would never have been offered!

The spirit of prayerfulness, the spirit of anxiety for the conversion
of men is one of the surest indications that the Holy Spirit is already
at work in the minds of His people. Coming back, however, to the great
fact that we cannot command the Holy Spirit, what influence ought that
Truth of God have upon us? Should it not be just this?–It should lead
us to be very tender and jealous in our conduct towards the Holy Spirit
so that we do not grieve Him and cause Him to depart from us. Vex not
the Spirit! When you enjoy His gracious operations be devoutly grateful
and walk humbly before God that you may retain them. And when He is at
work, let not negligence on your part cause you to receive the Grace of
God in vain.

The wind blew, but the sailor was asleep. It was a favorable breeze but
he had cast anchor and his boat moved not. If he had but known it, all
through the night he would have spread his sail and have made good
headway towards his port. But he slumbered and the blessed wind
whistled through the cordage and the ship lay idle at its moorings! Let
it not be so with us! Never suffer the Spirit of God to be with us and
find us not aware of His Presence. In the olden times, when country
people depended more than they do now on the use of windmills to grind
their corn, some parishes would be half-starved when, week after week,
there had been no wind. The miller would look up anxiously and
everybody in the parish would become a watchman for his sails, hoping
that they would soon be set in motion.

If the breeze stirred at the dead of night and the miller was sound
asleep, somebody or other would run and wake him up. "The wind is
blowing, the wind is blowing, grind our corn." So it ought to be
whenever the Spirit of God is vigorously working in His Church–we
should eagerly avail ourselves of His power! We should be so anxious
for His Divine operations that all should be on the watch, so that if
some did not discover it, others would, and observant ones would cry,
"The Holy Spirit is working with us! Let us arise and labor more
abundantly." Hoist sail when the wind is favorable! You cannot command
it, therefore carefully value it.

But we must pass on. The Holy Spirit is described as being like the
wind as to His manifestations. "You hear," says Jesus, "the sound of
it." It has been suggested and some have enlarged upon it, that there
are many other manifestations of the presence of wind–you can feel it,
you can see its results upon the trees and the waves and sometimes you
can be sure that the wind has been at work by the devastation which it
has caused. But in this place our Savior was not so much alluding to a
great wind as to the gentler breezes. The Greek word, "pneuma," is
translated, "breath," and can hardly be made to mean a tempest! It was
a gentle wind like a zephyr of which the Lord was here speaking.

The great winds, as I have already said, can be somewhat calculated
upon, but if you sit in the garden in the cool of the evening it is
utterly impossible for you to tell from where the zephyrs come and
where they go. They are so volatile in their movements and untrackable
in their course! They are here, there, everywhere–the soft breezes of
evening steal among the flowers. Our Lord tells us that such gentle
zephyrs are heard. Nicodemus, in the stillness of the night could hear
them. "You hear the sound of it." The leaves rustle and that is all.
You hear a gentle movement of branch and stem and, as it were, the
tinkling of flower-bells, and so you discover that the wind is flitting
among the beds and borders.

Now, Beloved, this shows us that the hearing ear is intended, by God,
to be the discerner of the Spirit to men–to the most of men the only
discerner that they have. "You hear the sound of it." What a wonderful
dignity the Lord has

been pleased to put upon this little organ, the ear! The Romish Church
gives the preference always to the eyes. Her priests are always for
astonishing men into grace with their wonderful "performances"! But
God's way is, "Faith comes by hearing," and the first detector of the
Holy Spirit is the ear. To some men this is the only revealer of His
mysterious Presence, as I have already said–they hear the sound of it,
that is to say, they hear the Gospel preached–they hear the Word of
God read.

Truth, when it is couched in Words of God, is the rustling of the holy
wind, it is the footstep of the Eternal Spirit as He mysteriously
passes along a congregation. Oh, what grief it is that some never get
any further than this, but abide where Nicodemus was at the first–they
hear the sound and nothing more. Some of you are now daily hearing the
Truth of God which has saved thousands, but it does not save you! You
are hearing the very Truth of God which peoples Heaven, but yet it
leaves you without a hope of eternal life! Yet be you sure of this, the
Kingdom of God has come near you. "You hear the sound of it," and that
wind whose whispers you hear is not far off your own cheeks. When you
hear the rustling among the branches of the trees, the breezes are not
far to seek, nor is the Spirit of God far away when His sound is heard.

Some hearers, however, go further, for they hear the sound of the
Spirit in their consciences and it disturbs them. They would sleep as
others do, but as the wind sometimes comes whistling through the
keyhole or howls down the chimney and wakes the sluggard, or if the man
is lying in a garden, asleep, the breezes play around his ears and face
and startle him, so it is with many unconverted people! They cannot be
quiet, for they hear the sound of the Holy Spirit in their consciences
and are troubled and perplexed. There is a revival and they are not
saved, but they are startled and alarmed by it. Their sister is
converted, they are not, but still it comes very near them and they
feel as if an arrow had gone whizzing by their own ear. It is hard
living in a careless state in the midst of revival. "You hear the sound
of it."

But some of you, in your conscience, are hearing the sound, now, in
your family circle, from the fact that one after another of your
relatives have been brought to know the Lord. You cannot avoid feeling
that there is something powerful abroad, though it has not yet exerted
its regenerating power upon you. As for the man who is saved, he hears
the Holy Spirit in the most emphatic sense and with what variety that
sound comes to him! At first he heard it as a threatening wind which
bowed him in sadness and seemed to sweep all his hopes to the ground,
as the sere leaves of the forest are carried in the autumn's wind.

When the Spirit's voice sounded in my ears at the first it was as a
wail of woe, as a wind among the tombs, as a sigh among faded lilies!
It seemed as if all my hopes were puffed away like smoke, or as the
night mists in the morning breeze. Nothing was left for me but to mourn
my nothingness. Then I heard a sound as of the hot south wind of the
East, as if it issued from a burning oven. You know the text, "The
grass withers and the flower thereof fades away, because the Spirit of
the Lord blows upon it: surely the peoples are grass." In my soul there
had bloomed a fair meadow of golden kingcups and fair flowers of many
dainty colors, but the Spirit of God blew on them and withered them all
and left a dry, brown, rusty plain where there was neither life nor
comeliness.

So far the sacred wind destroys that which is evil, but it ends not
there, for we thank God we have heard the sound of the Spirit as a
quickening wind. The Prophet cried, "Come from the four winds, O
Breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live," and the Wind
came and the dead arose an exceedingly great army! The same miracle has
been worked on us. The sere bones of our own death have crept together,
bone unto his bone, and flesh has come upon them and now, because of
the Divine Breath, we have begun to live! Now, also, when the Holy
Spirit visits us, He renews our life and energy and gives us life more
abundantly.

The Holy Spirit has, since then, been to us full often a melting wind,
"He causes His wind to blow and the waters flow." Locked up in the
chains of ice all through the winter, the waters are still as a stone,
but the spring winds come, the brooks find liberty and leap away to the
rivers! And the rivers flow in all their free force to add their volume
to the sea! So has the Spirit of God oftentimes broken up our frost and
given our spirits joyous liberty. He melts the rocky heart and
dissolves the iron spirit–at the sound of His goings men are moved to
feeling. We know the sound of this wind, also, as a diffusive breath,
drawing forth and diffusing our slumbering graces. "Awake, O north
wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof
may flow out."

Oh, what a sweet freeing of holy gratitude, love, hope and joy has
there been in our heart when the Spirit of God has visited us! As sweet
essences lie hidden in the flowers and come not forth until the loving
wind does entice them to fly

abroad and so do sweet Graces lie within renewed spirits until the Holy
Spirit comes and speaks to them! And they know His voice and come forth
to meet Him and sweet fragrances are shed abroad. Yes, my Brothers and
Sisters, all this we know! And we have heard the sound of the Holy
Spirit in another sense, namely, as going forth with us to the battle
of the Lord. We have heard that sound of a going in the tops of the
mulberry trees which David heard and, by God's Grace, we have bestirred
ourselves and victory has been ours!

If we have not heard that rushing mighty wind which came at Pentecost,
yet have we felt its Divine effect, which ceases not, but still brings
life, power, energy and all that is needed for the conversion of the
sons of men to us who are bid to go forth and preach the Gospel among
the nations. In all these respects the Holy Spirit has manifested
Himself, as wind does, by His sound. "You hear the sound of it." "Their
sound went into all the earth and their words unto the ends of the
world."

A third likeness of the Spirit to the wind is set before us in the
point of mystery. "You cannot tell from where it comes nor where it
goes." Of the wind we may tell that it comes from such-and-such a
quarter or point, but you cannot put your finger on the map and say,
"The north wind began in this region," or, "here the west wind was
born." Indeed, we know very little about the winds–their origin or
their laws. One of the best and most accurate observers of the wind
during 30 years, recorded every wind in his regions until, at the end
of the term, he abandoned the few rules which he had laid down during
the first two or three years, for he found that no rule held good. No
man can say from where the wind leaps forth.

The heathen dreamed of a certain cave where the winds were enclosed as
in a prison and suffered to go abroad one by one–it was but a fable.
We know not where the winds first spread their wings, or where they
sleep when all is still. So is it with the Holy Spirit in the mind of
man. His first movements are hidden in mystery. You know that you are
converted, my dear Friend, and you know somewhere about the time. And
you probably remember somewhat as to the means which the Lord used for
your salvation. Those outward circumstances you know, but how the Holy
Spirit operated upon you, you do not and cannot tell any more than you
can tell how the life swells within the seed until it springs up and
becomes the full corn in the ear, or how the sap in the trees first
descends in the winter and afterwards climbs, again, in the spring.

There are secrets which Nature does not reveal–the work of the Spirit
is even more a secret–and no man can explain it to his fellow or to
himself. Why is it, my Friend, that you obtained a blessing under one
sermon but not under another? And why, when you spoke to your sister,
was she more blessed under the second than the first? The power does
not come from the preacher, then, it is clear–and "you cannot tell
from where it comes." There are times in which you feel not only that
you can pray but that you must pray–how do you come to be in that
state?

I know what it is to feel a very ecstasy of delight in the Lord, for
which I can scarcely account. And, at another time, when I have been
engaged in the same work and I think with the same earnestness, I have
not been conscious of any such delight in God! At one time the heart
will be full of penitence as if it would break because of sin. At
another season it will overflow with such delight in Christ that the
sin seems almost forgotten in the pardoning Sacrifice. Why these
various operations? We know what it is, at times, to feel such a sense
of death upon us as to be earnestly preparing for our last hours. At
another time we seem to be altogether forgetful of death and to be
living, as it were, the immortal life already, raised up together and
made to sit together with Christ!

But how these various modes and forms and workings of the Spirit come,
who among us shall tell? Go trace the dewdrops, if you can, to the womb
of the morning, and discover which way the lightning flashes went, or
how the thunder rolled along the mountain tops! But you cannot tell nor
can you guess from where comes the Spirit of God into your souls! Nor
can we tell where He goes. Here, again, is another mystery. Oh, it
charms me to think that when we let loose the Truth of God in the power
of the Spirit we never know where it will fly! A child takes a seed,
one of those little downy seeds which has its own parachute to bear it
through the air. The little one blows it into the air, but who knows
where that downy seed shall settle and in whose garden it shall grow?

Such is the Truth of God, even from the mouths of babes and sucklings.
Whole continents have been covered with strange flowers simply by the
wind blowing foreign seeds there! Mariners have discovered sunny islets
out there in the Southern Sea where foot of man has never trod, yet
covered with abundance of vegetation which the wind has, by degrees,
blown there! Scatter the Truth of God on all sides, for you cannot tell
where the Spirit will carry it! Fling it to

the winds and you shall find it after many days. Scatter the living
Seed with both hands–send it north, south, east, and west–and God
will give it wings!–

"Float, float you winds the Story,

And you, you waters roll,

Till like a sea of Glory

It spreads from pole to pole."

I had a letter but the other day when I was sorely sick. It was written
by a Sister in Christ in the very heart of the empire of Brazil. She
said that she had met with a copy of my, "Morning Readings," and had
found, thereby, the way of peace and, therefore, she wrote me such a
loving, touching letter that, as I read it, it brought tears to my
eyes. There was something more affecting yet, for at the end was
written in another hand, some words to the effect that his dear wife
who had written the above letter had died soon after finishing it, and
with a bleeding heart the lone husband sent it on to me, rejoicing that
the Word of God came to his wife's soul in the far-off land.

Brethren, you do not know where the Word will go and the Spirit with
it! In Bohemia the papists thought they had stamped out the Gospel and
with cruel edicts they kept down all thought of Protestantism. But just
lately, since the Toleration, the Gospel has been preached in that
country and, to the surprise of everybody there, men and women have
come forward from lone cottages in the woods and from different corners
of the great cities of Bohemia, bringing with them ancient copies of
the Word of God, themselves being eager to know the precious Truths of
God for which they remember that their fathers died!

A Truth of God will go down the centuries–like the river, it sings–

"Men may come and men may go, But I go on forever."

"You can not tell where it goes," it will travel on till the
millennium! Send that saying abroad that the Truth of God cannot die!
The persecutor cannot kill it, it is immortal like the God who sent it
forth! The persecutor cannot even stay its course! It is Divine! Popery
will always be in danger so long as there is one leaf of the Bible upon
earth, or one man living who knows the Savior! Antichrist cannot
triumph! The Holy Spirit wars against it with the sword of the Word of
God and you cannot tell how far into the heart of error any Truth may
be driven. To the overthrow of falsehood and the death of sin, the
Spirit speeds on, but you know not how. "You cannot tell where it
goes."

If you have received the Holy Spirit into your heart, you cannot tell
where He will carry you. I am sure that William Carey, when he gave his
young heart to Christ, never thought the Spirit of God would carry him
to Serampore to preach the Gospel to the Hindus! And when George
Whitefield first drank of the life-giving Spirit, it never occurred to
him that the pot-boy at the Bell Inn at Gloucester would thunder the
Gospel over two continents and turn thousands to Christ! You know not
to what blessed end this Wind will take you!

Commit yourselves to it–be not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Be
ready to be borne along as the Spirit of God shall help you, even as
the dust in the summer's breeze. And O child of God, you do not know to
what heights of holiness and degrees of knowledge and ecstasies of
enjoyment the Spirit of God will bear you. "Eye has not seen nor ear
heard the things which God has prepared for them that love Him," and
though He has revealed them by His Spirit (for the Spirit searches all
things, even the deep things of God), yet even to the best taught child
of God it is not yet known, to the fullest, where the Spirit of God
goes.

"Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah there is
everlasting strength," and He will bear you onward and upward, even to
perfection, itself, and you shall be with Jesus, where He is, and
behold His Glory!

II. I have but a few minutes left for my second head, but I do not need
many, since I do not wish to say much upon it.

The text relates TO THOSE WHO ARE BORN OF THE SPIRIT. "The wind blows
where it wishes, and you hear the

sound of it, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so
is everyone that is born of the Spirit." The birth partakes of the
nature of the parent. That which is born of the Spirit is like unto the
Spirit of which it is born, even as that which is born of the flesh is
flesh and is similar to the flesh by which it is begotten.

The twice-born man is like the Holy Spirit who produced him, and he is
like He in each of the points which we have already dwelt upon. As to
freedom, you may say of him, "He blows where he wishes." The Spirit of
God makes the Believer a free man, bestows on him the freedom of his
will which he never had before. He gives him a delightful consciousness
of liberty. "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free, indeed." I
do not affirm that every spiritual man

does as he wishes, because, alas, I see another law in our members
warring against the law of our mind and bringing us into captivity to
the law of sin and death. But still, "where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty."

Now you can pray, which you could not do before. Now you can praise,
though before you could not extract a note of praise from your
ungrateful heart. Now you can cry, "Abba, Father." Now you can draw
near to God. You are no longer under man's control, you go where you
wish. You are not now ruled by priestcraft, nor domineered over by the
opinion of your fellow man. The Lord has set you free and you wish to
go where God's Word bids you go. And you find the utmost liberty in
going that way. Oh, Brothers and Sisters, I cannot tell you the change
which is felt by a regenerate man in the matter of spiritual liberty!
When you were under the bondage of the law of custom and of sin, and of
fear of death and dread of Hell, you were like a man shut up in one of
those cells in Venice which lie below the level of the water mark,
where the air is foul and the poor prisoner can only stir half-a-dozen
feet and then walk back again in the darkness.

But when the Spirit of God comes, He brings the soul from darkness into
light, from clammy damp into the open air! He sets before you an open
door. He helps you to run in the ways of God's commands and, as if that
were not enough, He even lends you wings and bids you mount as the
eagle, for He has set you free! Again, the man who is born of the
Spirit is somewhat manifested and is known by his sound. "You hear the
sound of it." The most ungodly man, if he lives near a Christian, will
hear the sound of him. The secret life within will speak words, for
Christians are not dumb. But actions will speak more loudly, still! And
even apart from actions, the very spirit and tone of the man who is
really regenerated will speak and the ungodly man will be compelled to
hear it. "You hear the sound of it."

And now notice the mystery there is about a Christian. You know
nothing, if you are unregenerate, about the life the Believer leads,
for he is dead and his life is hid with Christ in God. You know not
from where he comes forth in the morning–those beds of spices which
have made his garments fragrant, you have not seen. That weeping in
prayer or that rejoicing in fellowship with which he opened the morning
you know nothing of–and you cannot know until you are, yourself–born
of the Spirit! Neither can you tell where the spiritual man goes. In
the midst of his trouble you see him calm. Do you know where he went to
win that rare quietude? In the hour of death you see him triumphant! Do
you know where he has been to learn to die so joyously?

No, the unregenerate man knows not where the Believer goes. There is a
secret place of the Most High and they shall abide under the shadow of
the Almighty who have once learned to enter there, but carnal men come
not into this secret chamber. The Christian life is a mystery all
through, from its beginning to its end. To the worldling it is all a
mystery and, to the Christian, himself, a puzzle. He cannot read his
own riddle, nor understand himself. This one thing he knows, "Whereas I
was once blind, now I see." This, also, he knows, "O Lord, I am Your
servant! I am Your servant and the son of Your handmaid: You have
loosed my bonds." This, also, he knows, that when his Lord shall be
revealed, then will he, also, shine forth as the sun!

The Life within him, in its coming and going, is all a mystery to him,
but he blesses God that he has fellowship in it. He goes on his way
feeling that though men know not from where he is, nor where he is
going, yet the Lord knows him, and he, himself is sure that he is going
to his Father and his God! O that every one of you had so delightful a
hope! The Lord grant it to you, for Jesus' sake.
__________________________________________________________________