57.The Holy Spirit!
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Spurgeon, “Make this Valley Full of Ditches”
We must have the Holy Spirit's power and
presence, otherwise our religion will become
a mockery before God, and a misery to ourselves.
We must have the aid of the Holy Spirit, for
ours is not a mechanical religion. It is spiritual,
and must be sustained by spiritual means.
So dependent is the Christian church upon the
Holy Spirit, that there never was an acceptable
sigh heaved by a penitent apart from him; never
did holy song mount to heaven except he gave
it wings; never was there true prayer or faithful
ministry except through the power and might of
the Holy Spirit.
Sinners are never saved apart from the Spirit
of God! No moral persuasion, no force of example,
no power of logic, no might of rhetoric, can ever
change the heart.
The living Spirit alone can put life into dead souls!
And after those souls are quickened, we are still
as dependent as ever upon the Spirit of God.
To educate a soul for heaven is as much a
divine task, as to emancipate a soul from sin.
To comfort a downcast brother, to strengthen
his weak hands and confirm his feeble knees, to
brighten the eyes of his hope and to give him
nerve to hold the shield of his faith- all these
are the work of the Spirit of the living God.
O Christian, with all the power you have received,
you have not strength enough to live for another
second, except as the Spirit of God quicken you.
All your past experience, all that you have learned
and acquired, must go for nothing, except, daily
and perpetually, moment by moment, the Spirit
of God shall dwell in you, and work in you mightily,
to keep you still a pilgrim to the gate of heaven.
Thus, each individual is dependent, and the whole
church is dependent on the influence of the Spirit.
Without the Spirit of God, we are like a ship
stranded on the beach when the tide has receded-
there is no moving her until the flood shall once
again lift her from the sands. Until the Spirit of
God shall thaw the chilly coldness of our natural
estate, and bid the life-floods of our heart flow
forth, there we must be- cold, cheerless, lifeless,
and powerless.
The Christian, like the mariner, depends upon the
breath of heaven, or his barque is without motion.
There is no truth that needs to be insisted
upon more thoroughly than this, "Without
me, you can do nothing."
Until we are utterly empty of self, we are not
ready to be filled by God. Until we are conscious
of our own weakness, we are not fit platforms for
the display of divine omnipotence. Until the arm
of flesh is paralyzed, and death is written upon
the whole natural man, we are not ready to be
endowed with divine life and energy.
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