The Greatest Fight in the World! 9

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Have you ever seen a gentleman of the modern school enjoying his own preaching? Our evangelical preachers are very happy in delivering what our liberal friends are pleased to call their "platitudes"; but the moderns in their wisdom feel no such joy. How grimly they descant upon the Post Exilic theory! They remind me of Ruskin's expression—"Turner had no joy of his mill." I grant you, there is nothing to enjoy, and they are evidently glad to get through their task of piling up meatless bones. They stand at an empty manger, amusing themselves by biting their crib. They get through their preaching, and they are dull enough until Monday comes with a football match, or an entertainment in the school-room, or a political meeting. To them preaching is "work", though they don't put much work into it.

The old preachers, and some of those who now live—but are said to be "obsolete", think the pulpit a throne, or a triumphal chariot, and are near heaven when helped to preach with power. Poor fools that we are, preaching our "antiquated" gospel! We do enjoy the task. Our gloomy doctrines make us very happy. Strange, is it not? The gospel is evidently marrow and fatness to us, and our beliefs—albeit, of course, they are very absurd and unphilosophical—do content us, and make us very confident and happy.

I may say of some of my brethren, that their very eyes seem to sparkle, and their souls to glow, while enlarging upon free grace and dying love. It is so, brethren, that when we have the presence of God, then we and our hearers are carried away with heavenly delight. Nor is this all. When the Spirit of God is present—every saint loves his fellow saint, and there is no strife among us unless it be who shall be the most loving. Then prayer is wrestling and prevailing, and ministry is sowing good seed and reaping large sheaves. Then conversions are plentiful, restorations are abundant, and advances in grace are seen on every side. Hallelujah! With the Spirit of God—all goes well.

When the Spirit of God is gone, even truth itself becomes an iceberg. How wretched is religion frozen and lifeless! The Holy Spirit has gone, and all energy and enthusiasm have gone with him. I am tempted to apply Coleridge's lines to much that is to be seen in those churches which deserve the name of "congregations of the dead."

It is much the same in those "respectable" congregations where no man knows his fellow, and a dignified isolation supplants all saintly communion. To the preacher, if he be the only living man in the company, the church affords very dreary society. His sermons fall on ears that hear them not aright. Yes, the preacher's moonlight, cold and cheerless, falls on faces which are like it. The discourse impresses their stolid intellects, and fixes their stony eyes; but hearts! Well, hearts are not in fashion in those regions. Hearts are for the realm of life; but without the Holy Spirit what do congregations know of true life? If the Holy Spirit has gone, death reigns, and the church is a sepulcher. Therefore we must entreat him to abide with us, and we must never rest until he does so. O brothers, let it not be that I talk to you about this, and that then we permit the matter to drop; but let us each one with heart and soul—seek to have the power of the Holy Spirit abiding upon him.

Have we received the Holy Spirit? Is he with us now? If so it be, how can we secure his future presence? How can we constrain him to abide with us?

I would say, first, treat him as he should be treated. Worship him as the adorable Lord God. Never call the Holy Spirit "it"; nor speak of him as if he were a doctrine, or an influence, or an orthodox myth. Reverence him, love him, and trust him with familiar yet reverent confidence. He is God, let him be God to you.

See to it that you act in conformity with his working. The mariner to the East cannot create the winds at his pleasure—but he knows when the trade winds blow, and he takes advantage of the season to speed his vessel. Put out to sea in holy enterprise when the heavenly wind is with you. Take the sacred tide at its flood. Increase your meetings when you feel that the Spirit of God is blessing them. Press home the truth more earnestly than ever when the Lord is opening ears and hearts to accept it. You will soon know when there is dew about, prize the gracious visitation. The farmer says, "Make hay while the sun shines." You cannot make the sun shine; that is quite out of your power; but you can use the sun while he shines. "When you hear the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall bestir yourself." Be diligent in season and out of season; but in a lively season be doubly laborious.

Evermore, in beginning, in continuing, and in ending any and every good work, consciously and in very truth, depend upon the Holy Spirit. Even a sense of your need of him, he must give you; and the prayers with which you entreat him to come, must come from him. You are engaged in a work so spiritual, so far above all human power, that to forget the Spirit is to ensure defeat. Make the Holy Spirit to be the soul of your efforts, and go so far as to say to him, "If your presence go not with us, carry us not up hence." Rest only in him and then reserve for him all the glory. Be specially mindful of this, for this is a tender point with him: he will not give his glory to another. Take care to praise the Spirit of God from your inmost heart, and gratefully wonder that he should condescend to work by you. Please him by glorifying Christ. Render him homage by yielding yourself to his impulses, and by hating everything that grieves him. The consecration of your whole being will be the best psalm in his praise.

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