Acts 2:21

Chapter 6

Prayer

Almighty God, may we not be as fools but as wise, having understanding of the meaning of things, and knowing what thou art doing in all the days as they brighten and die. Thou art alway most surely fulfilling thy Holy Word may we be numbered amongst those who are inspired with a great expectation, and who are constantly looking for the Lord's coming. Surely thou art alway coming, thou art nearer now than ever before; give us the insight which sees thee in the events of the day, and so ennoble our religious faculty that we may be able to interpret unto others the movements which appear to be common or degraded. Enable us by thy presence in the soul, so to see what is transpiring, as to acknowledge thine hand in it, and to be enabled to point out to others the gracious rule of thy sovereignty.

Thou art expressing thyself to our vision and feeling and thought, in every occurrence of the time. Shall there be evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it shall the devil have larger scope without the Lord having given it to him doth hell enlarge its borders without permission from heaven? The Lord reigneth: there is but one God and his name is great: in the hollow of his hand all things rest, in his heart is the centre of all force. This faith thou hast taught us in Jesus Christ our Saviour and Priest, through whom we have large access unto the throne, and whose name gives the prevalence of power to the mean petitions which our own hearts suggest. If thou dost so enable us to read the signs that are passing around us, we shall be no more children tossed to and fro, visited by sudden and irregular tumults, the prey and victim of all uproar and accident, but in our inmost soul, as in a sanctuary hidden from the touch and the gaze of others, we shall have thine own quietness, the peace which maketh glad. Enable us to know that all we are and have cometh down from the heavens shining with daily blessing and offering continual hospitality. Thou dost lead us by ways that we do not know, yea in paths from whose entrance we have shrunk; thou hast found for us gardens of flowers and springing wells and places of secure repose so will we no more interfere with thee, we will not meddle with God, we will stand in Christ and say, Not our will but thine be done: it is the only wise will and good, and in us there is no thought of excellence, we live and move and have our being in God. God's will be done though it be death to us, yea God's will be done though our chosen places be turned upside down and the nest in which we have hidden ourselves be torn to pieces. God's will be done: lead us on as thou wilt and how thou wilt, only hide in us the sure and indestructible confidence that thou art undertaking our life for us, and that in the end thou wilt show us the goodness and glory of thy purpose.

We have come up to praise thee with unanimous song. Thou hast been good to us with infinite grace, thou hast spared nothing from our lot that would brighten and ennoble or sanctify it, and for this providence of thine we now bow down ourselves before thee in grateful and delighted homage. We have nothing that we have not received, what we have received is enriched with thine own image and superscription, and if we have given aught to thee, of thine own have we given thee, and the glory shall be thine.

For all chastening and mellowing providences we bless thee, for everything that teaches us the brevity of our life, for all helpfulness towards the true enjoyment of thy providence we now laud and magnify thee in our common psalm. Surely thou dost not waste the days upon us, all the sunshine is not lost upon our mean life, thou dost purpose the growth of our soul and its ultimate sanctification and complete purity. Towards this end thou art working in divers ways. We humbly pray thee for growing insight into the truth as it is in Jesus, for the spirit of sympathy with the very heart of Christ, for the tenderness of soul which feels every tear the Saviour shed, and that responds with penitence to the blood which he shed in atonement for the world. Bind us to the Saviour of souls, put both our hands and our whole heart upon the cross of Christ, and bound to that sacred symbol of thy love, thy law and righteousness, may we live the rest of our time in the very spirit and under the very blessing of Christ.

Wherein we have done wrong, thy pity will be greater than our sin. We cannot go beyond thy grace in any extent of guilt. Where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound, and as for the blackness of our guilt, lo, it becomes as wool and as snow under the cleansing blood.

Thou knowest our life, it is in our breath, it is a vapour that cometh for a little time and then vanisheth away. It is as a flying shadow, or a hastening post, as a shuttle quickly moving from point to point We die whilst we live, we breathe ourselves away, every pulse that beats leaves but the number less. So teach us to number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. The year is dying, the year we once called new, under the morning of which we breathed our salutations and loving wishes to one another. Behold the golden vessel is being lifted up again into the heavens whence it descended. Help us to know that our days are a handful, that a child can name the sum thereof: whatsoever our hand findeth to do may we do it with our might.

Pity all who need thy pity, save us one and all, look not upon us in the light of thy righteousness, for who can stand when thou dost appear? but look upon us in Christ and through the cross, and from the altar of his sacrifice, and hear us when we say, Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. Deliver us from all embarrassment, show us what we ought to do on the morrow, give us unexpected answers to surprising difficulties, lead us over the road when we cannot see it, when it is too perilous to be trodden by human feet, lift us up in thine arms and carry us clean over. Let the old man forget his age in the inrush of new life and the inshining of celestial hope, let the feeble forget his weakness by an instant access of spiritual strength, and let the young be lifted up into a chastened and joyous maturity because of the conscious presence of God.

Nurse our sick ones: they are too delicate for us to touch, our gentlest embrace would but crush them in this very last feebleness make their bed in their affliction, for our rough hands cannot touch it, speak comfortably to them, for in our voice there is no music; heal those whom the physician has surrendered; when all human aid has gone out of the door dejected, helpless, confessed to be exhausted, go thou in and show us that our extremity is the opportunity of God. Amen.

The Outpouring of the Spirit

Act 2:21

( Continued. )

IT is in the presence of the Holy Ghost that we find the true union of the church. There are diversities of operation, and must always be such, but diversity of operation does not destroy, or in any degree impair, the unity of the Spirit. There is one Spirit, there is one faith, though there be many creeds, there is one baptism, though there be many forms of it, there is one Lord, though He shine in a thousand different lights. We have been vainly looking for union in uniformity, and because of the lack of uniformity we have oftentimes most ignorantly mourned the absence of union. Consider how irrational is such mourning, and how it is rebuked in the most practical terms by all that we know, even of the lower life with which we are most familiar. Is the human race one or many? is there any difficulty in identifying a man, whatever his colour, form, stature, language, or individuality of expression? yet are there any two men exactly alike? Consider how few are the elements which, so to speak, God had to work upon in making men, and yet see the infinite variety which he has wrought out of the few. Man has, say, some seven features, forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, form or contour, colour or complexion, so that they roughly sum up the man, yet out of those seven notes what music of facial expression has God wrought! Out of the twelve hundred millions of men now on the face of the globe, who can find two absolutely alike and identical? Yet, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men:" the unity is not in the form, but in something below the form, yea, in a something so subtle that it cannot be expressed in image or in word. "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."

Do you therefore think of asking whether these two men can really belong to the same human nature: namely, a man black and a man white; a man speaking an unknown tongue, and a man speaking the language with which you are most familiar; a man with habits diametrically opposed to the habits of other men? Does it ever occur to you to ask the irrational question, whether these two belong to a common stock? You do not doubt the unity of the humanity, you comment upon diversities of temperament and peculiarities of habits, but you never think of striking at the central and vital unity of the race.

It is so in the Christian church. The Christian church is split up into a score of sects, but the church itself is one. When we seize that idea in all its range and significance, we shall not be seeking any mechanical unification of Christendom. Christians are one, the world over. To those who look upon things from the outside merely, it would seem impossible that the Arminian and the Calvinist can both be readers of the same Bible, and worshippers of the same God. But their unity is not found in formality, in credal expression, in propositional theology, in ecclesiastical arrangement; down in the centre of the heart, in a place untouched, so to say, by human fingers, there lies the common organic nerve that unites Christendom in its worship and in its hope.

It is a common complaint amongst persons who do not look deeper than the surface, that Christians are much divided; they are only divided in outward expression, their division as compared with their union is as a small drop in the bucket; when the CROSS is touched, the defence never comes from any one section of the church, the whole church with unanimous love and loyalty rushes to the vindication.

This has been exquisitely illustrated from another point of view by Mr. Robertson of Brighton, who calls our attention to the diversities which occur in the expression of sorrow, and also in the expression of worship and of loyalty. He reminds us of the Eastern sufferer, who throws himself upon the ground, and lies there prostrate, crying piteously and vehemently. The Western may be silent and self-controlled, but suffering all the while in his very heart a mortal agony. Is there therefore a difference in sorrow? The difference is not in the sorrow, but in the manifestation of the sorrow. So the Oriental before his king falls flat on the ground, and the Briton before his God only kneels. Is there, then, a difference in the spirit of worship? The meaning is the same, the whole conception is the same, a conception of lowliness, self-insufficiency, homage, dependence, loyalty. Who, therefore, would argue anything from the superficial comments of men who remark upon the diversities of the modes of worship which are found throughout Christendom? The Papist and the Protestant have different forms; those who follow symbolic worship, and those who are devoted to simplicity simplified, are all meaning, in proportion to their sincerity, the same thing. He therefore will, in my judgment, misspend his time, and will throw away his strength for naught, who seeks to mechanise the unity of the church, and to have one form or one liturgy, singing out of one hymn-book, breathing praise through the medium of the same music, and he will be on the right road, and will have a prophet's power, yea, about him shall be the shining of an angel, who tells us that union is in the heart, in sympathy, in meaning, in the ultimate purpose of the mind, which is to glorify God in a noble, holy and beneficent life.

Have we received the Holy Ghost? The question does not admit of hesitation as to its answer. No man can mistake the summer sun when he sees it; he will not come home with a half tale of having seen some kind of light, but is not quite sure what it is or whence it shone, whether it was a gas jet, or the shining of an electric light, or a new star. The sun needs no introduction, has no signature but its own glory, and needs take no oath in proof of its identity. The shadows know it, and flee away; the flowers, and open their little hearts to its blessing; all the hills and valleys know it and quiver with a new joy.

We may have the form, and not the spirit. The apostle speaks of some who having the form of godliness deny the power thereof. Herein it is that so many men get wrong in their comments upon Christianity. They say the great thing after all for a man to do is to do good. That is correct. But what would you think of me if I said the great thing after all is for a train to go, when the train has not been attached to the engine? You are perfectly right in saying that the train is useless if it does not go, and if the train is going it is all right. But you must bring within your argument the fact that the engine could not go without the fire , that the train cannot go unless attached to the engine, that the engine and the train move, vibrate, fly, under the power of light; the light that was sealed up in the bins of the earth ten thousand ages ago, is driving your great locomotives today! When, therefore, you tell me that a man must do good, a man must be kind and noble and forgiving and excellent, and that is enough, you omit from your statement the vital consideration that we can only do these things as we are inspired by the indwelling Spirit of God.

I see before me at this moment certain cords suspended from the roof of this building. We are, I understand, about to attempt the experiment of introducing for a brief period, the electric light into this building. Is that the electric light which I see now? 'Tis but a piece of dead cord; I could burn it, and yet it is necessary, yes, that must be allowed. What is wanted then is but to connect these cords with a motive power, near at hand or far away but until the connection is established these festoons I see before me are but dead, useless things, without a spark of light which I can make available. Connect the cords, set the engine going, let it cause the necessary rotations to fly, and presently an arrangement may be made by which from these cords we shall receive a dazzling glory. They are nothing in themselves, and yet without them, the engine might for a thousand ages, and we should get no light.

It is even so with us in our very soul and heart and mind. We are here, men educated, intelligent, well-appointed, and what is it that we need but connection with the heavens, direct communication with the source of light and fire? "Come, Holy Ghost, our hearts inspire."

Let us see by all these common illustrations, the meaning of the grand spiritual truth, "Without me Christ ye can do nothing." Except the cord be attached to the really energetic centre it can do nothing. Except a branch abide in the vine it cannot bear fruit. Such is the lesson of all symbolism: we have detached ourselves from God, we have undertaken our own course in life; for a time we may go because of the original connection which existed between God and ourselves, and which he may even now in mercy be continuing unto us, in the hope of his infinite love that the filial relation may be re-established. Happy are we if we so interpret these outward symbols and suggestions, as to get from them the solemn lesson that unless we are vitally related to Christ, we have no life abiding in us.

When the Holy Spirit is communicated to the church, we must not imagine that we shall be other than ourselves, enlarged, ennobled and developed. The Spirit will not merge our individuality in a common monotony. Whatever your power is now, the incoming of the Holy Ghost will magnify and illuminate, so that your identity will not be lost, but will be carried up to its highest expression and significance. And more than that, not only will there be development of that which is already ascertained and known, but there will be a development of latent faculties, slumbering powers, the existence of which has never been suspected by our dearest friends. "If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creature, old things have passed away, and all things have become new." Look for surprises in the church when the Holy Ghost falls upon it: dumb men will speak, ineloquent men will attract and fascinate by the sublimity of their new discourse, timid men will put on the lion, and those who had hidden themselves away in the obscurity of conscious feebleness will come out and offer themselves at the Lord's altar to help in the Lord's service.

Do not let us have any attempts at mechanical enthusiasm. Any enthusiasm that is simulated, must die in the very act of expressing itself. When the Holy Ghost falls upon an assembly, the assembly loses mechanical self-control, but not spiritual self-direction. It is not carried away by mere exhilaration, as if by "wine wherein is excess," it knows the hour of the day, it knows the genesis and the meaning of the process it has carried up to an enthusiasm which confounds all outside dwellers, but which brings its own explanation to the heart which it inflames.

So we await the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Holy Spirit, baptize us as with fire! Show me a true Christian who has not surprised his friends, not only by natural expansion of acknowledged power, but by many gifts and impulses, which had not been suspected before. What patience, what long-suffering, what nobleness of charity, what instantaneousness of large interpretation of misunderstood actions, what willingness to oblige and serve! How courteous, how simple, how chivalrous, how helpful altogether! The rough places have been made plain, high places have been brought low, the valleys have been lifted up, for the Lord hath come, and in his coming is reconciliation and ennoblement, and we are at our best only when we are under his inspiration.

The resources of the church will be multiplied in proportion as the church enjoys the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. How the old earth has continued to keep pace with all our civilization and science why should I not amend that sentence and say, How the old, kind motherly earth has been keeping herself back, as if she would be wooed and entreated and besought to tell the secret of her heart and yield up the riches which she had hidden. The electric light was, as to its possibilities, in Eden, as certainly as it is in the metropolis of England today. The locomotive has not created anything but a new combination and a new application and use. The locomotive was lying beside the four rivers that flowed through Paradise. Nothing has been added to the earth, no shower has fallen in the night-time to give the earth new riches and new susceptibilities: we have had to dig and search and wait, and we have realized this great Scriptural injunction and exhortation, Seek, and ye shall find; ask, and it shall be given unto you, knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Whosoever asketh receiveth, and whoso seeketh findeth, and the door is opened to him who knocks upon it as if he meant to go in.

It is even so in the Bible. We have not begun yet the great preaching. The church knows nothing yet about the possibilities of revelation. No new Bible will be written, but new readers will come. No man may add one word to what is written in the sealed book, but the Lion of the tribe of Judah will open the book and read it as it has never been read before. To a certain extent we have learning enough, ability enough, industry enough: what we want is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When that baptism comes we shall not be asking for definitions, for definitions are the exhaustion of terms. Genius cannot be defined, Inspiration cannot be defined, Love cannot be defined we know them all, we bow before them all, but we cannot put our homage into words, or carve in dead, cold stone, the beauty which we see and idolise in the soul. Be not asking frivolous questions about divergent and colliding creeds, fret not yourself because of those who make creeds and create differences, but understand that the union of the church, the power of the church, the life of the church, is in the felt presence of God the Holy Ghost.

When he comes we shall be one and yet many, no individuality will be lost; Peter will still flame, John will still burn, Paul will still reason, James will still moralize, David will still sing. Our identity will not be lost, but under the influence of a common fire, warmed by a common love, every man shall bring forth fruit according to his individuality, and as in the infinite diversity of nature we discover one common and grand beauty, and as one star differeth from another star in glory, yet every lamp was lighted at the same fontal fire so we shall rejoice in one another's gifts, be thankful for the diversity of tongues and offices and services in the church, and shall not make this an occasion of separation. Whilst we look we shall be astounded at the infinite possibilities of human nature, at the infinite graciousness of the divine gift, and out of these very diversities shall come the inspiration of a new and ever-enlarging thankfulness.