How to Recognize the Manifestation of the Holy Spirit By Paris Reidhead*
Our Theme this evening follows a series of messages that we have been bringing on the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.
Some of you are here for the first time, and you will realize that there is much that has gone before that we cannot repeat. But
may I just give you the Themes we have developed that you may see the continuity of thought.
Four weeks ago, I spoke on the Theme, “How to Be Filled With the Holy Spirit.” Three weeks ago, “How to Know that you are
Filled With the Holy Spirit.” Last week, “How to Continue Filled With the Holy Spirit.” Tonight, “How to Recognize the
Manifestation of the Holy Spirit.”
Now that you might understand to what we refer, I would take you to Acts the first chapter. And I shall read this evening,
beginning with the 4th verse, and concluding with the 8th verse. And I am going to ask you to have paper and pencil, for there
will be several Scriptures to which we shall be referring. And I shall make note of the Scripture, and think your way through on
these Scriptures. The message will unfold itself before you.
“To whom also Christ shewed Himself alive after His Passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and
speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that
they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me. For John
truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come
together, they asked of Him, saying, Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And He said unto them, It
is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His Own Power. But ye shall receive power, after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria,
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” (Acts 1:3-8)
Now to John, Chapter 4. A most interesting fact is this that I call to your attention. One of the most profound truths that was
uttered by our Lord Jesus was given to the most unlikely of audiences, a woman that was so ostracized from the society of the
little village, named Sychar that she could not come early in the morning to gather water, as did the other women. But because
of her reputation was forced to come at high noon, when no one of any social standing would think to toil at the rope drawing
the water from the depths of the well. And to this one, our Lord speaks as you shall hear as I read. And I think I am going to
read a larger portion than generally, beginning with the 10th verse, the 7th verse:
“Jesus saith unto her (this woman), Give Me to drink (For His disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith
the woman of Samaria unto Him, How is it that Thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the
Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it is
that saith to thee, Give Me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water. The woman
saith unto Him, Sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast Thou that living water? Art
Thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus
answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. The woman saith unto Him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go,
call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said,
I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that Thou art a prophet. Our fathers (Notice now how she avoids the issue, changes
it from a moral issue to an intellectual problem)... Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the
place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this
mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is
of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the
Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. The
woman saith unto Him, I know that Messiah cometh, which is called Christ: when He is come, He will tell us all things. Jesus
saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He.” (John 4:10-26)
Now I say, this is one of the most profound utterances that ever came from the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. For He has
spoken to this woman a truth that nowhere else He uttered. It is elsewhere in the Scripture, but she was the one to whom the
truth was spoken: God is Spirit. They that worship Him, worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.
This is no new truth, for every statement of doctrine by the Christian Church for centuries has said something similar to that
with which most of you are familiar, God is Infinite, Eternal, Immutable Spirit. Because our Lord Jesus became flesh, and dwelt
among us, because His Body was beheld and handled, and He walked and lived as the God-Man, we are prone to attach often
more significance to His Body than to Himself as Eternal God. How many times people feel that when the Lord Jesus returns in
His Body, and they can see His Body, He will become real to them. But might I remind you, if this is the point at which you feel
that reality will become yours, (For our hymnody would suggest it. That lovely hymn that we all enjoy singing, When by His
grace I shall look on His Face, that will be glory for me. But the implication is that there will be no glory until then.) May I
remind you that Mary, who had known Him for those three years saw Him in the Garden on the morn of the resurrection, and
that she much rather than having glory did not recognize Him from the gardener, until He spoke to her and by His word
revealed to her that He was indeed the Eternal Son. It was not His face; it was Himself.
Now in the glory tonight is the resurrection Body of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a Man in the Glory. This is the confidence of
Christians, that the Man Christ Jesus that was crucified on a Cross nearly two thousand years ago was buried and was bodily
raised from the dead, and that forty days thereafter He ascended into Heaven, and that He is now in His resurrection Body at
the Right Hand of the Throne on High, waiting for the time when He shall come again, and shall be revealed in that same Body.
But I would have you witness tonight this truth, that God continues to be Eternal, Infinite, Immutable Spirit, who is Omniscient,
Omnipotent, and Omnipresent. Let me explain the words. God is eternal, no beginning. God is infinite, no limit to His
attributes. God is immutable, no change possible in His character. God is Spirit.
Now the comparison is necessary. You are temporal, finite, mutable (or changeable) spirit. You are a microcosm of God, made
in the image and the likeness of God. You possess on a finite level, by the creative act of God, the attributes that God has on an
infinite level. God made you for Himself. And He made you spirit. But, because you are finite, He gave to you a place of locality
in your body for the time that you journey here in the world. Now, God fills the universe, as you fill your body. One day, you
are going to leave your body and the moral gravitation that you now have every ability to understand will draw you to your
place. If God has given you a new heart, and a new nature, and a new spirit, and has put Heaven within you, and made you a
new creation, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. But the Scripture says of Judas, that when he had
hanged himself and had burst asunder on the rocks upon which he fell that he went to his own place. There was a moral
gravitation that drew him to that place which was consonant to his character. And you tonight would go to one of two places.
You, if you have had by the Grace of God that awakening wherein you see yourself the moral renegade and traitor and rebel
that God declares you are and your conscience confirms this as being true, if you have come to that place where you have
been prepared to take sides with God against yourself and judge that His judgment upon you is fair and right, if you have
purposed no longer to make yourself God and live to please yourself but have purposed that God should be God in your life,
and Jesus Christ should be Lord of your life, if you have savingly embraced the Son of God, believing that He died for you and
rose again to wash away the accumulated stain of all your crimes against a Just and Holy Sovereign of the Universe, if I say you
savingly received the Son of God, then you have become partaker of the Divine Nature, and have a new life, and a new heart,
and a new spirit, and are a new creation.
Now, if God has performed this miracle upon you that we call the new birth, the impartation of His Life, for you to die is to be
absent from the Body, and to be present immediately with the Lord. We believe that the Bible teaches that there is no
intermediate state that the Christian who dies goes immediately into the presence of God. We find no place in all the Word of
God that anything similar to purgatory is taught or suggested; but we also believe that that person who has refused to see and
judge himself as God has pronounced him, that person who has refused to submit to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, that
person who has refused to savingly embrace the Son of God, will when he dies go to his own place where the moral renegade,
and spiritual traitors, and rebels and enemies must of necessity be gathered and confined that there should be some
semblance of moral order to the universe. And that place is called commonly, Hell.
And so I speak to all that are present tonight. We believe that you are not born a Christian. You are born with a heart similar to
the heart of your parents and to your fathers through the centuries past, at the age of accountability you committed yourself
to the inclination of your heart, and became a criminal in the eyes of God, and justly incurred His wrath and His anger. We
believe that Jesus Christ died for you, to save you from your sin, to give you a new heart and a new life, and a new nature to
make you a new creation.
Now when you come to Jesus Christ in repentance, and in faith, and savingly embrace the Son of God, God the Holy Spirit joins
Himself to your spirit, giving you this new life. This life is not merely a continuation of your own life; it is the impartation of
Divine Life. The Scripture states, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” (Rom. 8:9) When you came to
Christ, you saw yourself a sinner, and Jesus Christ your Saviour and you so embraced and received Him. But in receiving Him as
Lord and Saviour, you also were born of the Spirit and regenerated by the Holy Ghost. And you knew that you were a child of
God, because God Himself told you by the Holy Spirit. The ministry that He performs is that of the Spirit of adoption, bearing
witness to your heart that you are a child of God. “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness within himself.” (I
John 5:10) Now do you know that you were born of God? Do you know it? You can know it. You ought to know it. You stand in
constant jeopardy, if you do not know it. There are simple prescriptions that God has made in order that you may know it. Do
you know that you are born again? This is a “Know-So” Salvation. Someone said, “I think it is presumptuous for anyone to say, I
know that if I die I will go to Heaven.” Not presumptuous. It would be dishonest to say less. “For he that has been born of God
knows of whom he has been born, for he has been able to cry Abba, Father.” (Rom. 8:15) And he recognizes Almighty God as
his Father into Whose Family he has been born.
But, the Scripture teaches also that in addition to being born of the Spirit, and thus passing from death to life, God has
purposed that you should become the vehicle by which God can reveal Himself to the world in which He permits you to
remain. You see, the Lord Jesus has His Body at the right hand of the Father, as the first fruit of the resurrection. And He still
wants to work for men for whom He died. And thus, you read in Romans 12, 1 and 2 (And if you are making notation of the
Scripture, after John 4, 19 to 24, I suggest you write Romans 12: 1 and 2.) You hear these words from the heart of the Lord
Jesus;
“I beseech you therefore, Brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto
God, which is your reasonable service.” (Rom. 12:1)
Now, why? Your body was the vehicle by which you, you as a personality, your ego, expressed itself. You used your eyes to see
what you wanted to see. Your eyes did not tell you what to look at. You focused them. You used your ears to hear what you
wanted to hear. You used your mind to think about that which pleased you. You used your lips to say what you wished
declared, and your hands to do what you wished done. And your body was the vehicle or the instrument of your ego.
Now that you have come to Jesus Christ, your purpose has changed from pleasing yourself as the prime motivation of your life,
to pleasing God. And the manner in which He now suggests, yea more than suggests - entreats you to respond to Him and thus
to please Him is, that you present your body a living sacrifice. He wants your body that He might do through it what you can
never do. Oh what a tragedy it is that so many Christians are trying to live for God, and work for God in the same energy with
which they live for themselves and work for themselves, simply redirected. And the Scripture makes it clear that everything
that is done for God, however noble it may be, has its origin in human personality is going to be burned up in the judgment.
God has said, “No flesh shall glory in His sight.” (I Cor. 1:29) And He asks you to recognize that when Jesus Christ died for you,
you died with Him that He saw you and your personality as a total being so defiled by this crime of self-love and selfishness
that when Christ died, you died. And He wants you to realize this, knowing this that when you were crucified with Christ. By
faith He wants you to take your place as crucified with Christ; in other words, to find your place (if I may bring to you that are
new a term that is familiar to those that have been here, perhaps past the point of meaning.) He wants you take your place on
the back side of the cross, crucified with Christ. Christ crucified for you on the cross, and you by your own choice and
commitment regarding yourself as long as you shall live worthy of no other place, on the back side of the cross, crucified with
Christ.
Paul thus saw himself, in Galatians 2:20 you hear him as he said, “I am crucified with Christ.” Until this becomes a reality in
your experience, you cannot present your body. You can wish to. You can seem to. You can declare to. But as long as you need
this body as the vehicle for your personality, your presentation will be incomplete. But when you have come to that place that
you are prepared to let God make real in your life this union with Christ in his death, then you can present your body in the
deep meaning of the term. Present means once, for all, finally, and irrevocably, to give your body a living sacrifice. In what
sense? Let me illustrate it. He asked you to present your brain, that living in you He may use your brain to think His thoughts.
He asks you to present your eyes, that living in you He may use your eyes to see the lost around you as He sees them, sheep
scattered without a shepherd. He asks you to present your ears, that living in you He may use your ears to hear the cry of those
held in the briars of sin. He asks you to present your heart, that living in you He may have your emotional nature to be stirred
again with compassion for sheep scattered without a shepherd. He asks you to present your feet, that living in you He may use
your feet to go where He will. He asks you to present your hands, for any service that He wishes. Nothing is menial when He
chooses. Everything is noble when He commands. He asks you to present your lips, that living in you He can through your lips
speak His Word of redeeming life.
This is why the writer of Hebrews in the 4th Chapter says, “There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.” (Heb. 4:9)
What is this rest? He describes it. He that hath entered into rest, hath ceased from his own labor. What do you mean rest? Our
Lord Jesus lived such a restful life. What did He say. “I do only those things that please the Father. I only speak as I receive
commandment of the Father. The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” (John 14:10)
Paul knew such a life of rest. “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” (Gal. 2:20) The
exhortation that comes to you tonight is, Labor to enter into rest. My friend it is hard work, to come to that place that you are
prepared to see yourself worthy of only the cross. There is so much that men can do for God, and they are so reluctant to
admit what little value it will have. Enter into rest by labor. Present your body a living sacrifice. Oh how you have clung to it, to
use it as the vehicle of your own selfishness. Now to abandon it to Him; labor to enter into rest.
But what is this life of rest? “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The life I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God that loved me and gave Himself for me. This is not unobtainable. This is not
past your experience. God has no stepchildren. God is not going to do something for one, and refuse to do it for another. God
is not going to deprive you that for which His Son died. This is your relationship. Turn to Ephesians 3, and lay this Scripture
against Romans 12, 1 and 2. Paul is praying for this Church at Ephesus, and brings together in one glorious apex of revelation
this life of which I speak. Hear it: “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole
family in Heaven and earth is named, That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with
might by His Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” (Eph. 3:14-17) What is this word? That
Christ may take up His lasting habitation, is the way Bishop Mo puts it. The One who came in to bring life, who may have been
crowded to the garret of your personality, and whose presence you treasure, but whom you have denied the right to reign in
your body and your personality, you now in terms of the illustration from the life of F. B. Meyer1 present all the keys to every
room, Lord Jesus move in and possess your own. “Christ may take up His lasting dwelling place in your hearts through faith.
That ye being rooted and foundational in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and
depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,” (again let me paraphrase it) and to experience
the love of Christ which passeth intelligence, or comprehension, “that ye may be filled with all of the fullness of God.” (Eph.
3:17-19)
Now beloved, and you are beloved of God, the normal Christian life is this, filled with all of the fullness of God. Oh, how easy it
is to satisfy us, but are we the only ones concerned? Do you not feel that the Lord has a right to be satisfied also. I think that
1 Frederick Brotherton Meyer (1847-1929) A Baptist Pastor
we ought to be more concerned about what pleases Him, than what pleases us. You say, “Well I am satisfied.” That is not the
thing that concerns me at the moment about myself or you, whether you are satisfied or I am, the question is, Is He satisfied?
And He is not satisfied, unless He has been able to fill you with all of His fullness. Are you living here? You can know it. And you
ought to be, living right here, filled to all fullness of God. This is the normal state for the child of God.
You were not born this way. You were born of the Spirit. But you had not yet taken Him to fill you with His fullness. You had
not yet presented your body to Him that He might fill you with His fullness. Have you come to that place where you have
released your body by your identification with Christ on the Cross. Have you come to that place where you have presented
your body? Have you experienced what it is to be filled with the fullness of God? You can. You ought to be. And then you ought
to abide in that fullness, for it is a crisis that issues into a process. For the Scripture in Ephesians 5:18 (and turn to it, and add it
to this that I have just read) is: “Be ye being filled with the Spirit. Inbreathing the life of God. Filled unto all of the fullness of
God. Be filled with the Spirit, a commandment.”
Now back again to Ephesians 3, verses 20, 21: “That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:19) Now I want you
to notice these next two verses particularly. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or
think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world
without end.” — You know, too many people have misunderstood this Scripture. They have said, “Oh Lord, work exceeding
abundantly above all we can ask or think in some distant, remote way.” But these words are used in relation to His working
through you. “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power
that worketh in us.” “After that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” (Acts 1:8) What is the
manifestation of this working, for if God is Spirit, and it is the Spirit of God that fills us (Be filled with the Spirit.). If you will turn
to 1 Corinthians 12, you will discover that Paul is writing to this church, setting in order certain things which had gone amiss.
And I am going to read beginning with the 1st verse, and through the 3rd verse:
“Now concerning the spirituals, or spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles,
carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the
Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no men can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.” (I Cor. 12:1-3)
What is he referring to? Apparently in this Church, there was someone that claimed inspired utterance, that said, Jesus Christ is
accursed, and claimed that it was said by God. But the answer of course that comes is, “No man calleth Jesus accursed by the
Spirit of God.” Here it was that there had grown up an abuse in this church, that Paul was correcting. Now we all correct our
children, but we do not try to discipline them with baseball bats and pitch forks. We try to adapt the punishment to the need
of the child, and do not want to destroy the child with the punishment, and there have been those who have said that Paul was
correcting abuse, though actually what he was doing was destroying the very thing he was trying to preserve by correction. No,
Paul is trying to correct abuse. And he is saying that there are those in this church that claimed inspired utterance that said,
Jesus is accursed. He said, No man ever by the Spirit of God says that Jesus is accursed.
And so, by the same token he said, “Whenever there is inspired utterance given by the Lord, and it is that Jesus Christ is Lord,
you may be sure that it is by the Holy Ghost.”
Now please to verse 4. “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of administrations, but the
same Lord. There are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” (I Cor. 12:4-6) Notice what you
have here, the Trinity. Verse 4, “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit,” The Holy Spirit. So that you should
understand that it is God that is doing the working, and delineation in the sense in which the Holy Spirit is less than God.
He then says, “There are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.” For when it is the Spirit of God working, it is Christ
living and working.
Notice then, he says, “There are diversities of operation but it is the same God which worketh all in all.” If you are filled with
the Spirit you are filled with Christ, and you are filled with God. And this you must understand.
But verse 7 is that to which I would bring you. “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for the profit of all.” (I
Cor. 12:7) “The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man for the profit of all.” “The profit of all.” How are you going to
recognize the manifestation of the Holy Spirit?
First, it is always going to acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus Christ as Lord. Secondly, it is always going to be in complete and
perfect harmony with the Word. And, thirdly, it is always going to be for the profit of the church. These three tests are all really
that you need, when you are endeavoring to discern the reality of that which is propounded as being of God.
Now I want you to turn with me, to John the 14th Chapter. Some of your Bibles will carry marks at the Scripture verses that I
am giving. In Acts the 1st Chapter you heard Luke as he wrote in this fashion, “And being assembled together with them Jesus
commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father which saith He ye have
heard of Me.” What did the Lord Jesus Christ say about the Holy Spirit? And when you understand what He said, then you will
be able to apply what the Lord said by what you see in the manifestation of the Spirit.
John 14:20. This is the 1st of 7 evidences. And you may like to write a 1, 2, and 3 after the verses that I indicate, or put them
with the list of verses that you have. At that day (Well I will begin reading with the 16th verse). “And I will pray the Father, and
He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot
receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him:” (He is saying, the world can only see what it can handle. (John
14:16,17) If it cannot handle it, and measure it, and put it in a bottle, weigh it, package it, it says it is not there. Of course this
means that there is no such thing as love, no such thing as joy, no such thing as peace, because these things defy packaging.
But in irrationality where people are prepared to destroy the reality of that which is ultimate in its reality this is what our Lord
says, the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him, does not know Him.) “But ye know him;
for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:17,18) (He identifies
Himself with the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.) “Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me: because I live,
ye shall live also. At that day, ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:19,20) And the
evidence of the manifestation of the Spirit of God to you is to make real the presence of Christ in your life, knowing that you
are filled with the fullness of God.
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