What Is to Be Done ?

How is a change to come?

Let us listen to just one or two simple steps that must be taken. The first step is always conviction and confession. When first I heard the expression, long ago, about men being convicted for sanctification, I thought, What does that mean? And I soon found out that just as the sinner has to be convicted in order to see the guilt and sin of his life, so a believer. who has been living partly in the flesh, must be convicted for sanctification. He must be brought to see the sinfulness of every little temper, every hasty word, every unholy action, and he must be brought to see that he must not talk of this as a weakness or as a shortcoming, but that he must talk of it as a sin. The flesh is all sin, and it is because he gives way to the flesh that he does these wrong things. He must be convicted and made wretched and unhappy with the thought: God is willing to give me grace to live a holy life, and how I am giving way to the flesh! And just so is it with the minister of the Gospel of Christ Jesus. We need to be brought under conviction of all that is carnal in our ministry, all self-confidence, all neglect, and wait upon the Holy Spirit of God. Can you say that in your study and in your sermon the Holy Spirit has always had a higher place than your thoughts or wills? Can you say that in your preaching — I do not ask if you have prayed for the power of the Holy Spirit; I doubt not that every one does that — but, in your preparation and in your preaching, has the Holy Spirit the chief part of the work to do? Has your life been one of deep dependence on the Holy Ghost?

And there is a question that comes still nearer than that. Not only has your study and your preaching and ministry been entirely surrendered to the power of the Holy Ghost, but has your life? I pointed out that, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to the disciples personally, and then He fitted them for doing their work. It was even so with the Lord Jesus. It is even so with us. Is our life so permeated by the Spirit of God that He can speak out from us as One who is in us and ruling us? In addresses I have given to ministers previously in this country and in America I have almost always concluded with a sentence I read from an old author a couple of years ago. Before coming away to England I was so much struck with it that I wrote it down in my note-book which I brought with me, and a hundred times it has come to me before and after preaching and speaking. The sentence is: “The first duty of a minister is humbly to beg of God that all that he wants done in those who hear him may first be truly and fully done in himself.’’ And, my brethren, if we are to preach to our people to be filled with the Holy Ghost and to walk in the Spirit, if we are to preach to our people the power of Christ to make them holy, we must do it ourselves as witnesses, as persona41y living in the experience of the power of the Holy Ghost. What a solemn thought! Oh, if there is a change to be wrought, it must begin with conviction and confession.

And then, next, there must be faith in the possibility of the change. Set your heart upon the Divine certainty that God is able to work

A MIGHTY CHANGE

in you, and in the Church around you; set your heart upon God’s almighty power. I beseech you, live linked to the omnipotence of God every day of your ministry, every hour of your Christian life. Do get hold of the fact that the Almighty God has charge of your life and your work, and let God prove His almighty power in conquering sin within you through Christ Jesus, and in keeping your heart in the joy of the Holy Ghost, and then you will believe in God’s power for the Church around you. Oh, let us believe that our God is willing to bring new days! In Isaiah He says, I will do a new thing.” And He is the same God. We too often encourage ourselves in all sorts of extreme thoughts about this being a good thing and that being a good thing. But let us do two things: let us open our eyes to the very sad state of the Christian life among our believing people. Do not let us shrink from that, or shirk it; let us look it full in the face. And let us also look at what is wanting in our own lives, and sink down in deep confession and look up to almighty God and say: Deliverance can come, God can work a change in our ministry and in our people and in our own lives. Let us begin to trust God, and not trust to this or that little sign.

I was talking, a day or two ago, to some one who was telling me about ‘‘good signs” in the Church. “Oh, there is so much more liberality in giving!” he said; and he mentioned other signs. Now, we can easily deceive ourselves with these things; they can consist of a vast amount of religious flesh. People who are unconverted may sometimes be attached to your church and give liberally. Do not let us judge by external things, but try and measure all the full and deep needs of the Church, the sad absence of the power of the Spirit; and then let us look up to God for that power. The work of the Old Testament was to bring men utterly to despair, and to expect that God from heaven would interpose. The training of Christ with respect to Peter was to bring him to an utter end of himself when he had denied his Lord, and then to fill him with the Holy Spirit. And if we are longing for the power of the Spirit in our selves and the Church as we should be, and fall down before God in utter impotence, we shall have the courage to believe, as never before, that God can and will give the power in its fulness.

And then another thought. That same author whom I quoted has another sentence which I often think of, and it is this: The great work of a

minister after people have been converted is to bring them to the Holy Spirit.’’ That is true. That is what John the Baptist did; he spoke of Christ as the Lamb of God who would baptize with the Holy Ghost. This was to be the mark: first, rede7nption in the bloody and then the power of the Holy Spirit. And Christ spoke a great deal about Himself until the last, and then He began talking about the Holy Spirit, and He said to His disciples, in effect: The Comforter — He must be your joy; you are going to lose Me, but you will get Me back again in the Comforter. And then on the Mount of Olives He said: Ye shall

receive power after the Holy Ghost is come upon yon” And you know how the Apostle Paul speaks to the Corinthians thus: Do not ye know that

ye have received the Holy Spirit?” And to the Ephesians: Grieve not

the Holy Spirit of God, by whom ye are sealed.”