Oh, How He Loves!

Dear Father, we would look up to thee this afternoon, and beseech thee to manifest thyself to us as thou dost not unto the world. Let thy blessed Holy Spirit come into all our hearts with blessing, and may we be lifted up into the closer union with thee which thou wiliest for us, and so may we realize what it is to be complete in Jesus Christ. We ask in his name. Amen.

SUBJECT — HOW HE LOVES.”

“The love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15: 30).

Those of you who were here this morning will recognize that the message of the morning was a message to be received after the addresses of yesterday. We now come nearer to the close of this series of addresses, and it is necessary to have a complete testimony on the subject, and so I ask you to think with me this morning on a passage of Scripture in Rom. 15, and a part of the thirtieth verse, “The love of the Spirit.” The love of the Spirit. I donT know whether it has ever been your privilege to hear any one say he loved the Holy Ghost, but if you have it has made your heart burn within you. I know when one of the officers in my old church in Albany stood one evening in our prayer-meeting and said, “I have come to love the Holy Ghost,” and the tears came into his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, that there was a hush like the influence of heaven upon that assembly.

It is a singular thing that we hear so little about the love of the Spirit. We think so little about him, and that is why, I think, so many of us say so little about his love. The most eloquent and touching passages ever delivered by men have been on the love of God and the love of Jesus Christ — the love of b6

the Father in giving his Son, and the love of the Son in giving himself a sacrifice for us. And yet if these three be equal in power, as we all believe they are, then it is quite necessary that we believe and teach that the Spirit of God has a love for us equal to the love of the Father and the love of the Son. I feel very sure that we shall never be able to appreciate his power in our hearts and his infiuence over us, until we know the love he bears to us.

We are simply here to sit together and look up into the face of God, and learn his will, that we may live it; and I think, as we study together of the place the Spirit has in the plans of God, we will come to love him. The first reference that we have to the Spirit, reveals his love. In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” More literally it would be “brooded.” It is the picture of the mother bird hovering over her little ones, tremulous with love. There at the beginning the Spirit of God, tremulous with love, hovered over the world, and so from the beginning to the present time he has been hovering over the world in conviction, and over the church in blessing, and over your life and mine, tremulous with love.

Some of you will say, “Give me an explanation of the fact that so little is said in the New Testament about the Spirit and the love of the Spirit.” I can give you a reason for it — J ohn 15: 26, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me’’

If you follow consecutively the teaching of the Spirit you will find that he never speaks of himself, but always of the second Person of the Trinity. If you turn to John 16: 13, 14: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

One of my friends told me the other day that he was sure that the interpretation of that text of Scripture was this: That he entered into the councils of the Godhead, the Father and Son, and whatsoever he heard there, he was willing to speak to you and to me here; and so if we would know the deep things of God, and know the way in which our lives should run, we must listen to his teaching. ‘Whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: he shall glorify me.”

And then there is another explanation: It would seem to

us as we turn over the pages of the New Testament that it is not necessary that we should have an increased number of texts to know the truth of* any statement. If you have one plain statement in the Word of God, you ought to be able to step out and believe on that one point. Jesus Christ was the Son of God, not because he was said so many times to be, but it is stated many times in the New Testament because the first statement was true. And so I have a right to say to you, dear friends, the Spirit of God loves you with an everlasting love.

Another reason: When our Master came into the world,

how did he come? Well, he came as the Babe in the manger. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and dwelt in the obscure town of Nazareth. It would seem that because of the way he came, and the way he lived among men, it would be necessary to have many texts to prove that he was God as well as man. Did you ever get the seven steps down that he took in coming to this earth? I want to point them out. Turn to Phil. 2: 6- 8. I will read it for you: “Who, being in the form of God,

thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” He was “equal with God,” and he began to step down, down, down, unto the lowest depths. Notice the steps:

THE RIPE OF BLESSING

First step, ^‘Made himself of no reputation,”

Second step, “Took the form of a servant.”

Third step, “Made in the likeness of men.”

Fourth step, “Found in fashion as a man.”

Fifth step, “Humbled himself.”

Sixth step, “Became obedient unto death.”

Seventh step, “Even the death of the cross.”

Now, isn’t it a marvelous thing that it is when we find him at the lowest depths, — as low as he could have gone, — then God exalts him. The ninth verse comes in here: “Wherefore

God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: tha1> at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the bather.”

“According to the depth of his humiliation must be the number of tests to prove his divinity and power.” But when you think of the Holy Ghost, why, his coming was just like the coming of God. He took Peter and John and James, and they were completely transformed by his power. He worked upon the multitude and led them from rebellion and hatred to belief and trust, and his work has ever been just the work we would expect God to do.

Did you ever see how the love of God is explained in the Scripture? I. John 4:9: “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.”

Then in Gal. 2: 20, you have the love of the Son, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,”

But if you would know the love of the Spirit, you niust read in Paul’s epistles, where he calls us out of darkness into his

OH, HOW HE IX)VES

marvelous light, and then supplies all our need with the fullness of Christ, and leads us on until we become like Christ.

The measure of the Father’s love was in what he gave.

The measure of the Son’s love was in what he endured.

The measure of the love of the Spirit is what he has done, what he is doing, and shall continue to do until he presents us without spot or wrinkle, in the presence of the Father with exceeding joy. The love of the Father and of the Son opened heaven for us. The love of the Holy Ghost fits us for heaven.

“But,” some of you will say, “I thought nothing was needed after the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.” It is true. Nothing more of sacrifice was needed. His was a perfect sacrifice. And nothing more of expiation was needed. God was satisfied with his death on Calvary. But this is what was needed — some one to come and touch the heart of the man, and make him know he was in need of what the death of Christ supplies, and make him accept of that as his salvation. He makes us know that we are dear to the Father because chosen in him. He makes the Son precious to us because he shows us we are purchased by his precious blood. We praise and magnify the name of the Holy Ghost because he makes Christ real to us. And so this afternoon I bring you this text because I want to give my full testimony to the Holy Ghost.

“I beseech you for the love of the Spirit.” I think we have a disposition to put the Holy Ghost out of the plan of salvation when we ought to appreciate his work. We thimk of conversion and justification and sanctification as associated with the Son of God, and somehow we do not think. of the Holy Ghost in the work at all. Now I want to-day to put him where he ought to be in all his fullness. God help us to see him as we ought to see him. Without the work of Christ there would have been no foundation for us to build upon. Without the Holy Ghost there would have been no building upon this foundation. Ghrist is the way. The definite article is used in the Greek — the way. The Spirit of God is the guide and the

leader in that way. There could be no conversion until there was conviction; there could be no conviction until the Holy Ghost did his work. “When he is come, he will convince the world of sin,... because they believe not on me” (John

16:8, 9).

When. we were lost, he found us. When dead, he quickened us. When our eyes were opened, he held up before us the crucified One. When we longed to be saved, he told us we might be. Have you thanked God for the work of the Holy Ghost?

I was in the Soldiers’ Home at Erie, Pa. I had spoken to the old soldiers in the chapel. As I came down from the platform, the chaplain said to me: “There is one room I want

you to visit. We have had in this institution the captain of the old Merrimac. He came into this institution an atheist. He never would come into the services, and when he was asked to read the Bible, he just scorned the thought of it. When he was in his room here, before he died, I brought in a Bible and said, Captain, would you like to read this Bible?’ and he scorned the proposition; it looked as though it was useless to say anything more to him. But I said: Suppose you read the Bible and see whether there is anything in it that you could believe, and if there is not, you tell Him so. But as you read, whenever you find anything that you think you might receive, suppose you mark it with red ink.’ He thought that was a good way to prove there was nothing in the Bible for him. I had him begin with the Gospel of John. He read two chapters without marking anything. He began on the third chapter and read fifteen verses without being moved. He began on the sixteenth verse, and then the old captain marked the verse red. He could receive a text like that.” By this time we had reached the room where the old captain had died a few weeks before, and there was the pasteboard anchor the old man had cut out for himself, and the words wer his own, printed in red ink, “I have cast anchor in a safe harbor,” The tJl

very floor seemed to be like holy ground. They sent his Bible home, but they tell me you would have a hard time to And a page without red on it. He had come to receive the whole Book. That is the love of the Spirit. His work was just that. The old captain would have nothing to do with a minister, and he would have nothing to do with a person who spoke of Jesus Christ; he didn’t want to have anything to do with Christ. It was the work of the Holy Ghost — the love of the Holy Ghost for that man’s soul. That is what it was.

As a rule, many think they are justified only through Jesus Christ and the Father. They never bring the Holy Ghost into that work. I used to think so myself. I thought that it was only Jesus and the Father who justified. Let us turn to I. Cor. 6: 11, “And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God,”

If we only knew what Ho be justified” meant! I looked into the face of my little girl baby before I left home, and I thought, “Well, if I could be like that — as pure as she is!” As I came along it occured to me that I was like that — not in your sight, if you knew me well enough; but, bless God, I am in his 1 Justified — made as if you had never sinned. The Holy Ghost has a part in that.

Brethren, did you ever get that part of the prodigal story? You know the son comes home, ragged and hungry, and the father calls to the servants, ^‘Bring forth the best robe and put it upon him.” Literally that is, ‘l am told, the same old robe he used to wear before his sin. He gave him a place at home and in his heart the same as if he had never been disobedient and had left the father’s home and heart. He gave him the old place. That is justification, my friend. A Sunday-school teacher was telling her boys one day that God saw and knew everything. Said one of the boys, “Ho, he don’t.” “Yes,” she said, “God is omnipotent, and he knows and sees e’^erything.” The boy said again, “My father says there is one thing he can’t do.” Well, she thought she had better humor him, and so she asked him what it was that God could not do. “My father says that God cannot see our sins beneath the robe of Christ’s righteousness.” Ah, there is the meaning of the word “justification.” When the father said, “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him”^bring forth the same old robe he used to wear, — he is to step back into the old home, just the same as if he had never sinned; that is the work of the Holy Ghost.

And then I submit to you, in the next place, the love of the Holy Ghost in adoption. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” But do you know that “sons of God” means full-grown sons? We are born into the family of God by the Holy Ghost, and then Paul says it is possible to be full-grown sons. In some places the meaning is that of little babies. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God.” A little more than babies. So, you see, we can be babies, half-grown children, and full-grown sons. “As many as are led by the Spirit,” they are full-grown sons of God. So if a man asks me if there is anything very practical about the Floly Spirit, I say, yes. I find the babies in my house are pleased with baby things, but the girl who is beginning to consider herself a young lady scorns those same things. So long as we have a membership only in the family of God, we are babies, and we will do babyish things. If we are led captive by the Holy Ghost, we will turn away from the childish things, and the Spirit will lead us out into the maturer truths of God. Then again I beseech you, have a thought of his love in sanctification.

And now, if you want to know exactly the work of the Holy Ghost in sanctification, take John 17: 17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” God carries on the work of sanctification through the use of his Word. We are sanctified by the means of, and through the channel of this Book, so that instead of being in bondage, we may be free;

OH, HOW ilE EOVES

instead of being little babies, we may be men and women in Christ. And there are two things I want you to remember: When the Holy Ghost has taken his rightful place in our lives, he helps us in the struggle with sin, and we are kept from the pollution of sin.

When I was in Colorado I used to see the miners go into the mine at the beginning of their shifts. Their faces and hands were as white as they could be made, and when they came out you could not tell whether they were black or white. But there was always one part clean; that was the ball of the eye, not because they were not liable to be made unclean, but because the tear-glands in each eye kept sending out the teardrop, and that flowed over the eye and kept out the dust, and so the eyeball was unspotted all the time. 0 beloved, as we go along through the world, the Holy Ghost, by the constant application of the blood of the Son of God, keeps us unspotted from the world.

In Indiana, at one time, there was a specialist, that offered to take the weakest-minded child that could be found; he wanted to show his ability to help such cases. That celebrated physician took that child into his own home, and day after day he lay down on the floor beside it, and took a single word and repeated it over and over again, and so taught that child, until I saw him stand in one of the churches in Richmond and say the Twenty-third Psalm, and sing “My country, T is of thee,” and then lead us all in the Lord’s Prayer. Oh, it shall be like that at last. He will fashion our bodies so we will look as he looks. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”

Permit me to give, in closing, what I think is the very best of all in the work of the Spirit — his work in the resurrection. “Why,” you say, “has the Spirit of God anything to do with the resurrection?” You read the Bible and see. We have learned that you cannot separate the work of the Spirit of God from the Son of God, now let us read Rom. 8: 11, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

I was sitting in my home in the country, reading the account of an address delivered by Dr. Moorehead at a Bible conference, and he said he believed it was true that when one became a Son of God the Spirit of God came into him to dwell, and he continued to dwell always. “I don’t know but that in some way unknown to me he will continue to abide, even though in the tomb, until the resurrection morning. But,” said he, “if any of my brethren deny me the privilege of this belief, I will say, when I became a son of God the Spirit of God came into my life, and he continues to abide through life, and then if I am placed in the tomb he will still hover over me. He hovers over that tomb keeping watch until the day breaks in glorious resurrection.” I could not read the closing sentences, for the tears had filled my eyes, and I told my man to hitch the horse to the carriage, and my wife and I rode out to the little grave where we had buried our first-born boy, and as we stood there that morning we said, “Thank God, he is keeping watch,” and peace filled our souls. And I shall never forget going across the country to stand beside the grave of my mother, and I said, “Thank God, thank God, for thirty years he has been keeping watch, and when the morning breaks he will lift them up, to be united by the Spirit again — the body in the grave and the spirit in his presence.” That is the work of the Holy Ghost.

Did I say that was the last? I want to say another thing. The work is not complete until we come into heaven. O my brethren, the joy of heaven will be the consummation of the Spirit’s work. He is to prepare us for heaven, and his presence with us all the days is the pledge, the earnest, of the inheritance there.

I have a little poem. One of my friends sent it to me. I want you to take it with you as you go out from here:

“The light of the Word shines brighter and brighter,

As wider and wider God opens my eyes;

My trials and burdens seem lighter and lighter,

And fairer and fairer the heavenly prize.

“The wealth of this world seems poorer and poorer.

As further and further it fades from my sight;

The prize of my calling seems surer and surer.

As straighter and straighter I walk in the light.

“My waiting on Jesus seems dearer and dearer,

As longer and longer I lean on his breast;

Without him I ’m nothing, seems clearer and clearer.

As more and more sweetly in Jesus I rest.

“My joy in my Saviour is growing and growing,

Ae stronger and stronger I trust in his Word;

My peace like a river is flowing and flowing.

As harder and harder I lean on the Lord.”

That is the foretaste of heaven. Amen and amen.

Let us pray: And now, our Heavenly Father, the Spirit of God has been so much to Us in these days. He has been like a mother in his love and in his care for us; and so, when we think of him now, we thank thee that we ever came to know him. We know we shall never regret his entrance into our hearts yesterday.

O our Heavenly Guest, fill us, fill us, and keep us filled. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.