Be Filled with the Spirit (First Lecture)

You will find the words of my text in the Acts of the Apostles, second chapter, fourth verse: “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” Along with that look at Eph. 5:18: “Be filled with the Spirit.” The first of these words is history; the 120 disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost. The second is a command — “Be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

There are often very difficult questions sug-gested in connection with the question, “How can we be filled with the Spirit?” I do not think there is any better way to answer these than by looking at the disciples and seeing” how they were prepared for receiving” the Spirit and being” filled with Him; and I know of nothing more instructive. Christ does not give the Spirit to an unprepared soul. He could not, and therefore it is of extreme consequence to ask the question, “What is needed if I am to be filled with the Spirit?” I tried to point out from

God’s word this morning, as we studied the Epistle to the Ephesians in its teaching on the Spirit, that to be filled with the Spirit is what every Christian needs, and needs for his every-day life; and I repeated what I had said before, that it is not enough to look for the Spirit as a Spirit of power for work, but we ought to long above everything that our inner life be filled with the Spirit, the power for work will come out of this. If I want an apple tree to bear apples, I take care that that apple tree has as good and as strong and as healthy a growth as can be given; the apples come spontaneously. If I have the Holy Spirit strengthening and filling my inner life, the fruit of power will come.

The disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Just look at the most important points in connection with their preparation: — Who were they? What had they done? What had Christ done for them?

1. They were men who had forsaken all for Christ. It was three years before this time that Christ had taken them into His school of preparation for Pentecost. John, the Baptist, said, “He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire,” and when Christ called them it was with the special thought of training them for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Missionaries often take candidates into their class for baptism for three months or a year. They come to them and say they want to be baptized. They appear earnest, but there is no satisfactory evidence that they are regenerated. The missionary says, “Come to the class; I will teach you and I will see if you are prepared to be baptized.” So did Christ take these men for three years into His baptism class, and at the end of three years He baptized them with the Holy Ghost. What was their condition on entering- the baptism class? They had given up all for Christ. They had to give up their fishing nets; Matthew had to leave the receipt of the custom; they had to forsake all. Christ often repeated the truth, “Except a man hate father and mother, except a man forsake houses and lands, he is not worthy of Me.” On one occasion Peter said, “Lord, we have forsaken all and followed Thee.” My dear friends, it was this that was the first step in their preparation for the Baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost. Christ could not impart His own heavenly life and Spirit except to men who gave up all to receive Him. He took these men to prepare them and teach them to give up everything for God; so they could be His disciples.

Jesus Christ comes to us with the same demand — “Except a man forsake all he cannot be My disciple.” There are many who try to be filled with the Spirit — and it is better to try than not to try — still many try, who yet have no conception of what it is that has to be given up. I must let go the world; I must let go family and friends so far as the supreme place in my heart is concerned; I must be prepared to let go possessions, honor of men and opinions of men; I must be prepared to let go everything I have; I must be prepared to let go self, my intellect, my heart’s affections, everything must be

sacrificed and made subordinate to this wonderful blessing” — the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in me. The Holy Spirit is not something- 1 can merely own or have at my disposal, but in Him Christ is a Divine Master, coming” to take charg-e of me, and He wants every breath of my life, every word of my tongue; He wants the whole of the self life deposed to make room for His life. Christ comes and tells me that the most important, the only thing on earth worth living” for is to be filled with the Spirit. The man who possesses Him, Christ lives in him and has complete dominion over him. He possesses Christ.

Dear friends, there are many of you who have done it, who have forsaken all for Christ. Have you not often attended a consecration meeting- and taken your vow over and over ag-ain, and sung” the words:

“Here I g”ive my all to Thee,

Friends, and time, and earthly store.”
and,

“All I hare I leave for Jesus?”

Have you not sung” this evening”, “Anywhere, everywhere with Jesus?” I speak to you who are earnest Christians, have you not forsaken all; have you not vowed to forsake everything”; have you not vowed to forsake every selfish thing”, your own pleasure, your own self, profit, and the world, and be wholly for Jesus? I tell you, you have taken the first step to be filled with the Spirit. Trust God, He will do it. If you have done it, then I want you to come under the solemn conviction — I can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and I am going to take every step God shows me. But if there is anything in which 3’our heart condemns you, beware! If your secret conviction is, I have not forsaken all, there are little sins I have never given up, there is my temper, my own will, which I dare not forsake, then, I ask you, how can you expect to be filled with the Spirit? It cannot be. Oh, brother, come to-night! do not hesitate any longer! There is the Everlasting God in heaven waiting to fill you with His holy, blessed, divine Spirit; and will you, for the sake of something in the world, or for the sake of the flesh and its pleasure, or for the sake of your own will, hold back and say, “No, I cannot be filled with the Spirit, I must give up too much?” I wish I could plead with you to come. Come! For God’s sake let us all say tonight, “I forsake all to follow Jesus. I long to be filled with the Holy Ghost; I want the heavenly life to live in me fully every moment. I want to pray that I may have this ‘pearl of great price.’

The first condition of receiving the Holy Ghost, then, was that these men had forsaken all.

And the second condition: — They had been brought to titter self-despair. It was at the very beginning of Christ’s teaching that He taught them to forsake their boats and fishing-nets; but later on they found they had a very difficult lesson to learn — to forsake self. We had that in the words to Peter, last night, “Let a man deny himself.” They did not know how terrible the power of self within them was. They were never brought to utter self-despair until they came to the cross of Jesus.

I cannot but remind you of the Lord’s Supper. Two thing-s took place. One was, they had a dispute among” themselves as to who should be chief; there was pride. They were thinking- of their own g-lory, and of the place they would have in the new king-dom which was gfoing- to be set up. The other thing- was, when Christ was led away to be crucified they all forsook Him and fled. Every one had said, “I will never forsake Thee,” so self-confident were they. Peter had said, “Thoug-h all men forsake Thee yet will not I,” and when Christ said, “You will deny Me,” Peter said, “Thoug-h I should die with Thee yet will I not deny Thee.” They were filled with a self-confident spirit, and it was with that spirit that Christ took them to Gethsemane. There beg-an the time of trial; they all fell asleep. Even the three who were taken into the inner g-arden could not watch with Jesus. What happened then? When the soldiers bound Jesus they all forsook Him and fled. Peter and John, after a little, recovered their courage and went to the house of the Hig-h Priest, and there Peter denied his Lord. And Jesus looked upon him and he went out and wept bitterly. When Christ was condemned and taken to Calvary, there, a g-reat distance off, they stood and looked! How their hopes perished! How they were brought to utter self-despair! Just think, when they saw their Lord crucified, and dying, and dead, and buried, what must have passed through their hearts? They had hoped for a kingdom, and all hope of the kingdom was gone forever in their eyes. They had hoped their Lord was to reign in g”lory, and now all was lost. Their hope was gone. Worst of all, they had trusted in themselves that they loved Jesus and would be faithful unto Him, and now they were all ashamed and hardly dared to look at each other. We have forsaken Him and fled! We never knew we were so wicked; we never knew our self was so strong and sinful. We have forsaken our beloved Lord in His hour of agony and death!

I do believe that that Sabbath day of rest was a day of unutterable anguish to those disciples, like a day of death. Why? In order that they might be broken down from all trust in anything external and anything in themselves. These two things had so broken them down that on earth there was no help, no hope at all; they were in utter despair, and thus prepared for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must come to take the place of self life; so consuming it that a man can say, “The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” It is only out of the grave of self that the Spirit life can rise. The Holy Spirit must work this in me. With no human help, with the hope of everything on earth broken, empty, hopeless, helpless, they turn to Christ. Why did God allow all this? That they might be empty to receive the new life, the life of the Holy Spirit. Christ came on the resurrection day to breathe upon them the Holy Spirit. They then began to see something of what was coming, though during the 40 days He was with them they did not quite understand all. For what they did not understand there was nothing to do

but trust. When He went back to heaven and the Holy Spirit was poured out and filled them, at Pentecost, then they were fully delivered of all self-confidence.

I trust there are many here whom God has broug-ht to the end of self. Oh, it is a blessed thing! Are there not some who say, “I want to find out whether I am prepared to be filled with the Holy Spirit?” Are you brought to utter self-despair? Perhaps many of you have asked and received what you thought was a baptism of the Holy Spirit, but you did not know the dangers. You have said, “Well, that is a wonderful thing I have got, a wonderful blessing; God has done a great thing in me;” and there was a secret self-satisfaction, and a great want of humility, and a great want of utter nothingness before God. Come and say, I want to be forever done with self; I will deny self; I have asked God to cast it out, and that my heart may be empty and broken.

That is the second step to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Get down, lower down! Do not be in a hurry to get up. My brother, get lower down, and become nothing, and let self be cast into the depths. The lowly, truly humble, self-despairing one is prepared for the baptism of the Spirit.

Are there some souls who say, “Self is still the great force in my life; self is ruling me; he is a hard master; self is working in me every day, and I have not been brought to utter self-despair?” Then I ask you, are you going to miss the blessing? Are you who are in utter self-despair about getting- the blessing-, are you going to try for years to improve self, to bind self with chains, to make self something not so very wicked as it is? Or will you not say, There is no help in self; I will trust Christ to come in and take possession? Your Father longs to have, as children, a church of believers filled with the Holy Ghost, and He has got the residue of the Spirit in great abundance. He has purposed to give it to you as He gives the water and air, freely and abundantly. The river of the water of life is flowing full from the throne of God. He wants you to say, 1 long to have my whole being saturated, fully dominated, ruled, possessed by the Holy Spirit of God. Brother, if you have despaired of yourself, thank God that it is so! If you have not, are you willing here to cast self at the feet of Jesus, and to fall in utter helplessness and say, “Lord, I cannot conquer self; I have been fighting but I have failed; have mercy upon me! het it henceforth be. None of self but all of Thee?” Come and take the place of the disciples and you will be prepared for the fullness of the Spirit.

3. They were men in whom there was an intense personal attachment to Jesus. You know, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit that the Father gives, and He comes through the Son, Jesus Christ. He is the Spirit of God’s Son, and it is by getting united to the Son of God that I get the Spirit of God. Christ taught His disciples to cling to Him, to love Him, to delight in Him and to lean their whole weight — as it were — upon Him. In living three years with them, He had taug-ht them to love Him. With all their failures, they did love Christ truly. There was ing-ratitude with it; the failures were terrible, with all the self-confidence and sins of the flesh; yet they loved Jesus. But was that enoug-h, that they loved Jesus? No, it was not. “Without the Spirit, how continually they failed to obey Christ! It was His blessed work to lead them on to a better life, where they would have power to conquer self and sin. For over three years He walked with them as a friend. How He loved them! How He served them! How all His kindness and g“oodness were exhibited in their presence! Oh, how He loved them! It is written,” Having- loved His own, He loved them unto the end.” And He had won their hearts. They loved His teaching-, and they loved Hhn ;^.mid all their unfaithfulness they clung- to Him. When He died, though they had gone and left Him, and they believed Him dead, still they loved Him, their hearts were attached to Him.

Here is our third step in the preparation for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is when the heart of a believer clings to Jesus with an intense and continual love. There are some Christians in whom there is very little personal attachment to the Lord Jesus. A man may preach sermons about Christ, talk about Him, work for Him, and give liberally, but this is not what I am speaking about. What was the charge of Christ against the church at Ephesus? “Thou hast left thy first love.” There was no personal tender love to Jesus. There are some people who talk about being filled with the Spirit, and pray for it, but I am afraid they will not get it. They do not know what it is to be clinging- to Jesus as a personal friend. Before the soul is filled with the Spirit there is a tenderness of feeling, a preparation for it in the intensity of love for Jesus; there is a clinging of the heart to Himself; the soul is longing for Him, and longing to love Him better. There are some of you, I trust, who can say, “I do love Jesus; He knows how I delight in Him; He knows that He is the joy of my heart, and tonight He knows that I burn for Him; He knows I ask. What can I sacrifice for my Lord Jesus? Is there anything I can do for Jesus?’ He knows that, amid failure, I am seeking to keep every commandment, and my heart’s prayer is. Oh, that I could see Him and know Him better! Oh, for the time when God has all my heart; and nothing there but Jesus, Jesus only.”

Praise God for every soul that is broken, who says in faith towards God, “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.” Take courage, say it with boldness, as Peter did, or say it sorrowing; but say it. You are in the right path to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Jesus wants people who are intensely full of love to Him.

We often hear the complaint, My religion is more in my head, and in my work, than in intense love to Jesus. O, Lamb of God, who loved us! we see we have been so busy with ourselves, with our study, our preaching, our visiting, our working for Thee — so busy with these that for Thee, blessed Lamb of God, we have had little time, so little time for meeting” with Thee; so little heart and long-ing- for close union! Let us fall down and make confession, Lord, Thou canst not g-ive me the Holy Spirit; I am wanting- this mark; I have so little love. Oh, tell me, when can I get it? How long” must I seek this love? You can get it to-night if you see your sin and shame, and confess the want of this personal, clinging love, and say, Lord, let my love now be a tender, intimate fellowship; I want my whole being to be filled with the love of God. Say it in humility and say it in faith. He accepts that, when the soul has pledged itself to begin loving Him wholly. He will accept it, and will send down His Holy Spirit upon you. Sister, brother, are you ready? Jesus wants to fill us with His Holy Spirit.

4. They had accepted the word of Christ about the coming of the Spirit in faith. They were men who believed. Those ten days after Christ’s Ascension were passed in waiting and prayer. That is faith. What did they believe about it? Ask them. They could not tell exactly. They had read in the Old Testament of the Holy Spirit coming down on prophets; but about the Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer all day, and the Holy Spirit bringing the joy and presence of Jesus into their hearts, they did not know. They just believed. Our master said that He would send the Holy Spirit; they just clung to that word. He said it, and we are sure of it.

How foolish to think of the Holy Spirit coming from heaven for the sake of people like youl someone might exclaim. Their answer is. He said it. If people had said, You fools! you denied Him, you

forsook Him, you unworthy creatures! do you believe jyc?^ are going- to be the elect men? They would answer, He said it.

Now are you resting upon the word of God? This morning we had the picture of the wonderful life that the child of God can live, all those twelve aspects of the walk in the power of the blessed Spirit. That is what the Bible says can be my life. Some of you were here when we spoke about the fruit of the Spirit being love. Have not all of you said, I believe that my life can be a life of love all the day long — love to the most unlovable, to the heathen, love to all I meet? Have you said that in faith? Have you said. The Holy Spirit can be in my soul; I can be filled with the Holy Spirit? Can you say, I can have the filling every morning and night? Oh, take care! don’t let unbelief tell you that this is too high for a man on earth, that a man in the flesh cannot live filled with the Spirit. That is unbelief.

Another says, “My temperament! There are people who have a kind temperament; but, you know, I have such a temperament, I could never have this fullness.” And so on, in a hundred forms there is the thought, we must be content to live without the Spirit. Beloved children of God, take care of unbelief, and come now to-night and say, “I do believe what Jesus says: that the Father delights to fill a child of His with the Holy Spirit. I do believe that the life of the Holy Spirit is meant to be lived by me every day in the week and every moment of my life. I do believe what the Scriptures say, that ‘the Holy Spirit is able to fill me with God’s love, so that my life shall be one of humility and tenderness, giving- g-lory to God and the Lord Jesus.’” If you will believe what God has said, and what God is willing- and waiting- to do by the power of the Holy Spirit, thoug-h you don’t feel it yet, say that you believe it. If you believe there is a God in heaven, and there is a blessing- waiting, and God is willing to give it, will you say that? It is an unutterably solemn thing to come into contact with God. A man must stand and give an answer to God. Many turn round to think about it, and will not give an answer to God. Oh, come and do something. Set your heart upon it and say, I will have it.

Some are thinking of their business and how it would look for them to go down tomorrow morning if they were overflowing with the Holy Spirit. Just imagine it. They think: I cannot do it; I could not manage it! Ton have not to manage the Holy Spirit; He will manage you. He will teach you how to live when you are full of Him.

5. They not only believed, but they longed and thirsted for it. I believe that, with the shock of that earthquake that came to them when Jesus was crucified, in their utter despair of themselves and with inexpressible shame and disgrace for having treated Jesus as they did, they learned to long for something better. And the Son of God, in the 40 days He was upon the earth, worked in their hearts an expectation that filled them with assurance during the 10 days in which they waited. These 120 men and women appeared contemptible in the eyes of the world, but they waited for the promise of their Lord. They were assured of this above everything.

Are you willing- to do this? May God bring- us to it! It struck me as a solemn thing-. This is the last evening- service this week, and how far have we g-ot? Friend, would you be ready to say, God, fill me with the Holy Ghost; I am ready. Are you ready to say that? Some people think it must come as a g-reat emotion, stirring- their whole being-. It does not always come that way. It may come as the nig-ht-dew on the grass, quiet and g-entle. They think people must talk and shout. No! What is it? It is to have my whole being- placed at His disposal, and then in faith to receive the g-ift of God, the Holy Spirit taking- possession of me. As an empty vessel to separate myself to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and believe then, the Lord has g-iven this life, to be filled with the Holy Spirit; I claim it from Him; I trust Him for it.

You know, a river can be filled in two ways. In South Africa we have terrible valleys, which mig-ht be called dry rivers, and then hig-h up the course of the river there come immense thunder storms and the water comes pouring down with such a rush that it causes the stream in these lower reaches to rise eight or ten feet high at once, and it keeps on rising until it overflows its banks. How did it get full? Suddenly, with violence. But sometimes rivers get full in quite a different way. There are great snow mountains, and the snow melts gently, and the water flows and fills the river. There is very little commotion. The stream rises slowly, and gradu ally the river gets full, until its banks overflow. How different from the former! There are souls in whom the filling of the Holy Ghost comes with great emotion. There are other souls who come trembling, and full of fear; they are prepared and they say to God, “O God, it is Thy will that I should be filled with the Holy Spirit from morning to night. I long for it. I believe Thou wilt give it.” They say it quietly and they claim it in faith. “Lord, I believe Thou hast done it.”

Oh, my brother, are you ready for it tonight? Remember, the Holy Spirit is the heritage of God’s church. It is not meant for something extraordinary. Each of us may say. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is mine. It is mine for my daily life, to enable me to live a holy life every day. Are you ready? Shall we bow before God?