Have You Received Him?

“Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” — Jets zg: 2.

I HOLD very clearly in these days that, when one receives Jesus Christ as a Saviour, he immediately becomes the heir of all spiritual blessings in Christ. That time may be called the baptism of the Holy Ghost, when he becomes in fact a member of the body of Jesus Christ.

There is no reason in the plan of God why one may not from the point of regeneration day by day and step by step enter into greater and yet greater blessing; but, alas! very many of us do not. We who at the time of our entrance into light failed to embrace it all, must come to the place where, after the close dealing of God with us, and after a time of heart-searching to find what may have stood between us and power, and after a definite act of surrender, we simply apprehend by the Holy Ghost that which has been ours all the time.

A man died in the poorhouse in London one of the most abject paupers. He had had a little estate in England, but had counted it worthless; and indeed it was, so far as the production of any grain was concerned, for it was anything but fertile. But after his death it was discovered by his heirs that on that piece of ground was a copper-mine, and they who have inherited it are living to-day in luxury. This is the illustration for the Christian. All the time we have had Christ, but, alas! all the time we have failed to appreciate him.

I ask the question of the text, that we may come to-day to the place where we shall wholly submit to Christ and by the Holy Ghost lay hold upon our birthright privilege. What is really the evidence of our need?

I. If we are constantly filled with unrest, this is the clearest of evidence. In the fourteenth chapter of John, the twenty-seventh verse, we read, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” It is really a most difficult thing to define peace; the best way is to take its opposite; it is the opposite of unrest, of strife, of confusion. If our experience is anything else than this, we are certainly in need of the deepening work of the Holy Ghost, and we need especially to receive him, that he may reveal Christ unto us.

1. If there is constant failure at the same point, this is the clearest indication that the Spirit of God has yet a deeper work to do for us. You will notice that I do not say “if there is constant failure,” — for alas! this is true of the most of us, — but “if there is constant failure at the same point.”

In Professor Drummond’s book, “The Ideal Life,” he says, “Let no one smile at the mere loss of his temper, and for two reasons; first, if you will analyze temper, you will find that in every display of it there was jealousy, anger, pride, sulkiness, touchiness, selfishness.” This is not so small a matter, after all. But you ought also to be disturbed in the loss of it because the temper reveals the fact that there is back of it all a fever burning which needs the touch of the Master’s hand. Whenever you find a Christian who is constantly failing at the same point, whether it be the loss of temper, the use of an unruly tongue, the display of an unforgiving spirit, these sins reveal an unclean condition of the heart, which ought to be made right.

3. If there is inability to pray. This is the clearest indication that the Spirit of God has yet some work to do for us. Andrew Murray says that our prayer life is the index of the Spirit’s work in us. If this be true, then for some the work has not been very deep. He also says that feebleness in prayer is a mark of disease; and, if this be true, many of us are sick children, and need the presence of the great Physician.

The only way for us to receive the touch of the Holy Ghost so that he may reveal Christ to us is: —

I. A willingness to forsake every known sin. If one sin is cherished, the blessing tarries.

1. A willingness to give up everything which may be revealed to us as the days go by. For we shall have more light to-morrow than to-day, and something may be questionable to-morrow that we could do with a clear conscience now.

3. A complete surrender, putting everything in his hands and yielding to him the right to control us in everything.

4. After this, simply to trust him to work in us and through us as it may please him.

There is a chance at this point for us to come to the test; and, if we should allow this moment to pass without yielding, it may be with us as it was with Moses at Kadesh-barnea; he came in sight of Canaan, and never entered it, but afterward God brought him up to Nebo and Pisgah, where he could see stretched out before him the land “that flowed with milk and honey”; but he could not enter in. God may bring us up in sight again of this most wonderful blessing, but it may slip away from us and we go poverty-stricken through all the rest of our years.

If you should ever visit the Freiburg Cathedral, you will notice there the old organ which was presided over by one man for many years; and, when his hands had lost their cunning and he could not play, they gave him the charge of the organ. One day there came a stranger to visit the cathedral; and, when he saw the organ, he asked for the privilege of testing its tone. This was refused by the old organist, who said that no one’s hands but his and the organist’s of the present day ever touched it.

“But,” said the stranger, “I myself am an organist, and I shall be greatly pleased if I may touch the keys of this celebrated instrument.”

After much persuasion the organist allowed him to get on to the organ bench. His fingers had no sooner touched the keys than the building was filled with melody. He played on and on and on, and then slipped from the bench.

The old man said to him, “What
might your name be?”

The answer was, “My name is Felix Mendelssohn.”

Until the day of his death the old organist used to say, “And I all but missed the chance of hearing Mendelssohn play.”

But there is better than Felix Mendelssohn here at this present time, — the Spirit of God, who reveals Jesus Christ. He can touch our lives and make them sound out peace, and touch them again and make them ring out joy, and every day of every year will be but one sweet song if he controls us.