The Spirit's Witness to Olivet

Him hath God exalted with His right hand.... And we are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom. God hath given to them that obey Him.” — ACcTs v., 31, 32.

esrem ETER says that the inward life of every 4 Christian repeats the experience of the Master. He says that the Holy Ghost is a witness of Christ’s exaltation. He means that in the process of the Christian life His Spirit leads every man over the same path from depression into joy. He declares that God has given the Spirit to them that obey Him. Is there then to be a preliminary period in which we are to have the work without the joy? Yes. We are not all at once to get the Spirit — the freedom, the spontaneity, the gladness of the life divine. That is the gift of the summer, but the winter and the spring come before the summer. The Spirit only comes after obedience has come. We must be content at first to have the subdued will. We must consent at the outset to go where we do not want to go — to go simply because our Father sends us. We must be pres pared for some time to inquire in God’s tabernacle before we are permitted to see His beauty. We must expect like the Son of man days in which we shall cry ‘‘I thirst.” We must enter the kingdom by the strait gate of obe‘ience, by the valley of constraint, by the door on which it is written, “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.”

Yet be still, my soul, thy joy is at the door; after obedience the Spirit comes. Thy prayer shall not always be, “not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” By-and-by thy will shall be one with the will of thy Father. To-day thou art taking the cup in a trembling hand; if it were possible thou wouldst pass it from thee. But to-morrow thy hand will not tremble; thy heart will not fail; thou shalt say, “I and my Father are one.” When the Spirit comes thou shalt walk with God. He shall no longer move in advance of thee, merely directing thy way; thou shalt travel by His side in voluntary fellowship. He shall no longer need to go before thee into Galilee, thou shalt thyself accompany Him into Galilee and choose for thy place in life what was once the shadow of death. Thou shalt share the exaltation of thy Lord when thou hast carried His cross for a while; when thou hast bowed thy head and given up thy spirit the Spirit of the Highest shall be given unto thee,