Sermon

by Rev. Wm. MacLean.
(continued from page 315)

We may notice some of the respects in which the wise have the Holy Spirit in His saving operations, in His effectual work, as distinct from those who have Him just in His common operations. And they have Him first of all, we might say, as the spirit of bondage. It is not as the oil of joy and gladness that they receive the Holy Spirit to begin with, but as the spirit of bondage, convincing them of their sin and misery, giving them to see that they are in bondage to sin and to Satan. We read the spirit of bondage is the spirit of fear (Rom. 8: 15). Fears come into their souls, fear of death. They now believe that death is appointed unto them, and after death, the judgment. Fear of hell. Fear of their sin, that their sins will bring them to a lost eternity. But above all, a fear that they shall not obtain Christ. There is that fear in connection with their being convinced of their sinnership and of their need of a Saviour. They fear that they may not find the Saviour. They find themselves in bondage and in darkness, in a prison, as it were, and need deliverance from that prison, that prison of bondage in which they are. Some are left in that condition longer than others. Some go through great depth of law work. Others are brought in more gently, as Lydia was. But there is in this spirit of bondage, fear and depression in the soul. The soul is not rejoicing in the Lord’s salvation, but weighed down with divers fears, and afraid that no matter what reformation may take place, and does take place, that unless they have Christ they shall come short at last and perish eternally.

The Spirit of Illumination

Those who have this anointing, who are savingly taught and who are made wise for eternity, have also the Holy Spirit as the spirit of illumination. He enlightens. In effectual calling the Holy Spirit not only convinces of sin and of misery, but He enlightens the mind in the knowledge of Christ. The person who is savingly taught is brought to realise his ignorance. Prior to this he may have been flattering himself in all the knowledge he had about Christ, and about the Scriptures, and about the doctrines of the Bible, how well informed he was. But now when he is being taught by the Holy Spirit, he comes to see how ignorant he is, that in spite of all the light he had in his head about Christ and about the doctrines of the truth, he has not got a spark in his heart, that he is ignorant of Christ. The Holy Spirit as the spirit of illumination, illumines the sinner. It is in His light that he sees how dark and how ignorant he is of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal. Persons can speak with tongues of men and of angels, about the truth, and about Christ, and yet have only just common light, intellectual light, but when the Holy Spirit comes as the spirit of illumination, that person is brought to realise how ignorant he is, how dark he is, and his need of being enlightened. The language of his soul is “that I might know Him.” The Lord’s people will be conscious of their need of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of illumination as long as they are in this world. And they will be having the Holy Spirit as the spirit of bondage when they have sinned in convincing them of their sins.

The Spirit of Liberty

But they have Him as the spirit of illumination. He sends His light forth and His truth into their souls. They find such a veil of ignorance on the eyes of their souls that they need light from heaven. They need the Holy Spirit as the spirit of illumination to open up the truth to them. They have also the Holy Spirit as the spirit of liberty. “Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the Gospel.” They have the Holy Spirit as the spirit of liberty and as the spirit of illumination, for it is as the spirit of illumination that He is the spirit of liberty, in giving them liberty of soul and freedom of soul, that strength to receive Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel. He creates faith in the soul, and faith is light and faith is knowledge, and they are enabled to close in with Christ as He is freely offered in the Gospel. When Christ meets with them they cannot but receive Christ and rest upon Him alone for salvation as their portion and hope for time and eternity. They have the Holy Spirit as the spirit of liberty and that is the spirit they would seek to have, that their souls would have this liberty in going forth unto Christ and living a life of faith upon Him.

The Spirit of Adoption

They have the Holy Spirit, as the spirit of adoption. They are now adopted into God’s family through being called effectually. They have the spirit of sons, and of daughters; they are the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty. They have the spirit of adoption. There is reverence in that spirit, there is love in that spirit, there is worship in that spirit, there is adoration in that spirit, there is thanksgiving in the spirit of adoption. They are now seeking to praise Him, “O Lord, I will praise Thee, though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away and Thou comfortedst me.” There is praise and thanksgiving and reverence and godly fear, filial fear, in the spirit of adoption, so that they have the spirit of children, and come to God just as children to a father who is able and willing to help them. We have the spirit of adoption, we might say, in the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. It is there you find the spirit of adoption. All these petitions are the petitions of sons and daughters. “Hallowed be Thy name” they seek to hallow all that pertains to Him, they seek the coming of His kingdom and they seek daily bread, spiritual and temporal, from Him, for they see that He is the giver of every good and perfect gift, and they pray “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, for ever, Amen.” You have just in the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer He taught His disciples and which is the prayer of all who are His disciples, the spirit of adoption.

The Spirit of Holiness

They have also the Holy Spirit as the spirit of holiness. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God, and He leads them in the highway of holiness so that they fully believe that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Because they have Him as the spirit of holiness they have a daily consciousness, a continual consciousness of their own unholiness, and of their own sinfulness. They know in measure the plague of their own hearts, and their daily cry is “create a clean heart, Lord, renew a right spirit me within,” and

“Do thou with hyssop sprinkle me,
I shall be cleansed so;
Yea, wash Thou me,
And then I shall be whiter than the snow.”

Ps. 51: 7.

They seek to run in the way of His commandments, for the law is holy, just and good. The precepts of the Gospel are just the spirituality of the law opened up by the Holy Spirit. Some people maintain that the Lord’s people are not under the law as a rule of life. Because they have been delivered from the condemnation of the law, they think that they have been delivered also from the law as a rule of life. But the apostle says that we are under the law to Christ. They maintain that believers are not under the law — under the Ten Commandments, as their rule of life, but under the precepts of the Gospel. But what are the precepts of the Gospel but just the law, the law in its spirituality, opening up in the Scriptures. “Thy law,” said the psalmist, “is exceeding broad.” It is the desire of the wise to run in the way of His precepts, in the way of His commandments. Having the Holy Spirit as the spirit of holiness, they are brought to see that holiness becomes His house and all His service, and that His Day is holy. They find out that the claims of God’s holy Day are binding upon them. You find people making great claims. They speak about “Holiness Movements” and a person is reckoned holy if he gives up smoking and drinking and going to dances and pictures and so on. All that is perfectly true of those who are taught by the Holy Spirit, but in the estimation of the foolish these are the main things, as it were. When it comes however, to the claims of God’s holy Day, as the Day which he has appointed to be the memorial of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, they do not seem to have any consciousness about these claims. Where the Lord writes His law in the heart, and He does that in regeneration, there is a love to the Lord’s Day as the day set apart for worshipping God, and as a day that commemorates Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Now, where there is no love to the Sabbath, there is no grace in the heart. Persons can make their own “Holiness Movements” and have their own standards about worshipping God and Sunday-keeping, as they term it, but this is the crucial test, where there is no love for God’s holy Day, when persons can play fast and loose with the divine claims respecting His Day, they prove they are graceless. They are but foolish virgins, whatever their profession. They put their own pleasures before the claims of God’s holy Day, and they put their own profit before the claims of God’s holy Day, but where the Holy Spirit is, as the spirit of holiness, that person is led to say with the apostle that the things which are gain to him, whatever gain he might have had, and pleasure he might have had in connection with the way in which he observed the Sabbath in the days on his ignorance, he now counts these as loss and as dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord.

He acknowledges Christ as Lord, and as Lord of the Sabbath, as He Himself claims “the Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Those who profess the lordship of Christ and who have no respect for the day which in a special way sets forth His lordship, are by their works denying Christ. But all in whom the Holy Spirit is as the spirit of holiness, seek to keep the Sabbath holy and thereby give to Christ that place which He claims and which is His due as Lord of the Sabbath. They also acknowledge Him as Lord in His own house. They believe that holiness becomes His house and all His service, and they seek to honour Him in refusing to admit into His house either in the way of doctrine or worship what He has not authorised in His Word. The anointing which they have teaches them to own and acknowledge and honour Christ as Lord of the Sabbath and as Lord in His own house. As Lord of the Sabbath He makes it clear how He would have His Day honoured. “If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” (Isaiah 58: 13, 14).

The anointing teaches those who are wise to have the spirit that was in Christ Jesus. “Learn of Me,” He says, “for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” It is in drinking in of His Spirit and in seeking to be of the meek and the lowly that they will be finding rest for their souls. It is the proud, the revengeful, the self-centred spirit they are of, as they are by nature, which so often robs them of their rest and liberty and fills their souls with darkness and bitterness. But they are taught to hear what God the Lord doth speak. “O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! Then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.”

The Spirit of Truth

Those who are wise have the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of Truth. He is not the spirit of error nor the spirit of delusion. The anointing which they have teaches them to abide in the Truth, and to try the spirits whether they be of God. They are kept from the religious delusions which abound in our day. They are led by the Spirit of God and are found therefore going forth in the footsteps of the flock, seeking to be found in the “old paths” trodden by the true Church of God in every age and generation. New-fangled doctrines and new ways of worship are from Satan as an angel of light. But the wise are kept from the religious delusions which abound in our day. The foolish who do not receive the truth in the love of it are given over by God in His righteous judgment for their forsaking the truth, “to strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2: 11, 12). What need we have in this day of delusion and error to give heed to the exhortation, “Buy the truth and sell it not!” Where you find a person who has the Holy Spirit as the spirit of bondage, of illumination, of liberty, of adoption, as the spirit of holiness and as the spirit of truth, you have there a person who has the anointing that teaches of all things (1 John 2: 27). You have there one who has the oil vessel which the wise have. You have there a person who is betrothed to Christ, one whose soul is bound up in the promise, “Thy maker is thy husband, the Lord of hosts in His name, and thy redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called.”

Going to Them that Sell

The next respect in which they differ is that it was the custom of the wise to go to them that sell. We see that when the midnight call came and the foolish began to realise that their lamps were going out they said to the wise “give us of your oil.” They replied, “Not so lest there be not enough for us and you.” We have just what will do for ourselves; we are afraid that we may not have what will do us. Lest we should not have enough, you had better go to them who sell. Now this shows that there was this difference between the wise and foolish, that the wise were accustomed to go to them that were selling oil, that they were a poor people and a people dependent upon the Lord. It is the Lord that sells. He sells without money and without price. He is calling upon people to buy of Him — wine and milk, without money and without price. All the blessings of redemption are offered to us freely without money and without price. The fact that it was true of the foolish that they were not in the habit of going to buy shows that they were self-sufficient. They were not poured from vessel to vessel, a poor and a needy people needing to go to the Lord to supply their spiritual needs and to uphold them. They fully believed they were going to heaven as surely as the wise. They were not harassed by doubts and fears nor praying to the Lord, “Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.” They were self-sufficient. They were increased in goods, in their own estimation, spiritual goods, and in need of nothing. But those who are the wise, are a poor people and a needy people and are dependent upon the Lord, and they go to Him that sells. He sells in the Truth. He sells in the public means of grace. That is why it is said that the Ministry is for the edifying of the body of Christ, for the edification of His mystical body, that the members thereof might be edified and built up in their most holy faith. Christ in the Gospel, and in the preaching of the Gospel, is there selling without money and without price.

The blessings of the Gospel are free, and those who are of the poor and needy will be coming and seeking for oil, seeking for spiritual food, seeking for the blessings they stand in need of, seeking for the Holy Spirit who is compared to oil. Their desire is that they would get a fresh baptism — an anointing in their souls. They feel themselves withered and dried and they need a fresh anointing of the oil of gladness in their souls’ experience. Now the preaching of the Gospel is spoken of in the Word of God as the ministration of the Spirit. The Spirit of God maketh the reading but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith unto salvation. It is the ministration of the Spirit. Those who are of the wise seek to be where Christ has promised to be, through His Word and Spirit. “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them,” and they are coming, hoping to get what will revive and refresh their souls. They feel themselves poor and needy and there are times when they are revived and refreshed in the means of grace, and they go on their way rejoicing. Although they would receive manna today for their souls they are as needy again the next day to receive again out of His fulness. They are not like the foolish who show that they are self-sufficient, and who do not need to be waiting on the means of grace. When you see persons who profess to have a hope and hoping to go to heaven at last and, at the same time, are not in the path of duty with respect to the command of the Lord, “not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together,” who are not seeking Him where He has promised to be, and who are not coming with an empty vessel to receive out of His fulness, then this will be true concerning them when death comes, that the hope which they have will begin to go out. They will then be crying for the prayers of the Lord’s people and saying “give us of your oil.” But it is now too late. They allowed the day of grace to pass, deceived by Satan in this way, that they have what would stand them. Oh, how awful to be self-deceived for eternity! When death comes, when the midnight call comes, and the darkness of death and despair is closing in upon their souls, they are now crying but it is forever too late. The door is shut and they are shut out for all eternity.

The Closing of the Door

In the last place there is the curse of God in the closing of the door. When He closes the door He is, in effect, saying to that person, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” There is the wrath of God in the closing of the door. It is closed in wrath. There is eternal despair in the closing of the door. The door is eternally shut and how solemn the words “and the door was shut”, “and the door was shut”. How we should be seeking while it is yet called today to be of those who are seeking to buy, coming as poor and needy sinners to the Saviour, crying for mercy and seeking that we would receive of His own Holy Spirit as He says, “if ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit unto them that ask Him.” “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” (Rev. 22: 17).