Well might the Saviour recommend this Spirit. He had been with Him all through His temptation, and He is with every one who receives Him, from first to last — never leaving or forsaking him. Surely He is the good gift of God !
^ John Brash : Memorials and Correspondence, 137.
ST. LUKE XI. 13 247
Oft in a dark and lonely place
I hush my hastened breath, To hear the comfortable words
Thy loving Spirit saith ; And feel my safety in Thy hand
From every kind of death.
Then in the secret of my soul,
Though hosts my peace invade, Though through a waste and weary land
My lonely way be made, Thou, even Thou, wilt comfort me —
I need not be afraid.
Still in the solitary place
I would awhile abide, Till with the solace of Thy love
My heart is satisfied ; And all my hopes of happiness
Stay calmly at Thy eide.^
(2) Again, the Spirit meant poiver. The prophet had repre- sented the servant of Jehovah as having the Spirit upon Him, and there was He, conscious that the prophecy was an accomplished fact in His own experience. He is anointed for His ministry of blessing among the poor, the wounded, the bound, the blind, and the oppressed, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him. And so it was all through His lifetime of labour. " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me." Never at any moment was Christ bereft of that comfort ; and what a comfort it must have been to Him ! Men did not understand Him, but the Spirit did. Men did not love Him, but the Spirit did. Many who had followed Him turned away from Him, but the Spirit never did.
Well might He then speak of Him as the sum of all good gifts and so recommend Him to His disciples. The work which He was doing they were to continue, and to do it effectively they needed the same Spirit.
11 " How many do you count me for ? " asked the Macedonian general, as his soldiers expressed their fear of going into battle against great odds. " How many do you count me for ? " asks the Holy Ghost, who still abides in the church with His undivided
^ A. L. Waring.
248 THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
presence and His undiminished power. Christ, in the person of the Holy Spirit, dwells in every church in the fulness of His presence. " Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," is the Magna Charta of the local church. Christ is not divided ; He has not distributed Himself among His churches, giving a part of Himself to each, so that only by a union of all the churches can we secure the presence of the whole Christ. Herein is the immense difference between spiritual force and physical force.^
4. The Holy Spirit means the redemption of our common life. The deepening of the spiritual life which we lack can come to us only through the solicited energy of the Holy Spirit. Just as in the sphere of music men invoke the spirit of music that they may become great musicians, and in the sphere of art invoke the spirit of art that they may become great artists, so we must invoke the Spirit of Holiness — no mere idealized conception in this instance, but the Living Spirit of the Living God — that we may become holy men and holy women, that we may become great and good in the spheres of character and conduct, that we may live that deeper and diviner life of which we are capable.
^ The Whitsuntide Fair with its crowds and its noise, its vulgarity and its coarseness, its low buffoonery, reminded one of what goes on behind the scenes in men's lives, and of how much there still is of the brute and the savage in many of us. Man's world outside corresponds to his world inside, and I say that the only thing which can bring to us sweetness and order, and good government, and effectual and holy living, is that power which is obtained by prayer, and which comes to us through the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.^
III.
The Eecipients
1. The recipients of the Holy Spirit are those who ask the Father for Him. Jesus reminds us that the man who prays is only applying to the sphere of his fellowship with God the principles which obtain in the ordinary intercourse of daily life.
^ A. J. Gordon: A Biography, 242.
' T. Sanderson, The Illimitable Domadn, 91.
ST. LUKE XI. 13 249
The dictates of common sense suggest that he should ask if he wishes to receive. The bell at our front door, the forms of application issued by the thousand from every office which has favours to distribute, the advertising columns of the daily press witness to the important place which asking holds in the develop- ment of human lives and in the conduct of human affairs. How foolish would be the person who should plead a rigid theory of determinism as an excuse for waiting until something should turn up ! How many doors remain closed because those who are free to enter are too shy to knock ! How many opportunities are lost because those for whom they are waiting are too lazy to seek ! How many boons are never granted because those for whom they are intended have not courage to ask ! Bread will not fall into our mouths. Work will not drop from the skies. It may be true enough that the labour exchange is not the final remedy for want of employment. But our method of dealing with the man who will not put down his name should be short and sharp. It is the ordinary experience of life to which our Lord appeals when He says, " Ask, and it shall be given you." "Every one that asketh receiveth " is a universal proposition.