The Holy Spirit Part 11

Oh, let our work take hold upon His coming, and be dignified and glorified by the same promise that cheered the heart of the restoration workers, "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts."

The prophetic messages of Zechariah were still more rich and full, but we must defer to another chapter the unfolding of his sublime and instructive images of the Holy Ghost.

Chapter 24.

THE OLIVE TREES AND THE GOLDEN LAMPS.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." Zech. 4: 6.

We have already looked at these words in connection with the history of the Restoration and the mighty movements of G.o.d's providence in bringing about that glorious result. We also referred to the prophetic ministry of Haggai, the elder of the two prophets who were G.o.d's messengers of counsel and encouragement to the leaders and people at this crisis.

Still more remarkable was the ministry of Zechariah, the younger prophet. His wondrous visions were all calculated to meet some special need and trial in their situation at this time.

The first vision was that of the man among the mulberry trees. The prophet saw in a vision a great plain of low, flat land covered with mulberry trees, and among them were horses moving to and fro. This represented the lowly condition of G.o.d's people; and the horses, G.o.d's ministers of power, who were moving in the midst of His people's trials and working for their deliverance. This was followed by a message of special encouragement, announcing that these low and desolate regions should yet be filled with mult.i.tudes of people, that the cities, through prosperity, should yet be spread abroad; and that the Lord should comfort Zion, and would choose Jerusalem.

Next came the vision of the horns and the carpenters. Four horns appeared before the prophet's view, representing the enemies that were scattering Judah and pushing to the wall G.o.d's suffering people. But, coming up behind them, were four carpenters, sent to fray the piercing horns of the enemy, and blunt their points, so that they would not be able to touch or harm G.o.d's suffering children. There were just as many carpenters as there were horns, and G.o.d's people in every age may know that wherever there is a foe to strike there is a force to counteract for those who trust Him.

Next came the vision of the man with the measuring line, going forth to measure the walls of Jerusalem, its length and its breadth, and proclaiming: "Jerusalem shall yet be inhabited as towns without walls for the mult.i.tudes of men and cattle therein." This was intended to encourage them amid the paucity of the population. A little handful of returned captives, they were trying to occupy the desolate land, and they seemed so few and contemptible that their enemies turned them to ridicule; but G.o.d declared that they would yet spread abroad and cover all the land. And as they looked at their unwalled city and the defenseless temple they were rearing in its midst, and thought of their exposure to all the surrounding enemies, G.o.d rea.s.sured them, through the prophet, with the precious promise, "I will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her."

Next there came a still more encouraging vision. All the power of their enemies outside could not hurt them half so much as their own weakness and unworthiness within. They were conscious of their sinfulness, and they knew that they had already suffered for their fathers' unfaithfulness. They might fear that they, too, should forfeit the blessing of Jehovah. And so the prophet was sent with another vision. He beheld Joshua, the high priest, representing the people, standing before the Lord clothed with filthy garments, suggesting their guilt and sin, and Satan standing at his right hand, to resist him.

But as he gazed, lo! the command is given from the throne, "Take away the filthy garments from him, .. .and I will clothe him with a change of raiment, . . . and set a fair miter on his head," and, turning to the accuser, Jehovah answered all his reproaches, and said: "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee; is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"

Then the vision was followed by a gracious promise of cleansing and blessing summed up in the glorious promise, "I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day." G.o.d stood not only between them and their enemies, but also between them and themselves, and all their own unworthiness and sinfulness. He thus stands between us and our guilt, our shield from the accusing of our conscience and the charges of our cruel adversary, so that we can cry, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of G.o.d, who also maketh intercession for us."

But now we come to the vision of our text, the most beautiful and significant of all, and unequaled by any other portion of the Holy Scriptures for delicacy and depth of sacred meaning.

It was intended to reveal to them the sources of their strength. They were weak, and their foes were strong. At this very time, through the intrigues of their enemies, a decree had come from the king of Persia, arresting for a time the progress of the work. We are told by Ezra that an army came and "with force and power" caused the work to cease. But, like the echo of man's impotent rage answering back from the throne, G.o.d sends Zechariah to say in the very same phrase turned back again, "Not by force, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

Man had sent his force and power, his army and his might; but he had left G.o.d out of his calculations, and this work and this conflict was "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting, crying, Grace, grace, unto it!"

The vision itself was a very beautiful one. As he awakened out of sleep with all his powers quickened to take in its meaning, he saw before him a golden candlestick like that which stood in the holy place, with its seven branches of polished gold, surmounted by a vessel of oil and a glowing flame. Then above this candlestick there was a large bowl or reservoir connected by pipes with all the lamps, and containing the supply of oil. But how was this reservoir filled?

Look again at the wondrous and exquisite mechanism. There were no oil cans, no ministering hands, no clumsy machinery of human attendants or conveying tubes, but two living olive trees ripening their fruit continually and pouring it in through two olive branches into the reservoir, from which it flowed down into each of the lamps. How simple, how beautiful, how perfect, and how full of holy meaning ! What is its profound spiritual meaning?

I. THE CANDLESTICK.

The golden candlestick represents the Church of G.o.d and the people of G.o.d.

"Ye are the light of the world." "Let your light so shine before men that they shall see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Israel of old was to that generation what the Church is meant to be today, the depository of divine truth and life and light, the true light of the world. As the candlestick was all of gold, so the true Church of Christ consists only of those who are partakers of the divine nature. Gold is the type of the divine, and only as we are restored to the image of G.o.d and filled with His light and presence can we be light-bearers for the world.

The candlestick was the only light of the temple. It had no windows. All its light came from G.o.d. And the world has no light apart from the Church of G.o.d. This holy book, illuminated by the Spirit, contains all that we know of G.o.d, redemption, and the future life.

He is a foolish man who tries to deceive himself and his people by the torchlight of his own eloquence, philosophy, and sensationalism.

The candlestick was one, yet manifold; and so the Church of G.o.d has infinite variety, and yet but one light and one body. G.o.d does not level every soul down to the same pattern, but He lets Isaiah and James and John to be each himself; and yet He fills all with G.o.d, and makes their life divine, yet perfectly natural, simple, free, and human.

Every part of our nature has to pa.s.s through the new creation, but every part is preserved, sanctified, and filled with G.o.d. So the whole spirit and soul and body is preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The candlestick was not luminous. It was simply a light-bearer. It could make no light. It could reflect light from its polished and brilliant surface, but the light must come from another source. So we have no light in ourselves; we can simply receive the light and hold it. We are not ourselves the light of the world, but we are to so shine that men shall see our good works and glorify our Father which is in heaven.

We are to reveal not our goodness and our grace, but Christ in us. Let all men see how helpless and insufficient we are in ourselves, but what an allsufficient and mighty Savior we have, and One available for them as well as for us. This is the light that the world needs, that the Holy Ghost and the person and grace of Jesus be held forth for their darkness and misery and sin.

The business of the candlestick was not to h.o.a.rd the oil, but to consume it, to use it up, and to keep it ever burning in those glowing tongues of flame. If the lamps and pipes had tried to absorb and retain the oil, they would have lost it. They gave it up, they used it up. They consumed it in ceaseless burning. Men sometimes say to us: "Don't expend all your vitality; don't use all your strength; save yourself." Ah, that is the way to lose yourself. Only that which we give we have. That which we keep we lose.

Try to hold on to one of G.o.d's gifts, and it will go. Try to economize and keep for yourself your blessing, and it will disappear. Pa.s.s it on and it will burn forever. As those lamps exhausted the oil in their little cups, the residue of the oil poured in from above; and they were always full, and always fresh, and always burning, and always shining.

So let us be "burning and shining lights," and, as we give out what He has given, He will replenish the supply, and we shall have enough and to spare; and we, too, shall "shine in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation."

II. THE OIL IS THE EMBLEM OF THE HOLY GHOST.

It is He who gives us all our light and life. It is He who produces in us all our graces, and works through us all our service for G.o.d and men.

Beloved, this is the test, and this is the difference between man and G.o.d. Five of the virgins were wise and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their vessels, but they took no oil in their vessels with their lamps; but they that were wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps, and when the Bridegroom came this was the point of separation.

The foolish virgins were virgins, too. They were pure; they were waiting and longing for the coming of the Bridegroom; they had a little light, and they had oil enough to light the lamp and keep it burning for a time; but they had not the residue of the oil, they had not the fullness of the Spirit, they had not the indwelling of the personal Holy Ghost. And so their lamps went out in their hour of need. They were unable to go in with the marriage procession.

The one point which settled the happy fate of the others was simply this, that they had "oil in their vessels with their lamps." They had the Holy Ghost personally indwelling. They had the source of grace within their hearts. They did not need to go and replenish. They were always ready.

Beloved, let a word be sufficient for the wise, and, oh! let us be filled with the Spirit, so that we shall be found of Him in peace.

III. THE SOURCES OF THE OIL.

We come to the most beautiful and significant part of the picture, the sources of the oil. These were not the same human mechanism of ministering priests and great reservoirs from which the oil was carried and replenished day by day, but two living trees whose ripening fruit was continually pressed out by hands unseen, and flowed through two olive branches and two golden pipes, down into the reservoir and into the lamps. It was all perfectly spontaneous, simple, silent, and divine. The oil was always flowing; the reservoir was always full; the lamps were always burning.

This is the source of our divine supply. Who were these two olive trees?

Certainly they can represent nothing human, but the divine source of our life in Christ. They represent the Lord Jesus Christ and the blessed Holy Ghost; the one on the divine side, the other on the earthly side of our spiritual life. Both are called by the same name. The apostle John speaks of Jesus as our Advocate or Paraclete with the Father, and he speaks of the Holy Ghost as our Paraclete from the Father. The one is the Advocate yonder, the other is the Advocate within.

One is on each side of us, and between two such Advocates how can a child of G.o.d be lost? From these two blessed Persons of the G.o.dhead, distinct in their personality, yet one in their nature, we draw our spiritual life. We draw it as the olive trees gave forth their oil, spontaneously, silently, constantly, instinctively, just as we breathe the air in which we live, just as the blood circulates through our system, so quietly, so naturally, so simply, that we are unconscious of the process.

Thus we may abide in Him and live upon Him, and draw our strength from G.o.d alone. Beloved, have we learned the secret of the olive trees, the secret of abiding in Him?

But, what are these two olive branches that connect the olive trees with the reservoir and run into two golden pipes?

These are "the two anointed ones, or, the two sons of oil, that stand before the Lord of the whole earth." Ah! this is the ministry of believing and united prayer. This is the highest service given to saints on earth, a counterpart of the priestly service of Jesus Himself upon the throne.

Beloved, if we will let Him, G.o.d will teach us this high and holy service. First, these branches must come out of the trees and be so closely in touch with them that they can communicate directly and draw their very life; and so he that ministers at the altar of prayer must be in perfect touch with G.o.d on the heaven-side. But on the other side, he must be in perfect touch with man. The branches must run into the reservoir and connect with the lamps.

So if we would know this ministry of prayer, we must be sensitive to the needs of others. We must be lost to our selfishness. We must be in touch with our fellow-men. We must have a heart full of sympathy and love, and readiness to suffer for others and for G.o.d.

G.o.d give us this glorious ministry and teach us to know the meaning of that mighty promise, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven."

VI.

1. The effects of the Holy Spirit's working will appear first in the overturning of obstacles. "Who art thou, O great mountain?" There is always a mountain of difficulty in the way of faith. The best evidence of G.o.d's presence and power is the activity of the adversary. Faith does not fear the highest mountain when the Holy Ghost is in charge, but trustingly and quietly stands, and says, "Who art thou, O great mountain? Be a plain." The Holy Ghost will give the faith as well as remove the mountains. One cannot but be struck with the similarity of this pa.s.sage to our Savior's wonderful teaching regarding faith, where He says, that if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, we shall say to the mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea"; it shall be done.

Faith does not ask the mountain to be removed. Faith does not even climb the mountain; but it simply commands it to disappear, and uses the authority and power of G.o.d. This is the way the Holy Spirit works in the hearts of those who trust and obey Him and are led by the Spirit of G.o.d.

2. The work of the Holy Ghost gives all the glory to G.o.d. "He shall bring forth the headstone with shouting, crying, 'Grace, grace unto it!" Man's work reflects its honor upon man; but when we become possessed of G.o.d, and recognize His all-sufficiency, we can speak of His work without consciousness of ourselves, and say with the apostle, "Not I, but the grace of Christ in me."

3. The work of the Holy Ghost is a finished work. He does not leave the broken column and the unroofed walls; but He accomplishes His purpose, and He leads us to see our expectation and finish our work. The hands of Zerubabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands also shall finish it, and "Thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you." The work of human ambition and impulse is weak, unstable, and spasmodic; but the work that G.o.d inspires is carried through.

4. The work of the Holy Ghost is straight work, and perfectly plumb. "They shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel." The plummet is the symbol of righteousness. A plumb wall is a straight wall, a perpendicular wall; and so the work that G.o.d has is a straight work, pure work, and right work. The work that He inspires and carries forward has no compromises about it, and does not need to try to please men; but it rises on Scriptural foundations, and its walls are righteousness, and its gates, praise.

5. Finally, the work of the Holy Ghost is accomplished through feeble instrumentalities. "Who hath despised the day of small things?" This is the way it begins. "G.o.d hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath G.o.d chosen, yea, and the things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence."

I never read this text without remembering a cold November afternoon, in the year 1881, when a little company of seven persons met in an upper room in this city to confer and pray about giving the Gospel in its fullness to the neglected and churchless people of this great city. We were all poor, and there were but a few of us at that. We had come together in answer to a public call for a meeting of all who were interested in this subject.

As we sat down in the cheerless hall and gathered round the fire to keep ourselves from freezing, we looked at each other; and, certainly, it was the day of small things. Then we asked G.o.d to speak to us. As we opened our Bible that afternoon, the leaves parted at the fourth chapter of Zechariah, and, without thinking, our eye feel on this very verse, "This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts . . . . For who hath despised the day of small things?"

Never, perhaps, did a message come to human hearts with more strange and thrilling power than that message that afternoon. Kneeling down together, we let G.o.d pray His own prayer in our hearts; and the years that have followed have brought the blessed answer.

Do not be afraid of small beginnings. We may well fear large and pretentious resources, but G.o.d added to seven ciphers will amount to millions every time.

Chapter 25.

THE LAST MESSAGE OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE OLD.

DISPENSATION.

"But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth, for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Mal. 3: 2, 3.

The book of Malachi contains the last message of the Holy Ghost to the old dispensation. It was his high honor to close the prophetic scroll 2,300 years ago, before the silence of 400 years, which was to he broken once more, when "G.o.d, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets," should at length speak unto us by His Son.

While he is recognized as one of the prophets of the Restoration, strictly speaking, he came just after the Restoration had been accomplished, so far, at least, as the ecclesiastical and political reorganization of the nation was concerned; and his part was rather to be the spiritual reformer of his times, and to rouse his countrymen from the reaction into which their religious life was falling, and summon them to righteousness and faithfulness to G.o.d.

His name signifies "My messenger," and he was indeed the mouthpiece and the messenger of the Holy Ghost to his own age and to ours also, in the very special sense in which these times were typical of our own.

The closing years of the Old Testament dispensation might, very naturally, be expected to correspond to the closing years of the New Testament age. The state of the people in Malachi's day bore a striking correspondence to the age we live in, and his messages to his own generation have a solemn significance to us "on whom the ends of the world are come."

I. MALACHI'S MESSAGES TO HIS OWN TIMES.

The Restoration had been followed by a period of prosperity, and, as usually happens, this had brought spiritual declension and, indeed, a very mournful condition of a religious life.

The moral condition of the people was indicated, as is usually the case, by the prevalence of divorce and the decay of domestic and social purity and righteousness. The wives of their youth were put away without cause, "the daughters of a strange G.o.d" were taken into unholy alliances, and the altar of Jehovah was "covered with tears." This was done, not only by the people, but the very priests were foremost in this laxity of morals. Malachi was sent to rebuke their wickedness and to tell them that G.o.d hated their "putting away" and their unholy lives, and to call them swiftly and solemnly to righteousness and repentance. Then, along with this, there had grown up a spirit of mercenary selfishness. The very service of the sanctuary had become tainted with it so that the priesthood was a self-interested profession. No man would even shut the doors of the temple without a salary. The old spirit of sacrifice, love, and disinterested devotion was dead; and a lot of time-serving parasites had sprung up, and begun to use the very house of G.o.d for their selfish aggrandizement and gain.

Growing out of this mercenary spirit on the part of the priesthood there was on the part of the people corresponding selfishness and stinginess. They withheld the t.i.thes and even tried to cheat the Lord by unworthy and dishonest offerings. "Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, 'Wherein have we polluted Thee?' And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? . . . Who is there among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do you kindle a fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. . . . Ye said also, 'Behold, what a weariness is it!' and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this out of your hand? saith the Lord." "Will a man rob G.o.d? Yet ye have robbed rue. But ye say, 'Wherein have we robbed thee?' In t.i.thes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the t.i.thes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

Thus Malachi spoke to the last generation of the Old Testament, and thus he might speak with equal fitness to the last generation of the Christian age. There is the same laxity of morals, the same obliteration of G.o.d's sharp distinctions, the same breaking down of the sanct.i.ties of home, the same avarice and love of money, the same mercenary spirit in the very work of G.o.d with its hired preachers, hired choirs, hired prayers. The very pulpit is an arena for intellectual gymnasts and a field for ministerial ambition. There is the same worldliness and n.i.g.g.ardliness in the Church of G.o.d, with millions for our luxuries and pleasures, but pittances for G.o.d; splendid frescoed ceilings and costly spires, pointing in proud profession to heaven, but less per head from the people of G.o.d to send the Gospel to the world than we pay for our table salt or the egg sh.e.l.l in our coffee. Is not this as truly the portrait of our times, as it was of the days of Malachi? And is not this the same picture which the Holy Ghost in the New Testament has left, as of the last days of the present dispensation: "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, . . . lovers of pleasure more than lovers of G.o.d; having a form of G.o.dliness but denying the power thereof."

Already these times have begun to come, and the messages of Malachi and Paul speak to the compromising Christians of today with a terrible aptness and fidelity. It would, indeed, seem as if the professed followers of G.o.d in every dispensation had to be tried and found wanting. Adam first failed in Eden; then the Antediluvian age went out in judgment. The patriarchal family sank into Egyptian slavery. The conquest of Canaan ended in the long captivity of the Judges. The kingdom of David terminated in the fall of Israel and the captivity of Judah. And now the glorious Restoration under Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah had fallen back into the worldliness and unG.o.dliness of Malachi's day. Even so shall it be with the closing days of the Christian dispensation. As the pure church of Paul and John became the apostasy of Romanism, even so the church of the Reformation is yet to develop into the Laodicea of the last days; and the signs of Laodicea are not so far to seek already in the spirit of our own times.

But in the days of Malachi there was a faithful remnant, a little Church within the Church, a band of whom the prophet could say: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth His own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth G.o.d and him that serveth him not."

And so in our own days there is still "the little flock," the church of Philadelphia side by side with Laodicea, waiting for the coming of the Lord. There is a larger remnant than we dream in every dark and sinful generation who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. There is today in every church of Christ on earth the strange spectacle of a great, broad ma.s.s of professing Christians who know or want to know little of the power of the Holy Ghost, and, within that wider circle, a hidden few, like Enoch, who are walking with G.o.d, who are filled with the Holy Ghost, who are watching for the coming of the Lord, and who are the preserving salt of the whole body and the real impelling force of all the Christian activities of the entire church of' Christ today.

Thus the age of Malachi touches our own with a wonderful correspondence, and the closing messages of the Old Testament ring like a trumpet call to the last age of the New Testament church. Let us receive their solemn warnings. Let us rejoice in their bright and blessed promises. Let us be found among the little remnant of holy and waiting ones.

II. THE SPECIAL PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT IN MALACHI.

"There are two special promises in this prophetic book. The first is the coming of John the Baptist. "Behold, I will send my messenger, who shall prepare the way before me." The second is the coming of the Lord himself in His first advent. "And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts."This, of course, has reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in his incarnation and earthly ministry. But the promise immediately unfolds into a fullness of meaning which takes in also the ministry of the Holy Ghost. Indeed, the ministry of Christ and of the Holy Ghost are here so linked together that it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends. "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Then, later, there comes a third promise in the next chapter, of the other day that is coming, the other fire that is to consume and burn to ashes all the dross which the fire of the Holy Ghost has not burned away. This, of course, is the day of the Lord's second coming, to be preceded by the ministry of Elijah in some sense, and to bring to Israel's returning sons the rising of the Sun of Righteousness and to the waiting saints of G.o.d the day of millennial glory.

It is especially to the second of these promises that our subject holds us, the promise of the Holy Ghost.

1. It is, as we have seen, connected directly with the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus Himself. It is spoken of as if it were all Christ's own work. But we know who it was that brought the refiner's fire and the fullers' soap, the blessed Holy Ghost. Yet it is Christ who "baptizeth with the Holy Ghost"; and when He comes it is Christ He brings, so that it is the one life, the one work, through the two persons of the one G.o.d.

2. The work He comes to do is to cleanse and purify. He is the Spirit of holiness. But there are two stages of holiness suggested. The first is cleansing from sin; the second is refining the gold and bringing it to a higher measure of purity and beauty. The Spirit comes to do both these works in the believer's heart. It is one thing to be cleansed from all known sin, but it is quite another to be refined, polished, and transformed into all the fullness of all the good and acceptable and perfect will of G.o.d. There is a good, but there is also an acceptable; and then there is the perfect will of G.o.d, and the Spirit is longing to bring us up to the highest. The wedding robe of the Bride of the Lamb is represented as not only clean, but bright; that is, glorious and beautiful, like Christ's own transfiguration robes. Iron can be refined until it is more precious than gold. So our hearts can be not only purified but glorified, even here.

3. Corresponding to this double work is the double figure, the refiner's fire and the fullers' soap. The soap is for outward cleansing, the fire is for inward and intrinsic transformation. Fire can penetrate where water cannot reach, and can be used where water and soap are of no avail. Fire can be used to cleanse only that which in its nature is indestructible. The silver and the gold can stand the fire, because they are incombustible. The more you burn them the more you improve them. So the fire of the Holy Ghost can come to us only when we become united with G.o.d, and partakers of His divine nature. Then we do not fear the fire. It cannot hurt, but only refines. Beloved, some of us have only pa.s.sed through soap and water. G.o.d wants our garments firetouched. Then "the King's daughter" shall be "all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold," which no flame can deface or destroy.

4. "Heshall sit." This is very striking. He does not hurry His work; that is, the work of the fire, the deeper, intenser inworking of the Holy Ghost. There is a baptism of the Spirit, a receiving of the Spirit, a cleansing work of the Spirit which is instantaneous and complete. But there is a later work, the following up, the filling out, the burning in of the Refiner which must take time. G.o.d is willing to take the time. Let us be, too. The figure suggests the most thoughtful care. He sits down at the crucible. He does not for a moment leave His precious work. He does not let the fire get too hot, or burn too long. And the moment He can see His face on the molten gold, He knows the work is complete, and the fire is withdrawn. It is a great thing to understand rightly the immediate and instantaneous work of the Holy Spirit in converting the soul, and then in entering it and taking up His eternal dwelling there through our obedience and faith, as our Sanctifier and Keeper; and His more gradual and subsequent work, in developing and filling our spiritual capacity, searching and enlarging us, and leading us on and out and up into all the fullness of the mature manhood of Christ.

How wonderful, how gracious, how kind that He will take such trouble with us, and, with love that will not tire,work out in us to the end "all the good pleasure of His goodness," and make us perfect in every good work to do His will, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory, both now and forever. Amen. Oh, that we might let Him have right of way, and ever cry, "Refining fire go through my heart, Illuminate my soul; Scatter Thy life in every part, And purify the whole."

5. Finally, all this is for service. "Hewill purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto Him an offering in righteousness." This is G.o.d's great end in all his work of grace. He will not give us the Holy Ghost to terminate upon ourselves; and if He sees that our object in seeking even spiritual blessing and power is our own delight, aggrandizement, or self-importance, we shall be disappointed. But if our purpose is to be like G.o.d Himself, channels of blessing to others, and instruments for His use, He will fill us and use us to the fullest measure of our heart's desire. The more we give the more we shall receive, until, like G.o.d, our only occupation will be to be a blessing. This is the secret of barren hearts and lifeless churches. They are Dead Seas, that have received without an outlet, until they could hold no more, until even what they had has become a stagnant and unwholesome pool.

Side by side, the blessing and service must ever go hand in hand, according to the ancient promise, "Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me."

The Old Testament closes with the glorious promise of the Holy Ghost. How wonderfully the New Testament has fulfilled it! Let our lives fulfill it. Let our words and works pa.s.s it on until the yet greater promise of His Second Coming shall come to pa.s.s, and we shall rise to a richer indwelling of the Holy Ghost and a n.o.bler service in the ages to come than we have ever here been able to ask or think.

We have closed these unfoldings of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. We shall next turn, if the Lord will, to the fuller light of the New Testament midday and the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Oh, if, amid the imperfect light of that ancient dispensation, the Spirit accomplished such glorious results and left such ill.u.s.trious examples of His grace and power, how much more must He not expect of us, the children of the morning, and the heirs of all His truth and grace! G.o.d help us to be worthy of our inheritance and true to our trust.

Volume 2

Chapter 1.