God -- Sermons; Jesus Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 20th century
Does the child need the mother's constant, watchful care? Yes, because
everything around is like a new world to the little one, it is all a new
experience. The mother gives herself up so entirely to the child that it
depends on her for everything. In the same way when the soul is born again
it is brought into a new relation to God, it has entered into a new
experience and the Holy Spirit becomes to it just what the mother is to
the child and much more.
Just as the mother trains the little one to take the first steps in
walking and holds it up, so it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us how to
walk and to please God. The little hand is slipped into mother's hand to
be led and held up. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the
sons of God." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 14.]
The mother keeps the child close to her, so the Holy Spirit is the
Comforter to us, by our side, for the word "Comforter" means, The one whom
we call to our side to help us. Just as the mother tells her child what to
say when it wants anything, so He helps us when we pray, "for we know not
what we should pray for as we ought." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 26.]
"The Comforter is come." When did He come? On the day of Pentecost, for it
was _then_ that the Holy Spirit was poured out, and He has been with us
ever since.
Let those words ring in your heart and in your life, "The Comforter is
come." [Footnote: St. John xv. 26.] There is a beautiful hymn which
illustrates the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It
begins with the words--
"Spirit Divine! attend our prayers,
And make our hearts Thy home."
Then four things are mentioned which show forth God's power in Nature.
Light, fire, dew, wind. In the Bible they are all used as symbols of the
Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of men.
In Nature we know that human power is small compared with the power of
light, fire, wind, and water. Have we learnt to depend only on the Power
of the Holy Ghost? God's Voice is ever saying to us now, oh! that we may
listen, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord."
[Footnote: Zech. iv. 6.] Just as all the marvels of the natural world are
perfectly carried out by God's wisdom and power, so He has given the Holy
Spirit to make Him perfectly known as a living Presence, a living Power
and Reality in our hearts and lives.
In the second verse of the hymn we find the words--
"Come as the Light--to us reveal
Our emptiness and woe."
We know what the light does when it shines into a room, It reveals or
shows up any dust we had not noticed before. So when the light of God
shines into our hearts it reveals what we never saw before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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