Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 465
John 16:14.
WE always need the Spirit of God in our preaching. But I think we more especially require His Divine direction and instruction when the subject is Himself—for the Holy Spirit is so mysterious in His varied attributes and operations, that unless He Himself shall reveal Himself to us and give us the words in which to speak of Him, we shall surely fail either to understand for ourselves, or to enlighten others. In His light we see light, but without Him we grope like blind men in the dark.
Certain sins against the Holy Spirit continually exist in a degree in the Christian Church. Unholiness of life grieves the Holy Spirit. When Christian men walk not according to the Gospel. When their conversation is not ordered according to the pattern of Christ, then the Holy Spirit, who has no fellowship with unholiness, withdraws Himself in a measure from the Church. Discord, too, strife among Brethren, forgetfulness of the new commandment, that we love one another, grieves the sacred Dove—for as His nature is peaceable, as His office is to be the peace giver—so He tarries not where there is the din and noise of contending parties.
So, also, when He perceives His saints to be diseased with worldliness, when we prefer the treasures of Egypt to the reproach of Christ, and seek rather the things which are seen, which are temporal, than the things which are not seen, which are eternal—then again is the Holy Spirit quenched and departs from our midst. Above all, pride and that murmuring, rebellion, unbelief, obstinacy and self-seeking which pride leads to—all this grieves the Holy Spirit, for He dwells with those who are humble and of a contrite spirit. Where there is the voice of murmuring, where one man seeks to lift himself above another, and all to exalt themselves above their despised Lord, the Holy Spirit hides Himself and suffers barrenness to take the place of plenty, and death to reign where once life triumphed.
These are a few of the common and the constant infirmities of the Church, by which the Holy Spirit is much hindered in those marvelous manifestations which otherwise would be common and usual in the midst of our Israel.
But there are two faults of the Church which appear to me periodically to manifest themselves. The one is when men ascribe wrong things to the Holy Spirit, and make Him the Author of human novelties and delusions. In seasons when the minds of good men were anxiously alive to spiritual operations, certain weak-headed or designing persons have grown fanatical. Bewildered by their own confused feelings and puffed up by their fleshly minds, they have forsaken the true light which is in the Word, to follow after the will-o’-the-wisps of their own fancies, the absurdities of their own brains. Such vainglorious fools aspiring to be leaders, masters of sects, will boldly tell men of itching ears that fresh doctrines have been especially revealed to them.
They prate much of what they call the inner light (which is often an inner darkness), which dim candle they exalt above the light of the Word of God, and tell you that marvelous things have been taught to them in dreams and visions. Ah, this is a high and crying crime. What? Will you lay at the door of the Holy Spirit a deed which God has solemnly cursed? Do you not start back at such a thought? Is it not almost blasphemy to imagine it? And yet remember, he that adds a single word to the canon of inspiration is cursed. Give ear to the very words of the Lord our God, “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book. And if any man shall take away from the Words of the Book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this Book.”
And do you think the Holy Spirit would do that which involves a curse upon man? If I venture to add to God’s Word, or to take from it, I do it with this as my penalty—that God shall blot my name out of the Book of Life and out of the holy city. And yet these base pretenders, who would lay their foolish notions at the door of God the Holy Spirit, will have it that He has taught them more than is in the Book, that He has removed that which God laid down as the grand landmark and added to the finished testimony of God. Let none of you have any sort of patience with men who talk thus.
Deny their very first principle. Tell them—whether it is the deceiver of Western America, or the false prophet of Arabia—tell them that they are all impostors, for they ascribe to the Holy Spirit that which is impossible for Him to commit—a violation of the revealed will of God in which it is declared that the canon of inspiration is shut up once and for all. A little of this evil I detect among godly people. I find that sometimes even gracious men think they have had revelations. Texts of Scripture are no doubt laid home by the Holy Spirit to the souls of men as much today as in Paul’s time, and there can be no doubt whatever that the Spirit brings all things Christ has taught to our remembrance, and that He leads us into all Truth.