Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 754
Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, JUNE 9, 1867, by, the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
“But you know Him; for He dwells with you, and shall be in you.”- John 14:17.
THE Holy Spirit, although He is the most active, most potent, and most real Worker in the world, is not discerned by the mass of mankind. The great majority of men are affected only by what they see, or hear, or feel. Their life is confined to the narrow range of their senses. “What shall we eat?” Or, “What shall we drink?” Or, “With what shall we be clothed?”—these are the trinity of questions which absorb the attention and effort of the worldly. If they can see a thing, they believe in it! If they can hear the sound of it, they recognize it. If they can discern its shape, they put it down as real. They know not that the things which are seen are temporal, and therefore shadowy—and that the things which are not seen are the only substantial things, because they exist forever.
There they are, owlets fluttering in darkness, earthworms confined to their groveling sphere, mere moles borrowing in the dark earth. They have no eagle wing to bear them aloft, no eagle eyes with which to see afar off. Because the Holy Spirit is neither seen with the eye nor heard with the ear, therefore the world cannot receive Him because it sees Him not, neither knows Him. There are a few nobler spirits in the world whose souls are above mere dead matter, who mount into the spirit-world, in a certain sense. They recognize the existence of the soul and believe in its immortality and grandeur, but still, never having believed in the Spirit of God, their eye is blind to the first and chief of spiritual beings. Whatever else they see, they see not Him, and though they hear some voices from the land unknown, yet they hear not the Divine voice.
Celestial influences pass over them as sound through a forest which stirs not so much as a single leaf—no power or passion of their spirit being moved by the Holy One of Israel. They can think of things sublime, and philosophize upon spiritual topics. Their theories are plausible and sometimes they speak as though they were among the number of God’s enlightened, but still, having no faith, they are without the Holy Spirit. Feeling none of His Divine energy they have no life in Him, no love to Him, and the affections not being moved, none of the other powers yield to the mighty influence of the glorious Spirit of the living God.
Beloved Friends, the vital distinction between the man of God and the man of the world is this: the man of God knows the Holy Spirit, for He is with him and dwells in him. But the man of the world knows not the Holy Spirit. He may know His name, but he is not personally acquainted with that Glorious One, because he sees Him not, neither knows Him. Mere outward distinctions, such as may be caused by Baptism or the participation of the Lord’s Supper, are nothing at all apart from the Holy Spirit.
Mere nominal distinctions, caused by wearing the name of “Christian,” or the name of Mohammedan, are just superficial, surface works. But if you know the Holy Spirit you are a new creature in Christ Jesus! You have passed from death unto life! You shall never come into condemnation. If you know not the Spirit, then you are carnal and sensual, and not having the Spirit you are dead in sin.
You have not the Spirit which quickens and the flesh can profit you nothing. Whatever you may have attained in depth of knowledge or in excellence of morality, or in boldness of profession—you have foolishly begun to build your house at the top instead of at the bottom! And your house, lacking a foundation, will fall to pieces—and all your building shall be but as the card house of little children, or the sand-built tower of the fool which falls in the day of the storm.
The great question which I want to raise in every heart this morning will be this: Do you know the Spirit of God? Does He dwell with you? Is He in you? If you have not the Spirit of Christ, you are none of His. But if the Spirit is in you, the body, indeed, is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. You are a living child of God if the Spirit of God dwells in you—without Him you are dead while you live.
In trying to show this morning, so far as our poor powers can show, what it is the Believer knows of the Holy Spirit, I shall first say that the Believer knows the Holy Spirit by virtue of His operations. Secondly, and better still, he knows the Holy Spirit by virtue of His personal indwelling. And, thirdly, that the Believer shall know the Holy Spirit yet better, for the text says, He “shall be in you.”
I. First, the Holy Spirit is known to Believers, and is with Believers THROUGH HIS OPERATIONS IN THEM AND UPON THEM. My Brothers and Sisters, we have seen the operations of the Holy Spirit in the Church at large. It was the Holy Spirit who at the very first formed the Church. It is He who called out the chosen ones, quickened them, made them living stones fit to be built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. It is He who binds these living stones together, for all Christian unity comes from Him as the Spirit of Peace, the Holy Dove proceeding from the Father.