Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3353
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you.” John 14:26.
THE Savior, when He departed from this world, provided for all the needs of His people, not so much by giving them divers benefits, but by promising them the Presence of a gracious Person who should supply them all that their spiritual needs might demand. I trust there are many of us who know in some degree the value of the promise, “I will send the Comforter unto you,” and that we know that when that Comforter comes, He brings us all good things. We have not to look in one place for quickening and in another place for comfort, in another for instruction and in a fourth for illumination. But when we receive the Spirit, we have all things in one! I may say of Him, as of Jesus Christ, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” In Jesus it dwelt in a real human Nature, physical as well as spiritual, but in the Holy Spirit we have the same fullness of Deity, but He comes in and dwells—resides—in His people!
Our Savior here directs us to one particular blessing, which the coming of the Holy Spirit would bring us, namely, that of Divine Instruction. In endeavoring to enter in some measure into the text, tonight—too briefly to enter into it fully—we shall, first of all remark that the text suggests to us—
I. The Value of All that Jesus Christ Has Spoken
For He tells us that the Holy Spirit shall “bring to our remembrance all things whatever He has said unto us.”
When the Savior was with His disciples, it is very possible that many of His choice sayings fell to the ground for lack of attention on their part They did not, perhaps, know that every word of His had a fullness in it that should have been treasured up by them as priceless. But now He tells them that it shall be the Holy Spirit’s office to teach them all such Truth and to bring all their meanings to their remembrance. Brothers and Sisters, there is a great danger nowadays in not attaching sufficient importance to the teaching of Scripture. You will sometimes hear persons speak very disparagingly of doctrinal Truth and others will smile at anything like dispensational Truth. Some are inclined to throw experimental teaching in the background and some few speak very sadly about the practical Truth of God. But our Lord here speaks of “all things whatever I have said unto you,” and He also speaks of the Spirit teaching us “all things.” We may, therefore, believe that every Truth of God that is revealed in Scripture has its proper place and its importance. And we may gather this from the fact that Christ has taken the trouble to speak it We do not believe that He has uttered one foolish word—no more—not one useless word, for in the whole compass of His teaching there is not to be found a single passage which should have been left unsaid. There may be repetitions, but there are no redundancies. He may have taught the same Truth in several shapes, but He has never taught it once too often. He has never revealed a Truth which it were better to conceal, just as He has never concealed a truth which it would have been better to reveal. If my Lord has taught anything, it must be worth my while to learn it! If Christ lifts the veil, it is my privilege to look—and what He manifests to me I ought not to be slow to gaze upon.
Moreover, Brothers and Sisters, in addition to the importance which must attach to these things because Christ has spoken them, there is this—that He now sends the Holy Spirit to teach them to us. If you say that any one part of the Truth of God is unimportant, you do as good as say that to that extent the Holy Spirit has come upon an unimportant or valueless mission! You perceive it is declared that He is to teach us “all things,” but if some of these “all things” are really of such minor importance and so quite non-essential, then surely it is not worth while disturbing our minds with them.
And so to that degree, at any rate, we accuse the Holy Spirit of having come to do what is not necessary to be done! And I trust that our minds recoil with holy repulsion from such a half-blasphemy as that. Beloved Brothers and Sisters, He teaches us “all things,” because it is necessary for us to learn all things—and so He comes to bring to our remembrance not part, but, in turn, the whole of our Lord’s wondrous teaching! That teaching is essential to our knowledge of Divine things, to our comfort and progress in spiritual things—that remembrance is part of our soul’s discipline and advance.