Homilist Isaiah 32:15-17 Until the spirit be poured on us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.… Whoever has paid any serious attention to religion must be convinced of his natural weakness and inability to fulfil even his own wishes and resolutions. It is to meet this undoubted fact of man's natural inability to do the will of God that the Divine influence of the Holy Spirit was arranged and promised. I. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT IN THE PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL. The Bible shows us our dependence on God as Creator, Preserver, and Lord. 1. On the first page we find the creation, with all its wonders, recorded. "The earth was without form, and void." But the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, and forthwith light and order proceeded, life appeared, the heavens and the earth, and all was very good. 2. Sin came and devastated the social world. The evil spirit of temptation was at work. 3. During the times of the prophets the limited range of the Spirit was felt and more favoured days proclaimed. 4. These promises were revived in the words of Christ, who more particularly entered into the offices and working of the Holy Ghost and its influence on the future Church as well as on the individual lives of Christians. On Him also the Spirit descended in a bodily form. He gives definite promises of the particular gift — promises which the disciples did not rightly apprehend. 5. In subsequent history all was made plain and clear. On the day of Pentecost was the great promise fully realised. 6. The apostles, in all their writings, enter fully into its power and influence. Do the converts need wisdom? The Father will give the Spirit of wisdom. Or, deliverance from corruption? The Spirit works in them to "will and to do" the good pleasure. The distinguishing marks of a Christian are that he "walks after the Spirit"; is "spiritually minded"; that the Spirit dwells in a man as a Spirit of adoption, confidence, and love; while the apostle glories in tribulation "because of the Holy Ghost," and prays that the disciples may be "filled with hope" by the power of the Holy Ghost. Thus we see the nature and office of the Spirit. II. ITS PRACTICAL APPLICATION TO OURSELVES. All persons are divided into two classes. 1. Those who have no adequate apprehension of the nature or value of divine things. "The natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are foolishness unto him." They are therefore ignorant for want of spiritual illumination. "But," continues the apostle, "God hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." This reveals to us the knowledge of ourselves as ruined and lost. 2. But as there may be light without heat, so there may be knowledge without practice. The Word of God may be received with joy, but it may not take root in the soul. It is the glory of the Gospel that it not only inculcates what is right, but gives strength to perform it: it teaches what is evil, and helps to subdue that evil. All this is wrought by the Holy Ghost. (Homilist.) Parallel Verses KJV: Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. |
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