1940 Bible Studies - page 167

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REMARKS.

The Spirit that wrought in creation continues to create, and to renew the earth in each returning year.

" Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created ;

And Thou renewest the face of the ground " (Psalm 104. 30).

God’s Spirit strove with the men before the Flood -- " My Spirit shall not strive with men for ever " (Genesis 6. 3). He who strove then continues to strive and will do to the last to bring men to think and to act aright.  To this end He has used men even as He used Noah, a preacher of righteousness.  Elijah though a man of like passions with us (and God sees fit to say so, because of the unique character of the man) yet by the use the Spirit of God made of him his life is one of the strangest in the Old Testament.  He stood out as empowered by the Spirit against the whole apostacy of the northern kingdom, and shook the power of Baal in Israel.  When he was about to be taken to heaven in a whirlwind Elisha asked for a double portion (a firstborn’s portion)

of His Spirit (which was the Holy Spirit), and though he asked a hard thing it was granted to him, so that the sons of the prophets said, " The Spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha, " for with Elijah’s mantle he smote and divided the waters of the Jordan.  In the power of the Spirit Elisha carried on Elijah’s work in Israel.  Even when he was dead the peculiar power of a Spirit-filled man had not left his bones, for when a dead man was cast into Elisha’s sepulchre and touched his bones he revived (2 Kings 13. 21).

Whilst the Old Testament is replete with reference to the Holy Spirit, in this dispensation the Holy Spirit’s work has a very conspicuous place.  No confession can be made of Christ or testimony borne to His

blessed Name, but in the Holy Spirit’s power.  The Apostle’s were commanded : " Tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high " (Luke 24. 49).  "But ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you : and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth " (Acts 1. 8).  This was the power which lay behind the marvellous work of those early days and what is needed still for God’s work is Spirit-filled men.  Men with an inspired message, and their spirit on fire by the power of Him who came in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, are needed in our day.  Even the foolish things of this world may become veritable sages by the Spirit’s work, and the tongue of the illiterate may as touched by the Spirit become God’s channel of feeding many, many souls.  The Spirit’s message is warm and living ;

it is one of tenderness and love.  It touches the heart, illuminates the mind ; it touches the secret springs of emotion in the human breast and draws men to Christ by a sweet persuasiveness with which nothing on earth can compare.  Let not these studies pass merely as a matter of doctrine, merely as a matter of having a clear understanding of the Spirit’s work in others and other times ; let us each learn of the Spirit’s work in our own heart and in our own day.  Then a movement will begin -- a Divine movement, the end of which no one can imagine or foretell, for Divine movement begins in human hearts somewhere and at some time.

J.

M.