More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Spirit is as real as matter, but it is another mode of being than matter.
Matter is one mode of being; spirit is another mode of being as authentic as matter.
A mind can be penetrated by thought, and the air can be penetrated by light, and material things and mental things, and even spiritual things, can be penetrated by spirit.
He is a Person. Put that down in capital letters—that the Holy Spirit is not only a Being having another mode of existence, but He is Himself a Person, with all the qualities and powers of personality. He is not matter, but He is substance.
But the Holy Spirit has will and intelligence and feeling and knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire the same as any person has.
I quote the creeds, but I preach them only so far as they summarize the teachings of the Bible on a given subject.
It says, “through the eternal Spirit” (Hebrews 9:14), and every theologian knows that eternity is an attribute of no creature which deity has ever formed.
what you don’t believe strongly enough to teach doesn’t do you any good.
I am praying that God may be able to melt away the ice from this blessed truth, and let it spring up alive again, that the Church and the people who hear may get some good out of it and not merely say, “I believe” while it is buried under the snow of inactivity and non-attention.
you can know what the Spirit is like by knowing what Jesus is like.
Nobody ever had to be afraid of Jesus, because He is the epitome of love, kindliness, geniality, warm attractiveness and sweetness.
The period of the promise extends from John the Baptist, roughly, to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.
Then our Lord rose from the dead and we have what we call the period of the preparation.
The period of realization came upon them when the Father fulfilled His promise and sent the Spirit.
You can go down the corridors of history, and you can adduce proof of the divinity of the Church from what the Church has done. You can show how she brought civilization here and she brought help there. She cleaned up saloons in this town, and she delivered this young fellow from drink. We say that must be God. But that is external proof and it depends upon logic.
The Holy Spirit came to carry the evidence of Christianity from the books of apologetics into the human heart, and that is exactly what He does.
God took religion from the realm of the external and made it internal.
You might satisfy the intellects of men by external evidences, and Christ did, I say, point to external evidence when He was here on earth.
But He said, “I am sending you something better. I am taking Christian apologetics out of the realm of logic and putting it into the realm of life. I am proving My deity, and My proof will not be an appeal to a general or a prime minister. The proof lies in an invisible, unseen but powerful energy that visits the human soul when the gospel is preached—the Holy Ghost!”
That, incidentally, is why this humble pulpit is never open to a man who wants to prove Christianity by means of appeal to external evidence. You can’t do it to begin with, and I wouldn’t do it to end with.
see whether that which our Lord gave us reason to think could be the possession of the Church may not be ours in actual fulfillment and realization.
Before you are filled with the Holy Spirit you must be sure that you can be filled.
The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.
He is only the essence of Jesus imparted to believers.
you must be convinced to a point where you won’t try to persuade God.
Remember, fear is of the flesh and panic is of the devil.
That Spirit, if He ever possess you, will be the Lord of your life!
Do you want to hand the keys of your soul over to the Holy Spirit and say, “Lord, from now on I don’t even have a key to my own house. I come and go as Thou tellest me”?
You can no more have the Holy Ghost and have self-love than you can have
Are you sure you need Him?
How to receive Him
First, present your body to Him (Romans 12:1–2).
the second thing is to ask (Luke 11:9–13),
Acts 5:32 tells us the third thing to do. God gives His Holy Spirit to them that obey Him.
next thing is, have faith (Galatians 3:2). We receive Him by faith as we receive the Lord in salvation by faith.
Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Amos 3:3
for two to walk together voluntarily they must be, in some sense, one.
You want Christianity for its insurance value.
Whenever the Word of God hits us, it disturbs us. So don’t be disturbed by the disturbance. Remember that it is quite normal. God has to jar us loose.
Honoring Jesus Christ is doing the things which Jesus told you to do, trusting Him as your All, following Him as your Shepherd, and obeying Him fully.
To glorify Jesus is the business of the Church, and to glorify Jesus is the work of the Holy Ghost.
for how can two walk together except they be agreed?
To God, our thoughts are things. Our thoughts are the decorations inside the sanctuary where we live.
