The One Great Reality

by Louisa Clayton

ADDRESS IV

THE SPIRIT OF GOD

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE—St. John iv. 1-26

God is a Spirit. Look at this poor woman standing at the well and let us try and realise what a wonderful revelation it was which Christ made known to her soul about God. He told her that God is Father, that God is Saviour, and that God is Spirit; three Persons but one God.

The Lord opened her heart and she grasped this wondrous truth.

Christ said to her, "God the Father is seeking you, He is longing for you to come to Him." Then He let her feel and see that He is the Saviour.

Was it not wonderful that she was the first to tell the good news that He is "the Saviour of the world"? [Footnote: St. John iv. 42.]

Christ said to her, "God is a Spirit," and she found that no one else but
God could touch her heart.

Until the Spirit of God comes into our hearts, we cannot really know God personally or have communion with Him. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 12.]

Although our hearts are so sinful the Holy Spirit is longing to come in. He found an entrance into the heart of this poor woman whose life was a wreck with its four great failures. Every life is a failure in God's sight, but we must never despair of any one, for "with God all things are possible," and as long as life lasts there is hope for the sinner.

"The Lord opened her heart," she heard and believed, and went home to tell others what a dear Saviour she had found. It was the beginning of a revival at Sychar, and every revival begins in the same way, God is revealed by His Spirit and men realise the nearness of God.

Until a man really finds out what God is, there can be no true spiritual worship. This is the truth Jesus came to make known to us when He says, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth," for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Yes, the Father is seeking us, yearning for us to come close to Him and to respond to His love for us. When our Lord tells us that we must worship in spirit, He means that it is the spirit in man which responds to the Spirit of God. Do you offer Him your heart's devotion and praise, or is it only lip-worship?

True spiritual worship does not depend on forms or ceremonies or on any special place or time. I felt the point of this when a railwayman said to me, "We can be in touch with God all the day long."

God is a Spirit, just as "God is Light." [Footnote: 1 John i. 5.] And there are no limitations as to where He works or His ways and time of working.

The Holy Spirit reveals to us far more about God than we ever imagined. The Bible says, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit." [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10.]

Until the Holy Spirit opens our blind eyes to see spiritual things we cannot understand them. It is not the words of man's wisdom which can explain them, we need to use spiritual words for spiritual truths, so we can only speak as the Holy Spirit teaches us what to say. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him," [Footnote: 1 Cor. ii. 14.] he does not grasp the meaning of them.

It is because God is a Spirit that he meets our spiritual need when we feel altogether helpless and hopeless in ourselves, for He says, "I will put My Spirit within you." [Footnote: Ezek. xxxvi. 27.] God begins in the very centre of our being, in our innermost hearts. God makes Himself known to us as God, through our spiritual necessities.

The Presence of the Holy Spirit is a personal thing in each one who receives Him. There is only one way by which we can receive the Holy Spirit, and that is by faith. The Holy Ghost has been given. Will you ask yourself, Have I received Him? If not, why not?

When God puts His Spirit into our hearts He abides with us for ever. He never leaves us. Even when we grieve Him by our coldness of heart, He does not leave us.

It is God who begins the work of grace in our hearts. The Book which reveals to us what God is, opens with the words, "In the Beginning, God." [Footnote: Gen. i. 1.] God is the Beginner of all things, not only of the creation of the world, but of the new creation in our souls. This Book unfolds to us how God begins and finishes the great work of redemption and salvation.

We find another marvellous beginning which is also unfolded in this Book. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." [Footnote: 1 Gen. i. 2.] It is a remarkable word; it means the Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters. In Genesis we read, "The Spirit of God was brooding," and in the Gospels we find the Spirit of God compared to a dove. The word "brooding" is a figure of the mother dove brooding over her nest and cherishing her young. The first time the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the Old Testament is in this verse, and the first emblem of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is in the 3rd chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, where it says that, after our Lord had been baptized, "The heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon Him." [Footnote: St. Matt. iii. 16.]

First let us look at the background of the picture. We see darkness and desolation, death and ruin. Then we see the Spirit of God, the Dove of peace, brooding over it all, and bringing light and life, love and peace out of the confusion.

So the two thoughts which are here brought to our minds are Motherhood and Peace. If you look carefully into the Word of God you will see how the thought of Motherhood is brought before us in many ways in connection with the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.

When Christ is speaking of the New Birth, He says we are "born of the Spirit." [Footnote: St. John iii. 6.] Again, when the cry of the new-born soul is spoken of, we are told how it comes; for Paul says, "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." [Footnote: Gal. iv. 6] Again there is the beautiful expression, "The Spirit of Adoption." "We have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 15.] "Abba" means "dear Father."

When God would reveal His heart of love to us He says, "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." [Footnote: Isa. lxvi. 13.] Think of a mother busy with her work, and her little one playing on the floor. Presently there is a cry, it has fallen down, and in a moment the mother is by its side to soothe it. But there is something sweeter still. Even if nothing befall the child the mother is near by to help it over every difficulty and to respond to every look and sign. Even so our God who is to us our Mother Comforter, says, "Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." [Footnote: Isa. lxv. 24]

The little child always turns to its mother for comfort in every trouble. There is one thing which we notice in every home, that is, the mother's tender love and constant care for her little one. Night and day her child is her one thought. So the Lord says of His people, "I the Lord do keep it, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." [Footnote: Isa. xxvii. 3.] Every child of God can say—

"Moment by moment I'm kept in His love."

Does the child need the mother's constant, watchful care? Yes, because everything around is like a new world to the little one, it is all a new experience. The mother gives herself up so entirely to the child that it depends on her for everything. In the same way when the soul is born again it is brought into a new relation to God, it has entered into a new experience and the Holy Spirit becomes to it just what the mother is to the child and much more.

Just as the mother trains the little one to take the first steps in walking and holds it up, so it is the Holy Spirit who teaches us how to walk and to please God. The little hand is slipped into mother's hand to be led and held up. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 14.]

The mother keeps the child close to her, so the Holy Spirit is the Comforter to us, by our side, for the word "Comforter" means, The one whom we call to our side to help us. Just as the mother tells her child what to say when it wants anything, so He helps us when we pray, "for we know not what we should pray for as we ought." [Footnote: Rom. viii. 26.]

"The Comforter is come." When did He come? On the day of Pentecost, for it was then that the Holy Spirit was poured out, and He has been with us ever since.

Let those words ring in your heart and in your life, "The Comforter is come." [Footnote: St. John xv. 26.] There is a beautiful hymn which illustrates the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. It begins with the words—

"Spirit Divine! attend our prayers,
And make our hearts Thy home."

Then four things are mentioned which show forth God's power in Nature.
Light, fire, dew, wind. In the Bible they are all used as symbols of the
Presence and Power of the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of men.

In Nature we know that human power is small compared with the power of light, fire, wind, and water. Have we learnt to depend only on the Power of the Holy Ghost? God's Voice is ever saying to us now, oh! that we may listen, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord." [Footnote: Zech. iv. 6.] Just as all the marvels of the natural world are perfectly carried out by God's wisdom and power, so He has given the Holy Spirit to make Him perfectly known as a living Presence, a living Power and Reality in our hearts and lives.

In the second verse of the hymn we find the words—

"Come as the Light—to us reveal
Our emptiness and woe."

We know what the light does when it shines into a room, It reveals or shows up any dust we had not noticed before. So when the light of God shines into our hearts it reveals what we never saw before.

Have you ever watched the battleships on a dark night, anchored a little way off from the coast? Suddenly the bright dazzling searchlights are sent out from the ship. They seem to sweep over the ocean with their sparkling light and then to wrap you round, as you stand there on the shore. The sight fills you with wonder; you feel as if the eyes of all on board ship can see you.

It is the same when the Holy Spirit shines into our hearts; it is almost overwhelming; we can only cry, "Woe is me, for I am undone." [Footnote: Isa. vi. 5.] We stand condemned under the searching eye of God. All our self-righteous excuses are swept away. We can no longer take refuge in the fact that we are as good as others and a great deal better than some of our neighbours. The dazzling light of God's Presence has searched us through and through and turned us inside out. Is this searching necessary for every one? Yes, for it is the only way we can learn to know the evil of our hearts.

Sometimes the light of the Holy Spirit comes to us in a quiet moment and shows us what we never saw before. Sometimes it comes like a flash. It flashed out on the road when Saul of Tarsus was on his way to Damascus. He described it when he was being tried before King Agrippa, "At midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me. And I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he tells us also that he could not see for the glory of that light." [Footnote: Acts xxvi. 13, xxii 17.] Whenever the light comes it is a revelation, a moment never to be forgotten: Darkness conceals, light reveals.

The Spirit of God brooded over the face of the waters, and God said, "Let there be light and there was light." [Footnote: Gen. i. 3.]

The Holy Spirit not only shows us what we are, but He shows Christ to us; then we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." [Footnote: 2 Cor. iv. 6.] Yes, God's glory is radiant on the face of Christ and the Holy Spirit reveals it. He delights to show us His beauty and His loveliness and thus to glorify Him. He makes Him a reality in our souls—"a living bright Reality." If you have not seen Him as "altogether lovely" it is not because the Holy Spirit is not willing to show Him to you, but because you turn away and will not look.

How good it is of God to send the Holy Spirit into this world on purpose to reveal these things to us. We should never see them but for Him. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." [Footnote: I Cor. ii. 14.] What is the natural man? It is what we are by nature before the Spirit of God gives us a new life. When it says "He receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," it means that he has no power to receive them. He is groping in the dark, loving the darkness rather than the light.

A poor woman who had led a careless worldly life, sent me this message when she was dying, "Tell her the little prayer she taught me has been answered. She will understand. Tell her God has shown me myself and He has shown me Himself, so I am going to be with Him."

The little prayer which she had learnt from my lips was this—"Lord, show me myself; Lord, show me Thyself." How I thanked God that He used it for the saving of her soul.

When the Holy Spirit convinces us of sin and of our need of a Saviour, He does not leave us there. He draws aside the veil and reveals to us the secret love of God. When our eyes have been opened to know that God is Light, then we find out that God is Love. How did this love of God show itself? God sent His Son, "In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." [Footnote: 1 John iv. 9.] It is not only the Love of God made known and shining out in the Gift of His Son, but we are told that "God commendeth His love towards us." [Footnote: Rom. v. 8.] How does God commend His love? He sets together His love for His Son and His love for the sinner, and His love for the sinner is so great that He gave His Son to die for us. Thus the words "God commendeth His love" make it quite clear that "God loves the sinner with a love which gives its best, gives everything, keeping nothing back, and gives to everybody."

"Oh, the love that gave Jesus to die,
The love that gave Jesus to die,
Praise God it is mine this love so Divine—
The love that gave Jesus to die."

"God commendeth His love towards us in that, when we were yet sinners," it makes no difference who we are or what we have been, the Holy Spirit fixes our thoughts on that little word "yet." The text says, "When we were yet sinners, still far off, still lost and undone, Christ died for us"; so the Blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, "cleanseth us from all sin." [Footnote: I John i. 7.] When we feel that sin is really a burden then the Holy Spirit points us to the little word "all." Then He applies the precious Blood to our guilty consciences, assuring us by the Word that the Blood of Jesus Christ does cleanse from all sin so that not a single stain is left. It is a perfect cleanser, there is nothing it cannot do. Then the Holy Spirit shows us that God has provided a perfect covering for us in the Robe of Christ's Righteousness.

It is thus that the Comforter, who is the Spirit of Truth, leading into all truth, shows us the meaning of Christ's redeeming work and enables us to understand it and to appropriate it. When we do this it is indeed a blessed experience.

A young man whom I know described it as follows: "I heard the voice of God saying to me, 'Who told thee that thou wast naked?' [Footnote: Gen. iii. 11.] I am sure that it was the work of the Holy Spirit showing me my utter helplessness and leading me to seek the covering of Christ's Righteousness. I feel I am exactly suited to Jesus as He is exactly suited to me, for I am just the one who needs His fulness, and He is the only one that can supply my emptiness."

I praised God for this clear testimony, and I have seen again and again ever since I began to work for the Lord many years ago, that the Holy Spirit delights to reveal the Lord Jesus Christ as "a full Saviour for empty sinners."

The Gospel of St. John tells us very plainly that the Holy Ghost was sent, not only to make us see the meaning of Christ's finished work, but also to prepare our hearts to receive it in all its fulness.

How does the Holy Spirit prepare our hearts? First, He opens our hearts, awakens in us a sense of our need and sinfulness, then, when He has opened our hearts, He breathes into them a new life; He creates a longing for God. We feel within us a burning desire to know God. We catch eagerly at everything we hear about God, This is quite a new experience; we used to go on year after year not troubling about it in the very least. What is this new experience, this seeking after God? It is what the Bible calls "Repentance." The word means "Change of mind." Again and again the Apostle Paul urged upon both Jews and Greeks the necessity of "repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ." [Footnote: Acts xx. 21.]

A few days ago I received a touching letter from a young friend telling me how God's Spirit had led her to repentance. She wrote, "When I was a little girl and began to seek the Lord, I was very much troubled because I could not feel sorry enough for my sins. I wanted a real repentance to come to the Lord with. I thought repentance meant crying over one's sins a great deal, and I could not feel sorry enough to cry as I wanted to. I used to keep praying, 'Give me a real repentance.' Many times I dreamed I had this deep repentance and could cry over my sins, and I have awakened with my face really bathed in tears, but oh, how disappointing it was to find it only a dream and I had not got what I wanted after all. I went on like this until I was twenty, when the Lord spoke these words with great power to my soul, 'The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.' The voice seemed audible and I turned to see if anybody had spoken to me. I was able to weep enough then, but they were tears of joy and gratitude, and I well remember saying aloud, 'O Lord, why me, why one so sinful as I am?' I now see that repentance means 'a change of mind' and not a flood of tears. Had I known this when a child it would have saved me years of toiling and praying for repentance."

Dear friends, perhaps some of you are trying to get right with God. Look at the text which gave such peace to this seeking one. It begins with this question, "Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" [Footnote: Rom. ii. 4.]

We little know that all the time we are working and toiling we are really despising, turning away from the riches of His goodness. The word "riches" shows how abundant His goodness is; therefore we are "without excuse."

God's forbearance in delaying punishment, and His longsuffering in patiently waiting, show that His purpose in thus dealing with us is to lead us to repentance, which is not merely grief for sin, but a thorough inward change.

So we now know what we did not know before, that it is "the goodness of
God that leads us to repentance."

Yes, we find now that instead of working our way, back to God, He is there close to us, with open arms to receive us, stretching out His loving Hand to save us. We find that instead of trying to gain God's favour by our prayers and good works, God's Righteousness is there for us all ready and provided for us. We find that we are accepted in His dear Son not for any good thing we have done, but simply by faith in Jesus. All this is shown to us by the Holy Spirit, and without Him we could not have seen it.

We were speaking just now about repentance. Have you ever noticed that when our Lord began preaching the Gospel, the first word He said was "Repent." [Footnote: St. Matt. iv. 17.] Why did He call to the crowds so earnestly to repent? Again and again that word keeps ringing out. He wanted to make them see that He condemned the way they were living and their religious professions. It was a call to stop and think, as if He said to them, "You have lost your way, you are on the wrong road, stop and turn round."

First He points to the right road. He proclaims that the Kingdom of God is come. Then He says to them, But before you can enter in you must repent. The people recognised the meaning of the call; they knew that if they obeyed the whole course of their lives would have to be changed, because having lost the true centre of life, they were simply drifting. The man who is living without God is like a ship drifting on the wide ocean without a pilot or chart or compass. For three years He pleaded with them tenderly and lovingly, and at last they gave their final answer to His message. They said, "We will not submit to the Divine government, we will not have this Man to reign over us," [Footnote: St. Luke xix. 14.] and so they crucified Him.

When we have been led by the Holy Spirit to repentance we see sin, and we see ourselves in a new light. As soon as we really know God we cannot help being sorry for our sin. We begin to long for a Saviour, a Mediator, and it is then that the Holy Spirit points us to Jesus. Repentance, or change of mind, is the first step, and then follows conversion—a change of heart and life. The word conversion means "turning round." Jesus says, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." [Footnote: St. Matt. xviii. 3.]

Think of God's two great gifts; first, the Gift of His only begotten Son, then the Gift of the Holy Spirit. Have you received them? Perhaps you ask, "How can I know?" If you have received the Holy Spirit there will be joy and peace in your heart, and the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in your daily life.

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." [Footnote: Rom. xv. 13.]

"And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost." [Footnote: Acts xiii. 52.] They were filled again and again, more and more filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

You, too, may have a Spirit-filled life. God says to you now, and He is saying it every day and every hour, "Be filled with the Spirit." [Footnote: Eph. v. 18.]

Remember there are different degrees in the Christian life. First, there is Everlasting Life for all who seek it. Only ask Me, Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, and I will give you living water. Then he leads her on a step further. "It shall be in you a well of water." It will be an abundant life, a joyous, satisfying life. Afterwards He tells us that it will be a life "overflowing for others." [Footnote: St. John vii. 38, 39.] This is to be the experience of all believers now through the Holy Spirit. Lastly, the crowning of it all is still to come and we shall drink of "the pure river of the Water of Life." [Footnote: Rev. xxi. 1.] That will be the fulness of life through all Eternity.