Include in the vision the words of Christ. His declarations and commands before leaving the world contemplate the universal diffusion of His salvation. And we must include His work. The expenditure will bear some relation to the result. It cost the death of the incarnate Son of God. That the event is long delayed proves nothing when we remember how long the world had to wait for His coming.

III. Its condition. The moral desolation will continue until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high. The Gospel only saves as the Spirit makes it efficacious. The human heart and will are opposed to the entrance of the truth. Not only evidence but influence is required. It is essentially a spiritual work, and only the Holy Spirit is equal to it. It is a work in hearts opposed to God, and His power can alone produce the willingness which is the very essence of the saving change. Every time we pray for the conversion of sinners and for the coming of God’s kingdom, we practically acknowledge the necessity of the Spirit’s work. The universal necessity is the necessity of the individual case. The world’s conversion is pictured out in the conversion of every sinner. The power of the Spirit is the security for the fulfilment of the Word (Joel ii. 28–32; Acts ii. 17–21; Ezek. xxxvii. 1–14; John iii. 6–8; 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5, iii. 6, 7).

From the text, then, we may learn two or three lessons relative to the work of Christ’s Church in the world.

1. That all such work should be conducted in humble dependence on the Holy Spirit. Such dependence does not supersede labour, any more than the consciousness that the sun and the air and other mysterious influences of nature are necessary, supersedes the husbandman’s labour.

2. That it should be conducted in a spirit of prayer for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Whatever God promises to His Church, it is warranted to ask in prayer. Prayer is the condition, on the Church’s part, on which the promise is suspended. In that wonderful passage of Ezekiel where the Spirit is promised in His cleansing and renewing power, the condition is expressly named (Ezek. xxxvi. 37). While the hundred and twenty disciples were gathered together praying, the Holy Ghost fell upon them. How often does the great missionary apostle ask those who have been brought to Christ to pray for him in his continued work among those who have not.

3. That all Christian effort should be conducted, therefore, in expectation of the outpouring of the Spirit. Do we not dishonour Him, when we fail to believe in the Spirit’s work as a living reality—when we do not expect prayerful work for Christ to be followed by proportionate success! “Until the Spirt be poured upon us from on high,” all is desolation; when the Spirit shall be poured upon us from on high, all shall be beauty.—John Rawlinson.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Brainerd, Schwartz, and Eliot, and those who in every age have had the most success in turning men to righteousness, have been the first to declare that they were nothing. They, of all men, most ardently implored, and most entirely depended upon, the agency we are now contemplating; and their success appears to have been more in proportion to their earnest solicitude in seeking this blessing, than to any other cause.—Hall.

[2] Look at the history of those who have been the most successful missionaries to the heathen, and see whether you cannot trace certain results for which you cannot account on any other hypothesis than that most momentous one of a Divine influence, at certain periods, accompanying their labours. In the history of Brainerd and Eliot, and others, you perceive that for a considerable time there seem to have been the same efforts employed, the same doctrines taught, the same earnest and zealous prayers, and the same watchfulness over their own hearts, and yet no saving effect produced on others: all still remained barren; no desirable movement of the heart was excited; and this continued for a long period. Such was the state of things when Brainerd first undertook the mission to the Indians; but, after a considerable time, while he was propounding only the same doctrines, and using only the same means, the Spirit of God put forth its energy, and Divine communication was imparted at one season “like a rushing, mighty wind,” at others “like the dew and the rain from heaven,” softening and thus opening the heart which had resisted the entrance of sacred truth, and causing the tear of genuine penitence to steal down the cheek. Nobody could doubt that there was some one greater than a missionary there;—that the Spirit of God had changed the barren soil to sacred ground, and had wetted it, “like Gideon’s fleece, with the dews of heaven.” And so it is, my brethren, that every person who has had any long acquaintance with the Christian ministry, is aware that there are certain periods of barrenness and certain periods for bearing fruit. The same talents, whether great or small, may be brought into action; but there shall be some seasons in which efforts, in no way special, shall be crowned with extraordinary success.—Hall.

[3] Were it the design of God merely to build a foundation already laid, or to repair a dilapidated edifice, one might talk of the efficacy of human suasion; but when that which is to be done is to create a new principle, to pour new life into the soul, to give “a new heart,” to plant new seeds in a soil where all has been barrenness and desolation, to turn waters into new channels, to effect a total change of heart and character,—what can accomplish all this but an almighty power? Human suasion can operate only on principles which already exist. When Demosthenes, with his powerful eloquence, excited the Athenians to combat, he only called into action, by a skilful grouping of motives, and an appropriate exercise of his genius, principles already existing, but which had lain dormant. He created nothing new; he transformed them not into new creatures, but only roused and stimulated those principles which had animated the bosoms of nations in resisting tyranny in every age. But when the apostles went forth to preach faith in Christ, they proposed to make a change in the mind and heart of man to which there was no natural tendency; they required a creature "dead in trespasses and sins" to awake to Christ; they proposed to convert him into a devoted servant, a subject most loyal, affectionate, and ardent; and how was it possible that mere human art or force could accomplish such changes as these?