The next chapter shifts the scene to Damascus. A man unknown save for this incident is sent as God's messenger to Saul. As he lays his hand upon this chosen man and speaks the light-giving words he instinctively adds, "and be filled with the Holy Spirit." That is not recorded as a part of what he had been told to do. But plainly this humble man of God believes that that is the essential element in Saul's preparation for his great work.
In the tenth chapter the Holy Spirit's action with Cornelius completely upsets the life-long, rock-rooted ideas of these intensely national, and intensely exclusive Jews. Yet it is accepted as final.
With what quaint simplicity does the thirteenth chapter tell of the Holy Spirit's initiation of those great missionary journeys of Paul from the new center of world evangelization? "the Holy Spirit said, etc." And how like it is the language of James in delivering the judgment of the first church council:—"it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us."
Paul's conviction is very plain from numerous references in those wonderful heart-searching and heart-revealing letters of his. But one instance in this Book of Acts will serve as a fair illustration of his teaching and habit. It is in the nineteenth chapter. In his travels he has come as far as to Ephesus, and finds there a small company of earnest disciples. They are strangers to him. He longs to help them, but must first find their need. At once he puts a question to them. A question may be a great revealer. This one reveals his own conception of what must be the pivotal experience of every true follower of Jesus. He asks: "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?"
But they had been poorly instructed, like many others since, and were not clear just what he meant. They had received the baptism of John—a baptism of repentance; but not the baptism of Jesus—a baptism of power. And Paul at once gives himself up to instructing and then praying with them until the promised gift is graciously bestowed. That is the last we hear of those twelve persons. Some of them may have been women. Some may have come to be leaders in that great Ephesian Church. But of that nothing is said. The emphasis remains on the fact that in Paul's mind because they were followers of the Lord Jesus they must have this empowering experience of the Holy Spirit's infilling.
Plainly in this Book of Acts the pivot on which all else rests and turns is the unhindered presence of the Holy Spirit.
Five Essentials.
If you will stop a while to think into it you will find that a rightly rounded christian life has five essential characteristics. I mean essential in the same sense as that light is an essential to the eye. The eye's seeing depends wholly on light. If it does not see light, by and by, it cannot see light. The ear that hears no sound loses the power to hear sound. Light is essential to the healthful eye: sound to the ear: air to the lungs: blood to the heart. Just as really are these five things essential to a strong healthful christian life.
The second of these is a heart-love for the old Book of God. Not reading it as a duty—taking a chapter at night because you feel you must. I do not mean that just now. But reading it because you love to; as you would a love letter or a letter from home. Thinking about it as the writer of the one hundred and nineteenth psalm did. Listen to him for a moment in that one psalm, talking about this book: "I delight," "I will delight," "My delight"—in all nine times. "I love," "Oh! how I love," "I do love," "Consider how I love," "I love exceedingly," again nine times in all. "I have longed," "My eyes fail," "My soul breaketh," speaking of the intensity of his desire to get alone with the book. "Sweeter than honey," "As great spoil," "As much as all riches," "Better than thousands of gold," "Above gold, yea, above fine gold." And all that packed into less than two leaves. Do you love this Book like that? Would you like to? Wait a moment.
The third essential is right habits of prayer. Living a veritable life of prayer. Making prayer the chief part not alone of your life, but of your service. Having answers to prayer as a constant experience. Being like the young man in a conference in India, who said, "I used to pray three times a day: Now I pray only once a day, and that is all day." Feet busy all the day, hands ceaselessly active, head full of matters of business, but the heart never out of communication with Him. Has prayer become to you like that? Would you have it so? Wait a moment.