VII.
Trying the Spirits
“Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.”
Those who have not the Holy Spirit, or who do not heed Him, fall easily and naturally into formalism, substituting lifeless ceremonies, sacraments, genuflections, and ritualistic performances for the free, glad, living worship inspired by the indwelling Spirit. They sing, but not from the heart. They say their prayers, but they do not really pray. “I prayed last night, mother,” said a child. “Why, my child, you pray every night!” replied the mother. “No,” said the child, “I only said prayers, but last night I really prayed.” And his face shone. He had opened his heart to the Holy Spirit, and had at last really talked with God and worshipped.
But those who receive the Holy Spirit may fall into fanaticism, unless they follow the command of John to “try the spirits, whether they are of God.”
We are commanded to “despise not prophesyings,” but at the same time we are commanded to “prove all things.” “Many false prophets are gone out into the world,” and, if possible, will lead us astray. So we must beware. As some one has written, we must “Believe not every spirit; regard not, trust not, follow not, every pretender to the Spirit of God, or every professor of vision, or inspiration, or revelation from God.”
The higher and more intense the life, the more carefully must it be guarded, lest it be endangered and go astray. It is so in the natural world, and likewise in the spiritual world.
When Satan can no longer rock people to sleep with religious lullabys, or satisfy them with the lifeless form, then he comes as an angel of light, probably in the person of some professor or teacher of religion, and seeks to usurp the place of the Holy Spirit; but instead of leading “into all truth,” he leads the unwary soul into deadly error; instead of directing him on to the highway of holiness, and into the path of perfect peace, where no ravenous beast ever comes, he leads him into a wilderness where the soul, stripped of its beautiful garments of salvation, is robbed and wounded and left to die, if some good Samaritan, with patient pity and Christlike love, come not that way.
1. When the Holy Spirit comes in His fullness, He strips men of their self-righteousness and pride and conceit. They see themselves as the chief of sinners, and realise that only through the stripes of Jesus are they healed; and ever after, as they live in the Spirit, their boast is in Him and their glory is in the cross. Remembering the hole of the pit from which they were digged, they are filled with tender pity for all who are out of the way; and, while they do not excuse or belittle sin, yet they are slow to believe evil, and their judgments are full of charity.
“Judge not; the workings of his brain
And of his heart thou canst not see:
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God’s pure light may only be
A scar, brought from some well-won field,
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.”