When the Holy Ghost is Come | Page 5

the day of
Pentecost, if they did not know Him? Immediately after the fiery
baptism, with its blessed filling, Peter stood before the people, and said:
"This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel: And it shall come
to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out My Spirit upon all
flesh"; then he exhorted the people and assured them that if they would
meet certain simple conditions they should "receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost." He said to Ananias, "Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to
the Holy Ghost?" He declared to the High Priest and Council that he
and his fellow-Apostles were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus: and
added, "And so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them
that obey Him." Without any apology or explanation, or "think so" or
"hope so," they speak of being "filled" (not simply with some new,
strange experience or emotion, but) "with the Holy Ghost." Certainly
they must have known Him. And if they knew Him, may not we?
Paul says: "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. Which things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth" (I Cor. ii.
12, 13). And if we know the words, may we not know the Teacher of
the words?

John Wesley says:--
"The knowledge of the Three-One God is interwoven with all true
Christian faith, with all vital religion. I do not say," he adds, "that every
real Christian can say, with the Marquis de Renty, 'I bear about with me
continually an experimental verity, and a fullness of the
ever-blessed'Trinity. I apprehend that this is not the experience of
"babes," but rather "fathers in Christ."' But I know not how anyone can
be a Christian believer till he 'hath the witness in himself,' till 'the Spirit
of God witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God'; that is, in
effect, till God the Holy Ghost witnesses that God the Father has
accepted him through the merits of God the Son.
"Not that every Christian believer adverts to this; perhaps, at first, not
one in twenty; but, if you ask them a few questions, you will easily find
it is implied in what he believes."
I shall never forget my joy, mingled with awe and wonder, when this
dawned upon my consciousness. For several weeks I had been
searching the Scriptures, ransacking my heart, humbling my soul, and
crying to God almost day and night for a pure heart and the baptism
with the Holy Ghost, when one glad, sweet day (it was January 9th,
1885) this text suddenly opened to my understanding: "If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness"; and I was enabled to believe without any
doubt that the precious blood cleansed my heart, even mine, from all
sin. Shortly after that, while reading these words of Jesus to Martha: "I
am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on Me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on Me
shall never die," instantly my heart was melted like wax before fire;
Jesus Christ was revealed to my spiritual consciousness, revealed in me,
and my soul was filled with unutterable love. I walked in a heaven of
love. Then one day, with amazement, I said to a friend: "This is the
perfect love about which the Apostle John wrote; but it is beyond all I
dreamed of; in it is personality; this love thinks, wills, talks with me,
corrects me, instructs and teaches me." And then I knew that God the
Holy Ghost was in this love, and that this love was God, for "God is
love."
Oh, the rapture mingled with reverential, holy fear--for it is a rapturous,
yet divinely fearful thing--to be indwelt by the Holy Ghost, to be a

temple of the Living God! Great heights are always opposite great
depths, and from the heights of this blessed experience many have
plunged into the dark depths of fanaticism. But we must not draw back
from the experience through fear. All danger will be avoided by
meekness and lowliness of heart; by humble, faithful service; by
esteeming others better than ourselves, and in honour preferring them
before ourselves; by keeping an open, teachable spirit; in a word, by
looking steadily unto Jesus, to whom the Holy Spirit continually points
us: for He would not have us fix our attention exclusively upon Himself
and His work in us, but also