Chapter 6
His Indwelling
The rejection of the Holy Ghost is fatal to Christian experiences.
The greatest sin in past history was the rejection of Jesus Christ by the church under the old dispensation. Often our minds have been amazed and our hearts have shuddered as we have read: “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” We have marveled at the stupidity and hardness of the Jews, who looked into the face of Jesus of Nazareth, heard His words, beheld His miracles, and yet ridiculed and rejected Him.
Reader, think you that those ancient Jews were sinners above all men? I tell you they were not, and without doubt those members of the Christian Church under the new dispensation who reject the Holy Ghost, will commit even more grievous and fatal sin than that committed by the Jews in rejecting Christ. In proportion as our light is greater than was theirs, our sin will be more inexcusable than theirs. In the final day of judgment I would as soon stand there an ancient Jew who rejected Jesus, as to stand there a modern Gentile who rejected the Holy Ghost. In fact, to reject the Holy Ghost is to reject the Father and the Son, also. To come to the actual truth, those Jews who really had the Father, did not reject the Son, but, like Simeon and Nathaniel, they recognized and worshipped Him.
So it is with those who really have the forgiveness of their sins and true fellowship with Jesus Christ. They will, if properly instructed, gladly receive the Holy Ghost for whom the Son prayed, and whom the Father hath sent to all those who believe in and love His Son.
All the preliminary steps in grace, all the elementary blessings in Christian experience, are the preparation of the soul for the reception of the Holy Ghost. It is fitting up and preparing the temple for His dwelling place. The reception of God in the third person of the Trinity into the soul is a climax in the history of personal redemption. It is a sealing of the heart for eternal glory. It is the reception of the Sanctifier, Comforter, Revealer, Teacher and Guide, sent by the Father in answer to the prayer of His Son to cleanse, sanctify, and keep His followers from the evil one, and by His incoming, and abiding to prepare them for residence in the New Jerusalem.
The willful and final rejection of the Holy Ghost would prove destructive and fatal to all Christian experience.
“I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord having saved the people out of the ‘land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.” — Jude.
The grace that one receives at justification does not justify that one in the rejection of the additional grace to be bestowed in the development and perfection of experience, and Christian character, but it obligates the soul thus justified to go forward searching out, seeking after, and submitting to all the will of God.
“Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Heb. 10:38.
Reader, there comes a time in the history of every justified believer, when the Father will answer the prayer of the Son, and send to that believer the Comforter. The Holy Ghost is the promise of the Father, and the promise of the Father shall not fail. He will come suddenly into His temple. Woe will be to the soul that rejects Him when He comes.
God is longsuffering. Patiently He will wait, earnestly will He entreat; the Spirit will knock again and again for admittance and full control of the believer’s heart, but God has said: “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” Repeatedly rejected, He will finally take His departure to return no more. Then the poor soul will find its house desolate indeed. Having rejected Comforter, Guide, Cleanser, Empowerer and Teacher, its condition is sad to contemplate.
The last person in the Trinity has come, been trifled with, rejected, grieved, and has finally taken His departure from those who would not receive Him in His sanctifying and indwelling power.
The last state of such a soul is worse than the first. May God in mercy help the reader of these pages now to make so complete a consecration. and to exercise so strong a faith, that the Holy Ghost, in His sanctifying and keeping power may enter into his or her heart in all His blessed fullness, and never hence depart.