ADVANTAGES OF THE SPIRITS PRESENCE.

• Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart I will send him unto you. St. John 16, 7-8.

This promise, that it would be better for the disciples for Jesus to go away, was given by Jesus himself to his disciples and by them to all the believers for all time.

This text was spoken to men and women who were Christians. They were already regenerated. Their names were written in Heaven. Jesus himself had chosen them and commissioned them to go and bing forth fruit, and now, when he was about to leave them, He said it would be better for them, for Him to go away. They would secure advantages by the indwelling of the Spirit that could not be secured by the visible presence of Jesus Himself.

Let us study to-day some of the advantages that the disciples had by Jesus going away from them, and if they received benefits by his absence, we may also be profited, and will appreciate the Spirit's presence and work as I fear many of us are not appreciating now.

We must predicate these benefits on the character of Jesus Himself, and not on our feelings or desires, for we know very well that Jesus would not do anything and would not go anywhere that would not be best for the world that he had come to save, and especially for those who had received him as their Lord and Master.

1. The disciples understood more perfectly what the Kingdom of God was, after Jesus went away and the Spirit came to them. Before he left them they had vague and limited notions about the kingdom. They were not willing for Jesus to suffer. They wanted temporal honor, and even the day he left them they asked Him if He would “at this time restore the Kingdom of Israel."

The office of the Spirit is to take the things of Jesus and show them to the disciples, and to glorify Jesus. When the surgeon removes the film from the eye, he does not add a new function to the eye, but simply clarifies the vision. So the Spirit removes the film or the vail from the soul that a clear view of the Kingdom of Heaven may be obtained.

When the telescope shows you many new worlds it does not make a single new star, but simply brings out the hidden ones that you may enjoy their beauty and glory.

There is a native darkness in the soul that no amount of learning can dispel, and though we should talk with Jesus in the flesh it would not be dispelled. When the Spirit came to Peter then all his uncertainty about the Kingdom of God was gone, and he taught the old Testament truth in such a clearness that all the people were pricked in their hearts and said, “What must we do to be saved?” Then the whole church became missionaries. We are pressing the thought that information about the heathen will send missionaries to the foreign fields, but it is the Holy Spirit who makes missionaries. The early church were all missionaries, when they were scattered abroad, they went everywhere preaching the Word.

The Moravian church has more missionaries in the foreign fields than preachers in the home church, and more members in the foreign field than in the home fields. It is not knowledge, that makes missionaries, it is the Spirit.

2. The disciples had more assurance of Spiritual life by the Spirit's indwelling than by the personal, visible presence of Jesus. The Bible wants us to know, not merely to think we are Christians. It is not the purpose of the Book that we should rest with a perhaps or a guess in religious matters. Jesus says, “My sheep know my voice.” ‘‘In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father and ye in Me and I in you.” We know whom we have believed, we know we have passed from death unto life.

Before Pentecost the Disciples were uncertain about their relation to Jesus, but afterwards they were fully assured of His Deity and of their being the sons and daughters of God. They knew Jesus was Lord just as well as if they had lived with Him ten thousand years. They were surer that the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed them from all sin than they were that two and two made four. James and Jude, brothers of Jesus, did not believe in Him before the crucifixion, but after Pentecost they knew Him as Lord so well that the brotherhood sank into insignificance, and they subscribed themselves as servants of the Lord. James was a brother of Jesus but he begins his Epistle saying, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and Jude begins his letter with, “Jude, a brother of James, and the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

3. They had absolute certainty in God's daily providences. While Jesus was with them they were not certain about an overruling providence. They thought many times “that all these things were against them,” while God was working out his great plan of Redemption through them. Before Pentecost they were afraid of storms and winds and wars and Pharisees and enemies, but afterwards they “took joyfully the spoiling of their goods/’ They counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. They went away from the whipping post leaping and shouting that they were worthy to suffer shame. In lonely prisons they spent their time in prayer and praising God.

Every Christian believes in special providences, but he sees them for other people, or for himself after they are all over. But the Holy Spirit takes the present providences and illuminates them so that we know at the time that all things are working together for good. We know that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father and that all the hairs of our heads are numbered.

So many people walk in uncertainties, in quagmires and bogs, but when the Holy Spirit comes to them the uncertainties of a lifetime are all gone, and under their feet is the solid pavement of adamant. They know whom they have believed and are persuaded that he is able to keep that which they have committed unto him against that day.

A man here with the Holy Spirit abiding within him is safer than Adam was when he came toddling fresh from the hand of God in the Garden of Eden. Safer here with the Third Person of the Trinity abiding in his soul, than to stand with Moses with uncovered feet at the Burning Bush or to have the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to give him safety. It is safer and more glorious now to live with the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, than to live on the shores of Gallilee with Jesus of Nazareth in the flesh.

4. They had perpetual soul health by the Spirit's indwelling which they did not have with Jesus present in the flesh. God wants his children to have a healthy spirit as well as a healthy body. We want a healthy body that we may have a matured and well rounded life. God has planned for us to have a healthy spirit that we may have a well rounded life of eternal power and glory.

Before Pentecost the disciples were not free from many forms of depravity, or soul sickness that are common among the followers of Christ to-day. There is no doubt but they were

Christians and chosen servants of God, but

1. They had unbelief for which He chided and reproved them. Peter doubted; Thomas doubted; in fact all the disciples doubted. Jesus said, “Where is your faith?” “Oh, slow of heart to believe.” Then he upbraided them because of this unbelief, but this thing never happened after Pentecost.

2. They were worldly and secular in their desires and aims. This question they often asked, “Who shall be greatest? Who shall sit on the right hand and on the left hand?” — showing sickness of soul, but after the Comforter came, this question was never asked.

3. They were vindictive and desired to retaliate. When the Samaritans did not receive the Lord, they wanted fire to come down from Heaven and consume them, and when Peter drew his sword and smote the ear of Malchus, Jesus had to counteract his work, and perform a miracle to keep the Kingdom of Heaven from being misrepresented, and he said to them, “Ye know not what spirit ye are of.” “My Kingdom is not of this world.” “If my Kingdom were of this world then would my disciples fight?” But when the Spirit came to dwell in them all this unbelief and worldliness and vindictiveness was taken away and their hearts were pure and healthy.

4. They had imparted to them a permanent power to serve, so that they mounted up on wings as eagles, they ran and were not weary, they walked and did not faint. They were singing and making melody in their hearts unto the Lord, and came to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads. Power with God and man are the results of this abiding.

When Luther received the Comforter his enemies said he could get anything from God that ha wanted. When Knox received the Spirit, Mary Queen of Scots said she feared the prayers of that one man more than all the armies of Queen Elizabeth. When Stephen received the Spirit nobody could resist the wisdom and the power with which he spoke. There was a great outflow of spiritual life. Jesus said, “Out of him shall flow rivers of living water.” Before Pentecost the Spirit was a power on men and with men, now He is a divine personality in men.

5. They had the Christ Life in their lives. The Spirit does not dwell with them but in them, not in their minds but in the life, not in what they know but in what they are, does the Spirit live. Knowledge, thought, feelings and actions, any and all external parts of religion can be produced by association with others; but deeper down than all these in the very center of their personality, there the Divine Life became their life; so that God was as real and all sufficient in each one of them for his life work as He was with Jesus for His life work. This life will be seen and revealed in many ways.

1. It will show itself in service. The Holy Spirit led Jesus to a servant’s work, so that he said, “I am not here to be ministered unto but to minister.” Like Jesus we may have to wash the feet of some Judas, who will be ungrateful and go off and betray us, or the feet of some Peter, who at first refuses and then in impatience wants more than is necessary, but the blessed Spirit in the inner life will enable us to serve others as sons of the most high God.

2. It will be revealed in suffering. Jesus revealed the power of suffering love. Christ also suffered for us, so that we being dead to sins might live unto righteousness. We all believe in the principle yet we fail to practice it, but when the Spirit abides in you, the more another does you wrong, the more you feel called to love him. When He was reviled, he reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not. Peter says, “If, when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable to God.” If any man is only willing to suffer as much as he thinks proper, and from whom he pleases, that man does not know the inner life of Jesus. Jesus never asked from whom He suffered whether Pharisee or Sadducee, whether Judas or Pilate, whether from a good man or a bad man, or the rabble, but said, “Father forgive them,” so the Spirit filled Christian commits it all to the hands of God who will care for his rights and his honor.

3. The disciples were able to reveal the Christ Life in self sacrifice. The world can not know the life of Christ except by the self sacrifice of the Christians. How do we know the love that God has for us? Listen to John, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

How do we know that Christ loves the church? Because He gave Himself for it. How do we know He loved us? Because He hath given himself for us as an offering to God.

This is the way Christ entered into his glory and the Spirit has come to let men see in the members how the Lord lived when he was in the flesh.

4. It will be revealed in compassion for sinners. On three different occasions Matthew says, Our Lord was moved with compassion for the multitude. His whole life was a manifestation of the tenderness of God 1 whose will he came to do.

The will of God does not consist of certain things forbidden or commanded. “This is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that believeth on the Son may have everlasting life.” The only way the will of God could be revealed in Jesus was by His compassion for lost sinners. He could not accomplish the will of God in any other way. And now the will of God for us is what it was for Jesus, — the salvation of perishing souls. Do not think that the will of God for us is that we refrain from some things that he has forbidden and do some things that he has commanded. No, No. This is the will of God, 'That His eternal love should be made manifest to the world by us.” “Shouldst thou not also have had compassion on thy fellow servant even as I had compassion on thee.”

5. The Holy Spirit in this life is shown in the forgiveness of others. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another, “Even as Christ forgave you, so do ye.”

There is no way to convince the world of the power of Christ better than by showing this forgiving love. Many Christians hardly know that it is in the Scriptures, or if they know it, they think ic is too much to expect from a sinful being, or they find some reason why it should not be so, and thus they go on with cold unforgiving hearts, not seeming to know that if they forgive not, neither will their Father in Heaven forgive them.