RELIGION MADE EASY BY THE HOLY SPIRIT

Dear children, in this closing chapter 1 want to teach YOU the blessed secret of living easily the Christian life. I cut these words out of a paper some years ago, and pasted them on the front leaf of my Bible: "Nothing is easier than to live a Christian life, if we make it the first business of life. Nothing is harder if we make it the second." I think it a very beautiful thought; and, surely, religion ought to be the first concern of us all, for it has to do with our well-being for all eternity. Nothing else can possibly be so all-important. But, after all, this motto does not give us the real secret of living easily the Christian life. For many a man puts his whole heart, and all the forces of his soul, into his religion, and still finds it hard to measure up to duty and please God. Many of these self-originated efforts end in very sorry failures. The heart is left to ache over pledges broken and vows unkept.

Many of us can recall how we resolved to live a life of love as Jesus did, but a feeling of dislike and ill-will would creep into our hearts. We tried to be meek and humble, but, before we knew it, a wicked pride was ruling us and making our conduct unlovely. We tried to forgive our enemies; but, somehow, we had feelings sadly like revenge, and, to say the least, we could not pray for them as Jesus did. We had evil habits that we tried hard to overcome; but, with all our resolves and struggles, they bound us with fetters of iron strength, which we could not break. We did not do what we ought, and what we had promised ourselves we would do, while the evil things that we hated, we still performed. There was some strange, bad thing or force within us impelling us toward evil, and leading us into conduct displeasing to God. "When we would do good, evil was present with us."

Now, living a Christian life never can be easy under such circumstances. Nobody has ever found it easy, of ever will. But, glory to God, Jesus promised to give the Holy Spirit to his followers, on purpose to change these conditions, and give us power to do his will. "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8).

I can make this plain by some illustrations: Take Jesus' own disciples. They had forsaken all to follow Jesus, and had been preaching and working miracles in his name for more than three years. Jesus said that their names were written in heaven, and that they were not of the world. They were Christians; but it was not easy for them to act like Christ. One time, when the people in a village did not receive Jesus, James and John were impatient and resentful, and wanted to call down fire from heaven, and burn up the whole village.

When Jesus was going to Jerusalem to be crucified, James and John were so selfishly worldly and ambitious that they wanted the first places at the right and left hand of Jesus in a temporal kingdom. The other ten disciples heard of it, and were jealous, and quarreled.. When Jesus was arrested, they all forsook him, and fled in cowardly fear. The taunt of the servant girl so frightened Peter that he cursed and swore, and denied that he knew Jesus. The blessed Savior was patient with them, and forgave them all these sins. He knew how weak they were. But, just before he ascended, he said: "Tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high" Luke 24:49). "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts I:8).

They stayed together, and prayed for the great blessing, until, at Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out upon them; Peter, who had been so false and cowardly, became at once as bold as a lion. James and John lost instantly their temper and revengefulness. Thomas quit doubting. Undoubtedly, Martha quit fretting and scolding. All of them became unselfish heroes, willing to live and die for Jesus. The reason of this wonderful change was, as Peter declared years afterward, the Holy Spirit cleansed their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:8-9). Their religion was now made easy. Instead of having to try hard to keep their religion, the Holy Spirit and their religion now kept them.

"But," asks some boy or girl, "does Jesus send the Holy Spirit in like manner now?" Certainly he does. John the Baptist said of Jesus: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mat. 3:11). Peter said at Pentecost: "Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for to you is the promise, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him" (Acts 2:38-39). If you have heard Jesus call, and have come unto him to be his disciple, then this promise is as much for you as it was for the apostle Peter, and you have as good right to expect the "promise of the Father," It was made to all the children.

And the best of it all is, many men and women, and boys and girls, are actually receiving this blessing now.

I. You may be curious to know what effect it has upon them? I am happy to tell you of the blessed results that follow this great gift. it cleanses the whole nature now, just as it cleansed the apostles.

1. I have heard hundreds, who had used tobacco and drink in the days of their sinfulness, and who had the appetite for these things after conversion, testify that the Holy Spirit took away, entirely, all the appetite for such things. Before this coming of the Holy Spirit they had tried, time and again, to give up their evil ways, but their appetites conquered them; but when the Spirit came, he conquered the appetites for them, and made them clean.

2. This baptism with the Spirit removes the bad tempers of the mind and heart. Boys and girls know, only too well, what it is to be tormented with jealousy and afflicted by an evil temper, and goaded by envy and fretfulness and repining. We all know what it is to have a hundred and one things about us that seem to be a part of our very make-up, but which make us unlovely and unlike the Master. But this blessing that I am talking about corrects all these evils, and makes us gentle and sweet and patient and beautiful for Jesus.

For example, I know a young girl so violent in her temper that she was not permitted to live with her brothers and sisters. She got converted, but still had her temper; she afterwards sought the "filling with the Spirit," when, lo! her evil temper was gone!

I have, probably, heard similar testimony from a hundred people within a few months. I hear it from men and women in all walks of life, from learned ministers, from doctors of divinity, and scholars and authors and teachers, and I have no reason to doubt that. God is doing just this wonderful thing by his Holy Spirit.

Abbie C. Morrow, in "Morning Glories," one of her charming books for children, says:

"One day, a lady, who had a dreadful temper, and used to scold her household and children, prayed for the Holy Spirit to come into her heart and take the temper away, and he did. About two weeks afterward she heard her two little children talking together as they played on the floor. One said to the other: 'Don't do that; if you do, mamma will scold.' 'No, she won't,' was the reply; 'the Lord has taken the scold all out of her.'

"A little boy was saved in a revival meeting, and was very happy for days. But one evening he came to the evangelist, with such a sad face, and said: 'Can't the Lord save me so I won't get mad?' He was told that he could. Then he knelt down and received the Holy Spirit into his heart to keep him, and he did not get angry any more."

We all, by nature, need to have the "scold" and the "mad" and the gun-powdery disposition taken out of us; and the Holy Ghost can do it..

Then, there is pride that makes children so unlovely, and that so torments and mars the spiritual beauty of so many older people. It is a most troublesome guest to have in the heart, and the worst of it is, it comes to stay. There is no place in your whole nature so sacred that this nuisance will not be on hand to defile. You may get disgusted, and peremptorily order it out; but it will smile in your face, and refuse to go. Only the Holy Spirit can put this unwelcome guest out, bag and baggage, and take the vaunting self-importance and the peacock strut all out of you, and make you humble and modest like Jesus.

A first cousin to this is envy, that makes you feel so uncomfortable and bitter when any one excels you in any desirable gift or grace or faculty or possession.

Another of this brood of heart-evils is fear -- moral cowardice! Not only boys and girls, but even grown men and women who are professors of religion, are often so cowardly. Like Peter, they are afraid to stand up for Jesus; afraid to confess him before his enemies; afraid to rebuke wicked fashions, and defy sinful customs, and denounce popular wickedness, and . oppose sinful doers. Cowards! cowards! But there is a remedy. The Holy Ghost can so shed abroad the love of God in the heart, and so awaken the heart's own love for Jesus, that "perfect love will cast out all fear, because fear hath punishment, and he that feareth is not made perfect in love" (I John 4:18).

Multitudes of people, young and old, are losing their religion and losing their souls from cowardice; but the Holy Spirit can put such a holy courage into us that, like Daniel, we shall fear neither men nor devils, fear nought but God. In the early Christian Church the Spirit so filled even children with divine heroism that they would face martyrdom rather than deny Jesus, and they would be torn asunder or be thrown to the lions without a cry of fear.

A lady, who had once been very high-tempered and proud and vain, received the baptism with the Spirit. Thirty-one years afterward she wrote: "I have no recollection of ever feeling the stirrings of anger, jealousy, pride, self-will, or bitterness since the day God cleansed my heart from all sin, and the Holy Ghost came in and filled me. He has been the doorkeeper of my heart ever since." O, this is what Christians need who find it hard work to live the Christian life! They need the evil appetites and propensities taken out of them, and all the roots of bitterness. God calls it "cleansing the heart." It is a blessed, divine "SUBTRACTION."

But this is not all the Holy Spirit does. For-

3. He then gives us a blessed case of divine "ADDITION." He fills us with himself, and starts us to bearing the "fruits of the Spirit." "The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance," and everything else that is beautiful and Christ-like in behavior and life. We have peace and rest and joy in the Lord.

A lady in Europe, Madame Guyon, received this blessing. She was surpassingly beautiful, and she had three beautiful children. Smallpox came into the family, and killed her youngest boy, and horribly disfigured her and the other children. Yet God's sweet grace sustained her, and she wrote: "My whole body looked like that of a leper. All that saw me said they had never seen such a shocking spectacle. But my soul was kept in a contentment not to be expressed. I would not have changed my condition for that of the most happy prince in the world. Every one thought I would . be inconsolable, and several expressed their sympathy in my sad condition, while I lay still, in the secret fruition of a joy unspeakable, in this total deprivation of the beauty that had been a snare to my pride. A voice in my heart said: 'If I would have had thee fair, I would have left thee as thou wert.' My youngest boy died for want of care. This blow indeed struck me to the heart, yet the spirit of sacrifice possessed me so strongly that, though I loved this child tenderly, I never shed a tear at hearing of his death."

This precious Christian woman was afterward imprisoned fourteen years for Jesus' sake; but she rejoiced in her afflictions, and composed blessed hymns of praise, and sang them to the listening ear of her God.

I met a Christian woman last summer who had the grace and strength of body and soul given her to speak at her own husband's funeral. And I know a preacher, baptized with the Holy Ghost and mighty in the Lord, who, while the body of his blessed wife lay in his home waiting for burial, went to a pastorless Church near by and preached, The Holy Spirit came mightily upon the preacher and the hearers, and people crowded to the altar to be saved.

O, the blessed Spirit of God can take all bad tendencies out of the heart, and put all good impulses in, and fill the soul with comfort and rest and strength and peace and joy, blessed foretastes of heaven; and thus he makes religion easy, even for a child.

II. Some earnest Christian boy or girl will say:, "Tell us how we may receive this blessing." This I will now do: This blessing is received on certain conditions, just like every other blessing God gives us. He promises the blessing, he urges us to have it, he even commands us, "Be filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18); but we can only have this gift on God's terms.

1. You need to feel a great need and longing for the blessing. Jesus said: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" (Mat. 5:6). "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, . . . I will pour my Spirit" (Is. 44:3). This is a blessing so precious that God gives it only to those who desire it with a longing that can only be likened to hunger and thirst. The sainted Friend, David B. Updegraff, wrote: "There came to my heart a great hunger and thirst to be 'filled with all the fullness of God.' I longed for a clean heart and a constant spirit." Hannah Whitall Smith writes: "I began to long after holiness. My whole heart panted after entire conformity to the will of God and unhindered communion with him." This is the state of heart all people come into before they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

2. God says he gives "the Holy Spirit to them that obey him" (Acts. 5:32). Whatever act of submission you have ever made to God before, you want to go to him for this special blessing, and tell him that, from hence.. forth, you purpose to be absolutely submissive to him, and you decide that his will shall be done in you and by you for evermore.

3. These heavenly longings of the heart must be expressed to God in prayer. This especial gift of God must be prayed for with great earnestness of heart. Jesus said: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find. . . . If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Luke 11:9-13.)

4. Another condition is, that we consecrate all our being and possessions to God. God's word is: "Present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God" (Rom. 6:13). This was said to people who were already Christians. CONSECRATION means the turning over of our whole self, all we have and are, or ever shall have or shall be, to the Lord, to be his, and his alone, and his forever.

The act of consecration is to recognize Christ's ownership of us, and to accept it. Notice, it is not an act of feeling, but of will. Do not try to feel good and deserving of God's great gift. It is a gift of grace that we never can deserve. Let your feelings alone. Let your will decide the matter that you are to be now and forever the Lord's. President Mahan wrote: "The revealed condition of the indwelling of the Spirit is a full and complete surrender, on our part, of all the powers of our being to the Divine occupancy and control."

5. This blessing is received by FAITH. We are taught, in Gal. 3:14, "That we receive the promise of the Spirit through FAITH." And in Acts 15:8-9, "Giving them the Holy Ghost, . . . cleansing their hearts by FAITH." "Sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26:18). It is still, as in the day of Pentecost, the privilege and duty of the children of God to receive the Holy .Spirit by a conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they received Jesus Christ. As sinners, we accept Christ by faith for our pardon; but as forgiven sons and daughters, we accept the Spirit for our SANCTIFICATION. After you have utterly yielded your will to God for this blessing, and prayed for it, and consecrated your all to be the Lord's forever, then it is your part to believe that Jesus will keep his promise with you; believe that the altar sanctifieth the gift; believe that the Holy Spirit will come in to fill the heart that invites him, and gives him all. The Spirit will not disappoint you. He will come, as Jesus promised, to abide with you forever. You may safely trust him to cleanse you and keep you from all sin.

I can not write more here on this blessed theme. In my larger book, "Holiness and Power," I give ninety-seven pages of careful instruction on how to receive this blessing. If you wish to hear more about it, consult that book. But O, now, now, bow down before God; surrender your will to obey only God; consecrate your time, talents, hands, feet, lips, mind, and heart, your reputation and influence and possessions, to be all the Lord's forever! Then believe for the filling of the Spirit, for the baptism with the Holy Ghost. Believe and receive, "that your joy may be full."

QUESTIONS

1. What is the subject of this chapter?
2. Can our own resolutions make religion easy?
3. What did the disciples receive at Pentecost?
4. Can boys and girls now have the same blessing?
5. Can the Spirit take away bad appetites?
6. Can he take away bad dispositions and tempers?
7. Does he give to us the "fruits of the Spirit?"
8. What five things must one do to receive this blessing? .
9. Will you receive the Spirit now?