"And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God,"" -- Gen. xvii. 8.

"And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me."� -- Acts i. 4.

These two verses bring before us two companion pictures. One picture is of the covenant that God made with Abraham and with the children of Abraham concerning the land of Canaan. The other picture is of the covenant that God made with his Son Jesus, and with all the children of Jesus, concerning the possession of the abiding Comforter, the fullness of the Spirit. Every item in the Old Testament has a corresponding item in the New Testament, and also the New Testament has for everything a corresponding part in the Old Testament. The two covenants -- the one that God made with Abraham, and the one he made with Jesus -- are suited to each other. One is the type, the other is the reality. One is the shadow, the other is the substance. These two covenants fit each other just as the skin fits the flesh. Perhaps no better way can be found to understand the various points connected with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, than to go back and look into the promise that God made to Abraham concerning the land of Canaan. The promise of the land to Abraham is exactly, in a physical and geographical sense, what the baptism of the Holy Ghost is to the children of Jesus, and through Jesus to all the disciples. In the one case, the covenant had in it a donation of land. In the other case, it had a donation of the Spirit. The one covenant belonged to this earth and the generations of time; the other covenant belonged to heaven and the generations of eternity. So, let us take up the items of the covenant that God made with Abraham concerning the land of Canaan, and see if we do not find a perfect parallel in God's promise to his children of the baptism of the Spirit.

I. The first analogy between the two covenants is this: that in both cases the property involved in the covenant was made exclusively to children. It was not made to aliens, it was not made to servants, it was not made to the outside and uncircumcised races, but the covenant of land was made to the children of Abraham, born of his own flesh and blood. God owned the land of Canaan. He owns the whole earth, and he had a right to single out that piece of territory, and make a deed to Abraham and his children, and it was stipulated in the covenant that it was to belong to those who were the offspring of Abraham and those who were circumcised. It was to belong to a race who had come out of Egypt. The covenant went on to stipulate that Abraham's children would go down into Egypt, and would there suffer great sorrow; and when Abraham saw that in a vision -- the Bible says when he saw that vision of his children suffering in Egypt, "there came over him a great horror and a great darkness."� The covenant went on to state that after they escaped Egypt, and after they had gotten through the wilderness, they were to occupy all the land of Canaan, and from the time that God promised that land to Abraham it was Abraham's.

Some infidels and foolish people that don't know much, make a great hue and cry about God robbing the land from the Hittites and all those nations in the land. Those nations occupied the land of Canaan but did not own one foot of it. They were squatters on other men's claims. The western folks understand that. They had no title to it, and they lived there over five hundred years and never paid a cent of rent. God never robbed them. He gave to Abraham's children the property that legitimately belonged to them.

Now, that is a perfect pattern of the gift of the Holy Ghost. The full baptism of the Spirit is pre-eminently the gift of a Father. It is a Father's gift, but the very words, "The gift of the Father,"� imply that they are children. The promise of the Father must imply that it was for the Father's children, and over and over again it is brought out that the full baptism of the Holy Spirit can not be received by any one who is not previously born of God. Jesus says concerning the promise of the Holy Spirit, "I will send you the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, whom the world can not receive." What does he mean by that? He does not mean that the world can not be convicted by the Spirit, for they are. He does not mean that sinners can not be broken and led to repentance by the Spirit, for they are; he does not mean that the penitent can not be converted by the Holy Ghost, for they are; but he means that the Holy Spirit, as a personality, as an indwelling companion, as an abiding God in our nature, the Holy Ghost, as our full and complete indwelling preserver, can not be received except we have previously been born of God. The sinner has no capacity for the abiding Comforter within him. The Holy Ghost can not occupy a residence until there has been a room made for his residence; but a sinner is filled with himself, and his sins, and the world, and so he must be born again; and the Holy Ghost, that regenerates the penitent, after he has been made a child of God, then you can be a candidate for the full reception of the Spirit; and just as no Gentile, no uncircumcised person on earth could own the land of Canaan, so no unregenerate person can receive the full baptism of the Holy Ghost; and in that respect the parallel is perfect between the donation of Canaan and the donation of the abiding Comforter. It is an inheritance. Every child born of Abraham's blood was an heir to Canaan. Every child born of the Holy Ghost is an heir, and is entitled to his property, which is the baptism of the Spirit. You can "t be an heir until you first get to be a child. Dead babies inherit no property; it is the live children that are the heirs.

II. The second analogy between these two grants or donations is that in both cases the property was received by faith and not by works. The land of Canaan was received by faith, and that thought runs all through the entire covenant. Abraham received it by faith, for when God promised it he believed. Isaac continued that faith, and Jacob continued that faith, and the twelve patriarchs continued that faith, and for four hundred years that land was looked to as a possession that was to come to them without their buying it, without paying any money for it, without working for it. It was to come by simple faith in the covenant and promise made with Abraham, and when the people did get to the land, how beautifully David sings of it, when he says: "It was not by their might; it was not by their exploits; it was not by their merits; it was not by their works, nor their evolution, nor their development as a great nation; but it was by the Lord's arm that they received that land." Psalm xliv. They went right in there, and found stone houses readymade, wells already dug, vineyards already planted, and olive orchards and fields already under cultivation, so that, without any merit on their part, and without any long process of work, or without the payment in money, they received that land as a gift from the heavenly Father, through Abraham, without a single cent of payment or a single work that was meritorious on their part. It was a legacy; and a legacy, you know. is always received by faith and not by works. Now, the gift of the Holy Ghost is just like that. This great Canaan of the Spirit, this land of wealth, is given to the heirs of grace by simple faith, without any merit. Suppose we have crossed the Red Sea of pardon; suppose we have learned the ten commandments; suppose we have marched under pillars of fire by night and a cloud by day; suppose we have made our way through the wilderness, when we come to inherit the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we are to stand like the high priest, with our shoes off, and our head bared, and our hands empty, and without any merit within, or a purchase money, except the infinite merit of Jesus* blood. We are to receive the Holy Ghost by believing God. And so you will find Paul, in Galatians, in referring to this very point between Abraham and the Spirit, says that Abraham received his inheritance by faith, and so he says. Did you receive the Spirit of God by works or did you receive the Spirit by faith? We are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we are purified, we are illuminated, we are comforted, we are preserved, without any merit of our own. Our arm did not bring it, our sword did not bring it, our creeds, our learning, did not bring it, but by simple faith we get this Canaan of the Holy Spirit. When a wealthy man dies, and in his will bequeaths a vast fortune to the various heirs, how do the heirs get the property? Must they go to work and earn the money over again? No. Must they wait a long number of years? No, except they be under age; and Paul explains that. Many a Christian is under age in his faith, is a minor, until he trusts in God. In the physical world you must wait twenty-one years, but in the spiritual world you reach your majority by believing God. How do the heirs get the property? By faith. They simply have the will recorded on the county records. They have the will probated in the probate court. They have the administrator qualify, and immediately they administer it, and draw checks and turn out the gold if the money is in a bank. That is exactly the way you get the baptism out of God's bank. Jesus made a will. No man's will has any virtue in it until a man dies, because he can change it at any time during his life; and so the Bible says that the covenant, or will, is of no virtue until a man dies; so Jesus made a will, and in his will he said, virtually, I do hereby bequeath and give to each and all of my children who shall be born of the Holy Spirit the promise and the full baptism of the Holy Ghost. This is the will. It was signed by witnesses, sealed in blood. Jesus died, and the will was recorded, and the will was probated in the court of heaven. Jesus rose from the dead, and God allowed him to administer on his own estate after he was dead, and from his imperial throne he executed the items in his own will, and from his crucified hands, and out of his heart, he sent the Holy Ghost as the divine Person, as a divine Comforter, the fullness of a Father's promise on the very church that had been regenerated by his grace. And so the heirs get their property by believing the will. If a child doubts a will and does not have the will probated, he will never get the property, and if you doubt your Father's will, and don't have the will probated, you will never get the baptism of the Spirit. So in both cases it is received by simple trust in the precious words and will of God.

III. The third analogy between the two donations is, that in order to receive the legacy of this promise, we must cross Jordan. The river Jordan figures conspicuously all through the Bible. It is an ordinary stream, crooked, muddy, yet nevertheless it is wonderfully instructive in the use God makes of it. Let me give you a clue. It came to me in prayer: Why is it that that river Jordan figures in the Bible as a something that represents death; that represents crucifixion; that represents going out of one side of life into another side of life? Why is it? I don't know all, but you remember Tot, who was a righteous man, and Abraham, a perfect man. Tot represents those people who are mixed. Abraham is a type of those who are complete. The children of Tot, Moab and Ammon, they dwelt on the east side of the Jordan. The children of Abraham had their land grant on the west side of the river Jordan, and from that day until this the land of Moab and Ammon has been the land of irregularity, the land of mixedness; but the land on this side of Jordan is the land of completeness; and that river has figured in religious history more than any river in this world. Took at the instances: Elijah crossed the river Jordan a few hours before his translation and glorification, and Elisha followed Elijah just as the disciples followed Jesus. Elijah was going to his ascension, and Elisha was going to his pentecost; but before the one could reach his heavenly throne, and the other could receive the double portion of the Spirit, they must cross the river Jordan. There was a separation between them. There was a going down into death. And so Naaman was commanded to dip himself seven times in Jordan, and when he did so, his leprosy vanished, and his flesh came back like a little child's. The Jews must cross the river Jordan to get into the land of Canaan. That was the boundary line between the wilderness and the promised land and the cultivated gardens. Most people think David, in the 23rd Psalm, refers to physical death, but he does not. When he says, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, " it may in one sense refer to physical dying, but it does not refer to that directly, because, in the very next verse, he says that there is a table spread before you in the presence of your enemies; that you are anointed with oil; that don't mean heaven, because you have no enemies there. That whole Psalm is a description of man's successive steps in the paths of righteousness. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness. It is paths of righteousness, not graveyards, and in walking along these paths of righteousness, I must go down into the valley of the shadow of death. That is the Jordan of crucifixion; and so I could repeat many other portions, but have not space. But the crossing of the Jordan is a figurative fact separation in history. If we want the land of Canaan, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, we must cross the Jordan of crucifixion. We are to go down into the river bed, we are to put our foot out in the water, and although the river may seem higher than usual, we are to put our foot out on the mighty stream with this thought: Even if I sink I will go. The river don't divide until your foot touches the water. We go down, and as we are going down we meet the floods; they look as if they will drown us; they look as if we will be overwhelmed; but we must go down; and if we drown, keep on going down, until we get just as low as the bottom of the river will admit, and then put our foot on the rock promises of God, and stand firm. And so Paul says when he refers to our getting the baptism of the Spirit; he says, "we are baptized into his death."" I am thankful that even some of our Baptist friends say this, who construe all these phrases to mean baptism by water, although there is no water mentioned in that text; it don't say a word about being baptized in water; water baptism is a sign; but he is talking about the real thing, the real baptism that fills us, and he says " we are baptized into death."� There is the baptism that brings full deliverance and full salvation, and we are baptized into his death, and through death we find, like Elisha, who followed Elijah through that valley of death, the double portion of His Spirit after we cross Jordan.

IV. The next parallel between the two donations, the fourth parallel, is this: That in both cases the donation was to serve as an endowment for their support. The land of promise was to be their abundant source of food, gold, silver, brass, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where the showers of rain fell, a land where bread was produced in profusion; everything that was requisite for the building of a nation, for commerce, for civilization, for the growth and prosperity of a great nation, was all crowded within the narrow limits of that little land of Canaan. Now the people lived in the wilderness; they managed to live. They got some bread and some water, and once in a while a mess of quails, but they did not have any wealth in the wilderness. They were poor folks. They had a scanty substance, and they had just enough to live on; but in the land of Canaan, God distinctly says, you are to have an abundance. Not only enough to live on, but an abundance and a plenty to give away, so that from your wealth, of food, raiment, gold, silver, wine and milk, and honey, and oil, all the pauper nations, all the poor Gentile nations that lived elsewhere, were to come and sit at their portals, and they should be the benefactors of the human race. Oh! God designed that his people should be rich. Lots of people have plenty of money, but they are awfully poor. Poor dried up hearts, poor narrow, ignorant minds, they are as dry as a bone; but God designed that his people should be rich, and in his law he says that when you get in the land of Canaan, you shall lend, but you shall not borrow. That is God's idea. You shall lend, but you shall not borrow. You shall give, but you shall not beg; you shell  be the head, not the tail." Everywhere you find they were to be the aristocracy of the earth, and out of their treasures were to flow benefactions to all the world. That corresponds exactly with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Before we enter the full baptism of the Holy Ghost we live. We have religion, but don't have any to spare or give away. We have some love, but not enough to make a river out of. We have some food, but not enough for a banquet. We have some grace, but not enough for a festival -- that is why people that don't have much grace have to have church festivals, because they don't have the festival inside of them, they therefore must have one outside; and so there is grace, there is some love, there is life, but God designs the baptism of the Holy Ghost shall be unto us a divine Canaan, with mountains full of minerals, with valleys full of grass, and herds of cattle, with rocks of oil, with trees full of sap, a land of wealth, an abundance of resignation, an abundance of faith, an abundance of charity, an abundance of heroism, a perpetual flow of deep, quiet, settled peace, an abundance of holy joys, songs in the night, so that out of our very griefs will spring streams of blessings, and out of this wonderful baptism of the Holy Ghost we are to be the benefactors of all other people. We may have enough and to spare; we can under this divine endowment nourish other hearts, we can comfort their souls, we can dry the weeping eyes, we can administer charity and love, and strength and brotherly and sisterly feelings, that the world is dying for more than for bread.

In this great world there are thousands of people dying for the want of gentleness, for the want of love, for the want of sympathy. I'ittle children, whose poor hearts are starved for an expression of love and fatherly and sisterly love. Grown up men that you think are strong in their strength, and yet their hearts are bleeding for love and sympathy, and for a brotherly or sisterly act of kindness; they are dying for the want of something that money can not give. Thousands of homes are starving for the want and expression of love; and yet because of the depravity of human hearts, they are getting prematurely gray, and the wrinkles come prematurely, because they don't have that kind of love that their nature needs. God says under the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I will make you administers of grace. Wherever you go, if you have an artesian well in you, there will be one moist place where you go; if you have no barns full of bread you can take up the bread of Jesus and break it and give it to others.

The God of all grace and fullness and love fills us with this land of Canaan, with this land of excessive wealth, so that out of this excessive wealth of love and kindness we can administer to those some of the surplus that God gives us. The baptism of the Holy Ghost makes us rich. It makes a poor person feel richer than a millionaire. It enriches your conversational power; it enriches your imagination; it widens all the social affections of your nature; it goes up and down your brain and through your breast, and down into the great moral depths of your being, and it puts wealth and treasure into you; so that in the baptism of the Holy Ghost there is an overflow of love; there is a touch of gentleness never known before; there is a brotherly and a sisterly charity that never was there before. There is a patience and a zeal that was never there before. It tones up every fibre of your being; it tones, and mellows, and widens, so that it makes you rich. There is a wonderful difference between living on collections and living on an endowment. There are some colleges that live on collections, and the Conference appoints a college agent, and he goes around to churches begging, and you say, "There comes that collector, and we are poor, and he is begging for money for the college to keep up the expenses of the college,'' but when a Leland Stanford, or a Rockefeller, pours out five millions and ten millions, endows a college with Government bonds to the amount of four or five millions, look at it! An endowed college with four or five millions in bonds never has to take up a collection. It can live on the endowment. It is called an " endowed college," and it never has to touch the principal either. Simply take a pair of scissors and keep busy cutting off coupons, and the college is kept in full running condition without ever touching the original. That is the baptism of the Holy Ghost. When we get the land of fullness and light and love, we get our endowment. That is why it is called the endowment of the Holy Ghost, and God endows your soul, so that you never touch the original endowment, you never reduce the Holy Ghost any, you never make the divine personality any less, but everlastingly live on the coupons. The one great donation of the Holy Ghost forever, and out of the Holy Ghost flows a continual issue of coupons, and you always have an abundance.

V. The fifth analogy is this: In the possession of this property there was never to be any private, perpetual title in the property. The people were to own the land, it was their land, and they were to have it for all generations, and yet the law was so shaped that God said no one person should have any title to hold the land in fee simple. If a man was in debt and mortgaged his property, or sold his piece of ground, when the man gave a deed God said, You shall not sell the land forever that is, you can give a title to it until Jubilee year; but no title to any land was to run beyond the Jubilee year, then all lands reverted to their original family owner. God's idea was that no man should pile up wealth and get all that land. If it had not been for this law, and they had been allowed to run their property like we do, in fifty years some old Jew might have owned all Palestine; and so the land was held in this way. God is the Father, you the children, this land is your gift, but you are never to use that gift as if you owned it in fee simple. Your title to it is suspended on the will of God, and the tenure that you hold is a tenure of divine benevolence and not of human greed. That same thought comes out in the baptism of the Holy Ghost. God gives to his children this marvelous fullness of perfect love, but it is so given that we must never use the Holy Ghost for private and selfish and mean purposes. If we do, it will revert back to God. If a person uses the baptism of the Holy Ghost for fanatical purposes he loses Him. If people simply seek the baptism of the Spirit in order that they can make something wonderful or something new, they will lose Him; if we want the baptism of the Holy Ghost simply to make a great splurge, we will lose it. If we use this endowment of the Holy Spirit to build up a reputation or make money, we will lose the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It is a gift to be used for the glory of God, and not for private nor selfish purposes; and so those two thoughts run through the covenant, that the gift is ours, but it must always be a gift. You dare not sell a gift of God. When God gives you this gift it must not be used for nonsense; it must not be used for foolishness, nor selfishness, nor making money. This gift of our Father is held at the tenure of his will, and we are to always retain the Spirit in great humility.