The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1894-01-08
Two Powerful Exhortations
On Friday.
TO IMPART THE LOVE OF GOD
ONCE Work Of the Holy Spirit to
Convict Of Sin, to Give Liberty, to
Testify of Christ and to Fill with
Hope and Courage.

said:
This afternoon / want to speak about
the Holy Spirit; His Office work this
afternoon, and the spirit for service this
evening.
suppose there is not real Christian
here this afternoon but that has desire
to be used OF God. IL you have no desire,
no longing for usefulness, ! should say
there is something wFeHg in your life 1t
seems to me that the first impulse, the
first aim of new born soul is service.
"What shall ! do? want TO do some-
thing" This desire is out of gratitude to
Him who has saved you. / cannot con-
ceive of subject more important than
the one before US. When Christ had fin
ished His work. the last thing he did was
TO teach His disciples about the coming
Of the Holy Spirit and what He would do
when He came. When He handed over
His work TO them, then it was He
told them that the Spirit was coming to
help and to work with them. 1t was
this that helped those early
Christians, and it will help US. There
is not man or woman here today who
may not be helped II he will. But first,
there must be willing mind and heart;
we must know the mind of the Holy
Spirit, give ourselves up wholly to be led
and guided and filled with the Spirit.
Now, in the first place, 1t is well for us
to remember that the Holy Spirit is a
person. / think was Christian for
number of years before knew that. II
had ever heard it, 1t had slipped from me
and left no impression. / remember the
first time was awakened upon this sub
ject was while listening to an old minister
talking about honoring the Holy Ghost.
had always up to that time looked upon
Him in the light Of one of the attributes,
like justice, mercy, love. But when this
old divine talked about His personality,
really thought that the old man had gone
little out OF his head. Ii
seemed so strange that had
never heard of it before i
went home and read my Bible in order to
find out everything that the book said
about the Holy Spirit. / found that it
always spoke of the spirit as "He," never
as an influence. There is one verse in the
14th chapter OF John where the word
"He" occurs four times. / haven't time
TO dwell upon the personality Of the Holy
Ghost, and will not say anything more
about it. i only want you to understand
that He is distinct from the Father and
the Son. When Jesus came down to this
earth, the work which He did was distinct
from the work of the Father.
But now let me come to what His work
is. In the first place His work is to con-
vict of sin. You often hear people say,
"Why is it so few people are converted
under our minister? He is cultured, re-
fined, intellectual, eloquent, but yet there
seem to be very few conversions" Well,
now, my dear friends, IL you are going to
49,
vert people, you are going to
be disappointed. 1t is the
work of the Holy Ghost to
convict of sin. have often said that
had rather do almost any manual work
than that which am doing If / have got
to convict the people of sin. 1t is Gods
work to carry home conviction to the
heart, not mans work. When He shall
come, He shall convict and convince men
of sin. have seen people who, when the
spirit of God has been working nightly,
would get up and go out and slam the
door after them in a bad passion. Not a
bad sign. l would a good deal rather have
them do that than make no sign at oil.
Recognized His Portrait.
When was preaching out i'm Philadel-
phia, some time ago, man and his wife
attended my lectures one night. They
went home, and the man went to bed
without speaking to his wife. The next
morning he got up and ate his breakfast
and went off without saying word to her.
All that day she moaned that she had
made mistake in taking her husband to
the meetings. He came home at noon and
did not speak to her, and at night again.
And he kept that up for whole week. At
the end Of the week he said, "Wife, why did
you tell Mr.. Moody all about me?" His
wife replied that she had not spoken a
word to Mr.. Moody about him. "Then
you must have written him about me-"
No, haven't written him anything about
YOU" "Well, then he must have heard it
from some one else. That impudent
wretch held me up before thousands OF
people and told them all about me-"
Well, then, after a man has been con-
vinced OF his sins and is willing to give
them up, the next thing the Spirit does
is to shed abroad the love of God in our
hearts. A great many people are always
trying to make themselves love God.
You cannot do it, Love must be sponta-
neous. You cannot love by trying to
make yourself love. You have got to
have power, and that power comes from
Int DDlflls w nNn VIC lhNt tndt iONCs tntu
we have the spirit OF Jesus Christ.
Once / asked a lady who
was mourning because she
didn't love God IL she loved her mother.
She said, eyes, cannot help it," "Well,"
said, "that Is it exactly" When that
heart has been filed with the Spirit of
God you cannot help loving Him. But
you cannot make yourself love. More
Loco 4. i,,sf xphat ua yaut today To vou
should ask me what the church needs, /
should say Glove"
Then another thing that the spirit does
n TO impart hope. You never saw the
spirit of God working i'm a church that
wasn't hopeful. Another thing the Spirit
Of God does is to give liberty. Where the
spirit Is there is liberty. In good deal
OF our church work there is almost every
thing but liberty. A good deal of our
work is forced work. Sometimes IL takes
m GOOD deal of strength 10 get