We're turning to the New Testament this morning
for our scripture reading.
Pick up the authorized version of the scriptures
you'll find in front of you in the
pew and turn with me to the Ephesian
epistle of the Apostle Paul.
And you will find that at page 221,
221 in your New Testament.
And we're going to read from verse 5
to verse 20 of this chapter.
Verse 5, Ephesians chapter 5.
And take your time for me, let's not
murmur it, let us read it out and
believe it with all our hearts.
For this ye know, that no more hung,
no poor monger, nor unclean person, nor covetous
man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance
in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Let no man deceive you with vain words,
for because of these things cometh the wrath
of God upon the children of disobedience.
Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for
ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye
light in the Lord.
Walk as the children of light, for the
fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness
and righteousness and truth.
Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works
of darkness, but rather reprove them.
For it is a shame even to speak
of those things which are done of them
in secret.
But all things that are reproved are made
manifested by the light.
For whatsoever God make manifest is light.
Wherefore He says, Awake thou that sleepest, and
arise from the dead, and Christ shall give
thee life.
Seeing them, that ye walk circumspectly, not as
fools, but as wise, redeeming the times, because
the days are evil.
Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what
the will of the Lord is.
And be not drunk with wine, for in
it is excess, but be filled with the
Spirit.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs.
Singing and making melody in your heart to
the Lord.
Giving thanks always for all things unto God
and the Father in the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Ending our reading at verse 20.
And we know that God will stamp His
approval upon His very own infallible work.
I want to speak this morning on a
vital subject.
Upon the necessity of every child of God
to be filled with the Spirit of God.
There is much controversy and many arguments about
the work of the Holy Spirit of God.
Does every believer have the Holy Spirit?
Yes, he or she does.
You cannot be a believer if you are
not a possessor of the Spirit of God,
as we shall see.
What is the difference between having the Spirit
and being filled with the Spirit?
And how can we obey the apostolic injunction
not to be drunk with wine, but to
be filled with the Spirit?
These are vitally important matters that we need
to consider in this day when there is
a chill on the church.
When prayerlessness waxes broad among the people of
God and powerlessness marks many of our church
services.
So we need to come back to the
physics of the power and fire and infilling
of the Spirit of God.
This is a very important subject because it
was the first subject that Christ uttered when
He rose from the dead and He appeared
to His disciples.
He breathed upon them and said, Receive ye
the Holy Spirit, the first message after the
resurrection.
It was the last message which Christ gave
before He ascended into heaven.
And He said, You tolerate until ye be
endued with power from on high.
Ye shall receive power after that the Holy
Spirit has come upon you.
It was the first great happening after Christ
ascended to heaven.
For on the day of Pentecost when they
were all with one accord in one place,
the mighty wind of God.
It was the tongues of fire as of
fire and there was the baptism of the
young church in the upper room, a baptism
of the Spirit's power.
That baptism of the Spirit's power was repeated
down in Jericho when the Samaritans turned in
their thousands to Christ and they too had
their Pentecost.
It was repeated again when Peter was sent
for by Cornelius, the Roman centurion.
And you remember the Holy Spirit and the
first Gentiles.
So this infilling of the Holy Spirit was
for all the church, Jews, Samaritans and Gentiles
together.
The first test question which was put to
early believers was, Did you receive the Holy
Ghost when you believed?
Because the Holy Spirit was the seed.
But they were born again, not of corruptible
seed but of incorruptible by the word of
God that liveth and abideth forever.
So this is a vitally important subject.
We need to have a restatement continually of
what is the truth of the Scriptures concerning
the infilling of God's people for the Holy
Ghost.
And every child of God needs a daily
experience of being filled.
And it is important that we come back
to the basis.
Is or has the Holy Spirit come?
Or are we still tarrying for the coming
of the Holy Spirit?
The answer to that question is in the
hymns that we have sung today, The Comforter
Hallelujah Has Come.
The Holy Spirit is with His people and
is with them forever.
Take your Bible and turn with me to
Romans chapter 8.
And in Romans chapter 8, which is the
great chapter of the Spirit of God, at
verse 9 we read, But ye are not
in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
If so, be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his.
When the day I put my trust in
Jesus Christ as my Savior, the Holy Spirit
entered and I was born of God.
And every child of God has the Holy
Ghost.
Now that is a very fundamental truth that
needs to be emphasized.
Because I hear of prayer meetings and they
are praying that they want the Spirit of
God to come into their heart and their
sea of people.
The Holy Spirit is in the heart of
all believers.
If any man have not the Spirit of
God, he is none of his.
The Spirit of God marks the birth of
the child of God into the family of
God.
But let me tell you something, to be
indwelt by the Spirit does not mean that
you are controlled.
There is a distinction, a clear distinction, by
those that are indwelt by the Spirit but
not controlled by the Spirit.
There is a distinct difference between those who
are inhabited by the Spirit but they are
not indwelt by.
There is a distinct difference being in possession
of the Spirit but the Spirit not being
in possession of you.
There is a difference between us having the
Spirit of God within us and being indwelt
with the Spirit.
So we need to see that distinction.
Oh yes, if you are a child of
God you have the Spirit of God and
you have Him forever.
He dwells with you forever.
He will never leave you, never forsake you.
That is not what I am talking about
today.
I am talking about the Spirit of God
being in control of me, infilling me, possessing
me, leading me, guiding me, directing me and
giving me the power that I need.
And it is that that should be the
daily experience of every child of God.
You can have a preacher that knows the
Bible but if he is not filled with
the Holy Spirit it is the letter that
killeth but the Spirit giveth life.
You can have all the sound doctrine but
if it is not lit with the Holy
Flame of God it is deadness in the
heart.
As Mr. Nicholson used to say, you can
be as orthodox as the devil himself.
So it is essential that every child of
God awakens to the imperative need of being
constantly and daily filled with the Spirit of
God.
Nothing was able to meet the need of
something once he lost his spirit.
He went out and shook himself as at
other times but he wished not that the
power of God had left him.
What a difference between Samson without the Spirit
of God, a paralyzed, broken, smashed vessel, useless
to God and to man.
Do you remember Gideon?
He had tens of thousands of recruits but
God looked at them and God turned up
his nose at them and God said there
is no good Gideon.
I am going to take them down to
the river and I am going to see
how they drink their water.
They took them down to the river and
some of them were so lazy that they
got down on their knees, let go of
their swords and they put their mouth to
the water and drunk and drunk and drunk.
There were 300 out of the thousands and
they did not lie down.
They stooped down and they used their hands
to bring the water to their lips.
There were the men that lapped and God
said out of those 300 men I will
deliver Israel from the uncountable hordes of those
that had impeded it.
Blessed Palestine, the holy land, the land promised
to Abraham and their fathers.
There is no substitute to the filling of
the child of God with the Holy Spirit.
Now let me say to you being filled
with the Holy Spirit is different from being
converted.
You can be converted and not be filled
with the Spirit of God and it is
important we keep that in mind.
Turn over with me to Acts chapter 9.
In Acts chapter 9 Saul was sealed
and there is no doubt about it he
was sealed on the Damascus road.
And the Lord spoke to him and the
Lord sealed him but he was not filled
with the Holy Spirit.
He got the Holy Spirit but he was
not filled with the Holy Spirit.
And then he went into Damascus and a
man in Damascus, old Ananias, got a message
from the Lord and was told by the
Lord you go and get the hold of
Saul of Tarshish because I have a message
for him.
And in verse 17 Ananias went his way
and entered into the house and putting his
hand on him said, Brother Saul the Lord
even Jesus that appeared unto thee in the
way that thou camest has sent me that
thou mightest receive my sight.
Look at it and be filled with the
Holy Ghost.
The greatest of all the apostles was sealed
and had the Spirit but he needed something
more.
He needed to be filled, possessed, conquered, ruled
and reigned over by.
And Ananias was sent that he might receive
his sight and be filled.
Now you say to me could God not
save a man and fill him with the
Spirit of God at the same time?
Of course he did, he could.
Nothing is impossible with God.
I'll tell you something more, there was a
man who was saved and had the Holy
Spirit.
Do you know who he was?
From his mother's womb he had the Spirit
of God.
Go and read the Bible, God can do
miracles.
But the usual procedure with God according to
His precious infallible Word is you are saved
but you need to be filled with the
Holy Spirit and it is not a once
and for all experience.
The Ephesians were well tried Christians.
Paul writes to them and he says, Be
not drunk with wine, be filled with the
Spirit.
I met a man one day and he
said to me, he said it's wrong to
claim you're filled with the Spirit because that's
pride.
He said then it must be wrong to
claim you're born of the Spirit.
You can be assured that you're filled with
the Spirit as you can be sure that
you're born of the Spirit.
It says the Spirit beareth witness with our
spirits, Romans 8 and 16, that ye are
the children of God.
This infilling of the Holy Spirit, let me
tell you today, it is not an influence
coming in your body that you lose all
sense of your own personality and you lose
all sense of the plainness of your mind
and heart.
And there are people and they say they
have an experience when they'll just go out
for the count.
I don't find that in the Bible.
In fact I find the Bible telling me
that the Spirit of the prophet is subject
to the prophet.
There's no such thing as the Spirit of
the prophet taking over and making a man
utter words that are not words and throw
him on the floor and tell him then
he's filled with the Spirit.
That is counterfeit, anti-scriptural and it's not
the teaching of the book of God.
If I am sound in body, mind and
soul before I'm filled with the Spirit, I'll
be sounder in body and soul when God
fills me with the Spirit.
This is not the progress.
Remember a lady coming to my church, a
fine lady, and she had gone to a
certain place and they took her into a
room.
They laid hands upon her.
She was thrown on the floor and she
started to speak language unbelievable.
And she came back to me and she
said, Mr. Paisley, I have got the Holy
Ghost.
I said that's very interesting.
Perhaps you'll tell me more.
But she said I went into a room
and there were some men in that room
and they laid their hands upon me and
suddenly I was thrown on the floor.
And she said I uttered speech I don't
know what I said, but I uttered strange
noises.
And she says I'm now filled with the
Spirit.
Well, I said, were there unbelievers in this
room when you were filled with the Spirit?
Oh no, she says, there was no unbelievers.
Well then I said you weren't filled with
the Spirit.
Because the book tells me that the speaking
with tongues is a sign to the unbelievers.
And you're making it a sign to a
believer that he's filled with the Spirit.
That's against the Bible.
That's a deception.
And that poor woman, she never did anything
for the Lord after that.
She was sidetracked, disillusioned and deceived.
What a tragedy.
Let us keep to the firm Word of
God.
You say to me, well, what about tongues?
Well, tongues were a sign to the unbelievers
and there were real languages.
It wasn't gibberish.
In the day of Pentecost, they spoke the
tongues of the people that could hear and
understand.
Every man in his own tongue heard the
Word of God.
Let us not be sidetracked.
Let us not go up wrong alleyways, deceived
by the Lord.
Let's keep to the firm Word of God.
You say to me, well, if I am
filled with the Holy Spirit, what's the mark
of it?
Well, I'll tell you first of all, the
first mark of being filled with the Spirit
is unity with others.
There'll be a blessed unity among the believing
people of God when they're filled with the
Spirit.
Pride will die.
Love of the world will die.
The things that divide believers will be removed.
There will be oneness of mind, oneness of
heart, oneness of desire, oneness of purpose, oneness
of him.
The whole man will be changed.
And a person filled with the Spirit will
have liberty of utterance.
For the first time, the dumb will speak.
The silent will shout.
The atheist will become manly.
The jellyfish will become as strong as a
crowbar.
That's what happens when men get...
Fear disappears and they get power in utterance.
Words not flat but full come from their
lips.
Words not tame but tremendous come from their
lips.
Words not boomerangs but barrages come from their
lips.
Yes, words not blunt but sharp.
And of course, the fruit of the Spirit.
And notice it's not the fruits of the
Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit.
There's only one fruit that gives all these
blessings.
Joy will come.
A person filled with the Spirit will be
filled with joy.
Did you notice in that passage we read?
If you look at Ephesians chapter 5, you'll
find that the first thing they speak, they
speak in Psalms.
Verse 15, Be not trumped with wine where
it is excess, but be filled with the
Spirit.
Verse 18 rather of the fifth chapter.
Speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs.
Singing and making none of the infilling of
the Spirit is joy.
The Spirit brings joy and it brings also
a fire.
A white hot heat in the very soul
of the man.
Doubts about your own salvation will fly.
Prayer will not become a problem.
It will become a paradise to yourself.
You'll no longer stumble when people attack you.
You'll stand up devoutly and strongly for the
things of God.
Everything that you dreaded before will disappear.
For God will give you a spine like
a railway line.
And you'll not need to even bend to
all the assaults of the enemy.
This happens when men are filled.
When you say to me, preacher, I need
to be filled with the Spirit of God.
That's a good thing.
That God has taught you that.
How can I be filled with the Spirit?
Well, first of all, you need to put
away all known sin.
And I don't need to go down to
you and put my finger upon you and
say you shouldn't be doing that.
The Holy Spirit has already done that.
God has already done that.
You know this sin of mine.
I don't need to personalize it.
The Holy Ghost has personalized it in your
life.
He's put His finger on it.
And that must be put away.
You must say, oh God, cleanse me from
my sins.
Make me whiter than the soul.
You need to, when you pray that prayer,
to believe that the blood cleanses you from
all sin.
Every sin had to go beneath the cleansing
flow.
Rolled away, rolled away, rolled away.
And the burden of my heart rolled away.
Then there must be obedience.
There must be obedience.
The Holy Spirit, we read in the book
of Acts, is given to those who obey
Him.
Who obey Him.
Acts chapter 5 and verse 32.
Mark it in your Bible.
For we are His witnesses of these things.
And so is also the Holy Ghost whom
God has given to them that obey Him.
There must be obedience.
And then there must come a full surrender.
Turn over in your Bible to Romans.
And in that great chapter, Paul says, chapter
12.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service.
The great preacher of the Welsh Revival, R
.B. Jones, preached a sermon.
God wants the bodies of His people.
And God is in a search in this
church this morning for bodies.
I beseech you by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies.
Give your body entirely.
There must, of course, be that act of
faith.
Over in the Gospel according to Luke, we
read of that great promise.
And in that portion it says, Luke 11
and 13.
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?
We have to be asked to be filled.
Put all known sin away.
Trust in the blood of Christ to cleanse
you.
Be obedient right up to all the light
that God has given you.
Make a glad and full surrender of yourself
to Christ.
And then in an act of faith, ask
Him to fill you with His Spirit.
Thank God that Christ of God baptizes us
with the Holy Ghost and fire.
For you believer not to be filled with
the Holy Spirit is to commit the greatest
sin as a believer you can commit.
That sin is as great as the command.
God has commanded you to be filled with
the Holy Spirit.
If you are not filled with the Holy
Spirit, you are in habitual disobedience to God.
The sin of not being filled with the
Holy Spirit is as evil and as great
as you would do for God and goodness
if you were filled with the Holy Spirit.
If you were really filled with the Holy
Spirit, what a life you would have of
testimony, soul winning, praying and living for God.
But you don't have that life.
Therefore the greatness of the sin is measured
by the greatness of the blessing and the
greatness of robbing God of your life on
earth.
When you are not here, oh do you
not want reverently to adore the Savior?
It is only infilling of the Holy Spirit
can draw us to Christ.
It is only the Spirit of God can
help us to really worship Christ.
Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
Obey Him.
Speak of Him with reverence.
And cry out that He may come and
fill you.
I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed
power of Pentecost to fill me to the
uttermost.
I take.
Thank God He undertakes.
May God help us all to pray that
prayer this day and minute.