The Continued Teachings of the Holy Spirit

The Continued Teachings of the Holy Spirit

When once, by the operation of the Spirit on our conscience, we have been stripped of formality, superstition, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, presumption, and the other delusions of the flesh that hide themselves under the mask of religion we have felt the difference between having a name to live while dead, and the power of vital godliness - and as a measure of divine life has flowed into the heart out of the fullness of the Son of God - we desire no other religion but that which stands in the power of God - by that alone can we live, and by that alone we feel that we can die.

And, at last, we are brought to this conviction and solemn conclusion - that there is no other true religion but that which consists in the continued teachings of the Spirit, and the communications of the life of God to the soul.

And with the Spirit's teachings are connected all the actings of faith in the soul, all the anchorings of hope in the heart, all the flowings forth of love, every tear of genuine contrition that flows down the cheeks, every sigh of godly sorrow that heaves from the bosom, every cry and groan because of the body of sin, every breath of spiritual prayer that comes from the heart, every casting of our souls upon Christ, all submission to Him, all communion with Him, all enjoyment of Him, and all the inward embracements of Him in His suitability and preciousness.

~J. C. Philpot~
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Active, Operating Influential Principles of the Life!

It is the work of the blessed Spirit to take of the things of Christ, and to show them to the soul; to reveal to us the precious benefits of redemption, and the riches of Divine grace - and to present them to us in such a transforming, and convincing, and penetrating form, as that they shall not only become sources of abiding comfort to the heart - but active, operating, influential principles of the life!

It is the work of the blessed Spirit to be the Comforter of the children of God: Yes...wherever a believer is afflicted; wherever he sheds a sorrowful heart; wherever he is pained by some heart-rending grief; wherever he is bowed beneath some oppressive burden - there is the Comforter to cheer, to solace, to sustain; pointing him from the wound - to its balm, from the grief - to the ultimate cure, from present suffering - to eternal rest at God's right hand!

The Holy Spirit is not a traveler to sojourn for a season, but He is a Friend to abide and dwell with you - a spiritual mentor to be always near ....to guide you - in all times of weakness, when you are discouraged - to uphold you, when you are wandering - to lead you back, when you are nearly overcome in your spiritual conflict - to bring you more of His divine strength and grace.

~John MacDuff~
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The Divine Illuminator

"But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name - He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (John 14:26).

Divine Truth is an instrument in the hand of the Spirit, for the accomplishment of His work of consolation. If we would be comforted, we must seek it by the truth. The Comforter is the Spirit of Truth. The consoling process is carried on by the application of Scriptural truth. Therefore, the Word of God is beyond all other volumes - the Book of Consolation. The precious doctrines concerning God, Christ, salvation, and heaven - are the principal means which the Holy Spirit uses for the support of the soul under heavy afflictions.

Thus we are enabled to perceive more clearly and fully, how the adorable Spirit comes in Christ's name. He teaches what Christ taught. He takes of the things of Christ, and reveals them unto us. From the infinite fund of Scriptural wisdom and knowledge - He draws and dispenses, according to the diversified necessities of His people. It is scarcely a change of teacher. The Spirit gives the same lessons as Jesus. He repeats and revives them. He brings out afresh in the chambers of memory, the truths which had faded. He touches the sluggish heart to awaken it to new impressions of Scriptural truth. All this is by a direct influence on the soul by the Spirit - opening the mind and pouring in light. It is this which accounts for the difference between believers; and between different states of the same individual.

In order that truth be effectual, especially to consolation, something more is necessary than that it should be revealed in the Bible; something more than that it should be understood by the intellect. It must be powerfully brought home to the mind and heart. And to do this is the special work of the Holy Spirit. No effect will be produced in reading Scripture, except so far as the Holy Spirit takes, shows, and impresses them to the heart. And this He graciously does to many a broken-hearted Christian.

The experienced and godly Christian, long tried in the 'school of sorrows' - is made to know that the soul may be comforted amidst the deepest afflictions. In some unexpected moment, the Divine Illuminator reveals to him the great abiding truths of Scripture; truths which are as precious and as satisfying - in adverse as in prosperous days. By a process of holy attraction, his thoughts are drawn away from self and all its sorrows and looses - to be fixed and absorbed by the character of God, by His mighty works, by the person of the adorable Redeemer, by the work of redemption, by the glory yet to be revealed.

Filled and animated and tranquilized by these blessed truths, he is led to forget his private griefs; and thus the Comforter performs His office by means of the truth. "The things of Christ," applied to the heart by the Spirit, direct the mind from its earthly pangs, and to a certain extent afford a foretaste of the celestial joy.

~James Alexander~