Acts 19:2-7 He said to them, Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? And they said to him… I. To make this subject practical, we will endeavour to show WHAT THE DECEPTION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IMPARTS; or in other words, what it is to receive His influence in order to salvation. In the early ages of Christianity it included the miraculous as well as the converting and sanctifying influences of this Divine agent. Those essential influences which are connected with the kingdom of God within us, though less splendid to the eye of sense, are even more precious to the eye of faith, and produce fruits in the soul, without which the most exalted gifts would avail nothing, but leave us as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. The Spirit of God must be received as the Spirit of truth to teach us. By the ministry of the Word the Divine Spirit enters the mind, sheds light upon the understanding and the conscience, and the man who was as one born blind, now sees. As a Spirit of adoption and of holiness the Comforter comes. The slave is changed into a child, the proud is now become humble, the prodigal is made to feel his danger, and to think of his Father and his home. II. To enable you to answer the question in the text, I will state a few of THE EVIDENCES OR EFFECTS OF THE RECEPTION. 1. Prayer is one of these. It is the cry of the hungry for food, of the sick for health, of the condemned for pardon, that amounts to prayer in the true meaning of the term. It is a mark of the Spirit, when we pray from the heart. 2. Another fruit of the Spirit is the hatred of whatever is known to be sinful in the sight of God. As long as any remains of the old man are found within, so long will the conflict continue. 3. Another fruit and evidence of having received the Spirit is Christian love. A sincere Christian cannot but love those who show the holy, humble, and forgiving temper of Jesus. Hatred, variance, strife, contention, and all evil passions had so long filled the world, that men gazed with wonder on the benignant influence of the gospel in calming the troubled spirit. 4. One other mark decisive and vital of having received the Spirit is the faith that worketh by love. No man whose eyes are opened to discern his danger and the utter insufficiency of his works to save his soul, but renounces at once and for ever all dependence on the righteousness of his outward life, let it be what it may. And this leads him at the same time to place his entire dependence on the Saviour. (J. E. Everitt.) Parallel Verses KJV: He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. |
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