Chapter 25—The Holy Spirit
The Promise
To us today, as verily as to the first disciples, the promise of the
Spirit belongs. God will today endow men and women with power
from above, as He endowed those who on the day of Pentecost heard
the word of salvation. At this very hour His Spirit and His grace are
for all who need them and will take Him at His word.—
Testimonies
for the Church 8:20
.
The promise of the Holy Spirit is not limited to any age or to any
race. Christ declared that the divine influence of His Spirit was to be
with His followers unto the end. From the day of Pentecost to the
present time, the Comforter has been sent to all who have yielded
themselves fully to the Lord and to His service.—
The Acts of the
Apostles, 40
.
God desires to refresh His people by the gift of the Holy Spirit,
baptizing them anew in His love. There is no need for a dearth of the
Holy Spirit in the church. After Christ’s ascension, the Holy Spirit
came upon the waiting, praying, believing disciples with a fulness
and power that reached every heart. In the future the earth is to be
lightened with the glory of God. A divine influence is to go forth to
the world from those who are sanctified through the truth. The earth
is to be encircled with an atmosphere of grace. The Holy Spirit is to
work on human hearts, taking the things of God and showing them
unto men.—
The Southern Watchman, September 5, 1905
.
It is true that in the time of the end, when God’s work in the earth is
closing, the earnest efforts put forth by consecrated believers under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, are to be accompanied by special tokens
of divine favor. Under the figure of the early and the latter rain, that
falls in Eastern lands at seed-time and harvest, the Hebrew prophets
foretold the bestowal of spiritual grace in extraordinary measure upon
God’s church. The out-pouring of the Spirit in the days of the apostles
was the beginning of the early, or former rain, and glorious was the
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