Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 11:13
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?
13. give the Holy Spirit ] St Matthew has the much more general expression “good things” (Luk 7:11). The Good Father will give to His children neither what is deadly, nor what is unfit for food.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Luk 11:13
How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
The gift of the Holy Spirit
I.
WHAT IS MEANT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT.
1. He is a person, and may be grieved.
2. He intercedes for believers.
3. He guides, hears, speaks, and shows things to come.
4. He is a Divine person, and truly God.
(1) Sin against Him is unpardonable.
(2) Lying to Him is lying to God.
(3) Temples of the Holy Ghost are temples of God.
5. The Holy Ghost is enjoyed by all believers.
(1) Proved from the apostles declaration (Rom 8:9).
(2) Evident from our Lords promise (Joh 7:37-39).
(3) And from the method of communicating salvation (Tit 3:5-6).
II. FOR WHAT PURPOSE THE HOLY GHOST IS GIVEN.
1. As a Spirit of penitence and prayer.
2. As a Spirit of power.
3. As a Spirit of consolation.
4. As a Spirit of purity.
5. As a Spirit of wisdom.
6. As a Spirit of fruitfulness.
III. THE MANNER OF ASKING FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT.
1. They must ask in sincerity.
2. They must ask evangelically.
3. Ask importunately.
4. Ask in faith.
IV. THE WORDS OF OUR TEXT ARE ENCOURAGING TO HOPE. 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.
1. Here we notice that mankind are evil. Yet, they know how to give good gifts unto their children.
2. God is His peoples Father.
(1) He is their heavenly Father.
(2) Covenant Father.
(3) Good.
(4) Wise.
(5) Gracious. (T. B. Baker.)
The efficacy of prayer for obtaining the Holy Spirit
The force of which argument depends upon a double comparison, of the quality of the persons giving, and of the nature of the gift.
I. I shall show what is comprehended in this gift of the Holy Spirit, and how great a blessing and benefit it is. St. Matthew expresseth this somewhat differently: How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him? (Mat 7:11). Which, compared with the expression here in St. Luke, doth intimate to us, that the Spirit of God is the chief of blessings, or rather the sum of all good things.
II. We shall in the next place consider what kind of asking, in order to the obtaining of this great blessing, is here required by our Saviour, when He says, God will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. It must have these three qualifications:
1. It must be hearty and sincere, in opposition to formal and hypocritical asking.
2. It must be earnest and fervent, and importunate, in opposition to cold, and faint, and careless asking.
3. It must be in faith, and a confident assurance that God will hear us, in opposition to doubting and distrust.
III. To confirm and illustrate the truth of this proposition, that God is very ready to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.
1. From Gods free promise and declaration. And besides that here in the text, I might produce several others, but I shall mention only one, which is very plain and express, and conceived in terms as large and universal as can well be devised (Jam 1:5).
2. From the comparison here used.
It is a plain and undeniable argument, fitted to all capacities, because it proceeds upon two suppositions which every man must acknowledge to be true.
1. That earthly parents have generally such a natural affection for their children, as does strongly incline them to give them such good things as are necessary and convenient for them, and which will not suffer them, instead of good things, to give them such things as either are no wise useful, or any wise hurtful to them. This is a matter of common, and certain, and sensible experience, which no man can deny.
2. The other supposition, which is as evident in reason as the former is in experience, is this: that God is better than men, and that there is infinitely more goodness in Him than in the best man in the world; because goodness in its most exalted degree and highest perfection is essential to that notion which all men have of God; and this being a common principle, in which men are universally agreed, no man can gainsay it.
But, for the farther illustration of this argument, we will consider a little more particularly the terms of the comparison which our Saviour here useth; our earthly and our heavenly Father; temporal and spiritual good things.
1. Our earthly and our heavenly Father; in which terms the givers are compared together. Now there are three considerations in a giver, which makes him capable of being bountiful, and dispose him to it.
(1) That he have where withal to be liberal, and can part with it without damage and prejudice to himself.
(2) That he be good-natured, and have a mind to give.
(3) That he be related to those to whom he gives, and be concerned in their welfare. Now all these considerations are more eminently in God, and with far greater advantage, than in any father upon earth.
2. Let us compare likewise temporal and spiritual good things; in which terms you have the gifts compared together. So that the whole force of the argument comes to this: that if we believe that earthly parents have any good inclinations towards their children, and are willing to bestow upon them the necessaries of life, we have much more reason to believe that God our heavenly Father is much more ready to give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; whether we consider the quality of the giver, or the nature of the gift.
Application:
1. This is a matter of great encouragement to us under the sense of our own weakness and impotency.
2. Let us earnestly beg of God His Holy Spirit, seeing it is so necessary to us, and God is so ready to bestow this best of gifts upon us.
3. Let us take heed of grieving the Spirit of God, and provoking Him to withdraw Himself from us.
4. Gods readiness to afford the grace and assistance of His Holy Spirit to us, to enable us to the performance of our duty, and the obedience of His laws, makes all wilful sin and disobedience inexcusable. (Archbishop Tillotson.)
Right replies to right requests
In this chapter there is an evident progress. It opens by the disciples asking the Lord to teach them to pray. To that He gave a full and sufficient reply; He prepared them an outline of what complete prayer should be. Then the chapter proceeds a little further to answer a question: we are shown how to pray, but will God really answer us? Is prayer only meant to do good to the suppliant? Does it end with the benefit which it works in us, or does it really affect the heart of God? The answer is given by our Lord with great clearness. We have a parable to show that as importunity does evidently affect men, so importunity will also gain an answer from God, that He will be pleased to give us what we need if we do but know how, with incessant earnestness, to come again and again to Him in prayer. We are assured that asking is attended with receiving, that seeking is attended with finding, that knocking will lead to opening, that it is not a vain thing to pray. The truth here taught is not that God will refuse us evil things if in our mistake we ask for them; that is a truth, but it is not alluded to here; the one statement of this verse is, that prayers for good things will be answered, and that they will not be answered with gifts wearing the mere appearance of good, but with the actual good things desired. That simple thought I shall endeavour to enlarge upon in this mornings discourse.
I. RIGHT PRAYERS, RIGHT ANSWERS. The child asks bread, his father does not give him a stone. We shall have when we pray for needful things, the really needful things themselves, not the imitation of them, but the actual blessings. And if our faith grows a little stronger, and having obtained bread we ask for fish, not absolutely a necessary, but a comfort and a relish; if we make bold to ask for spiritual comforts, consoling gifts and ennobling graces, something over and above what is absolutely needful to save us, our heavenly Father will not mock us by giving us superficial comforts which might be injurious as a serpent; He will give us so much of comfort as we can bear; and it shall be pure, holy, healthy comfort. And if, gathering more confidence still, we ask for an egg, which I take it was in Christs day a rarer luxury, we shall not be deluded by its counterfeit. That is our first point–prayer for good things meets a good answer.
II. Then the question will arise in every heart: It seems then that I have only to ascertain that my prayer is for a really good thing, and I shall have it? Just so, and hence, secondly, THE PRAYER FOR THE BEST THING IS SUREST OF AN ANSWER, for, saith the text, How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?
1. There is no doubt about the Holy Spirit being a good thing; when we therefore ask for Him, for His Divine presence and influence, we may rest assured that God will give it. Make that our first point under this head–God will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask for Him.
2. From the connection in which the text stands, I gather the following remark, namely, that it will truly be the Holy Spirit. Go back again to that first thought. The child asks bread, and does not get a stone; you ask the Holy Spirit, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit.
3. But it appears plainly enough from the text that this Holy Spirit is to be given in answer to prayer. He will give you the real Spirit: no enthusiasm that might mislead you, no fanaticism that might injure you, no self-conceit that might become like a deadly scorpion to you, but His own gentle, truthful, infallible, Holy Spirit He will give to them that ask Him.
III. Now for our last point. THE BEST OF PRAYERS, WHICH IS SURE TO BE HEARD, IS ALSO A MOST COMPREHENSIVE ONE. Turn to the parallel passage in the gospel of Matthew (Mat 7:11). Now what does our text say, How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? Is it not clear then that the Holy Spirit is the equivalent for good things, and that, in fact, when the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit He gives us all good things? What a comprehensive prayer then is the prayer for the Spirit of God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The good gift
I. THE FACT HERE TAKEN FOR GRANTED–that earthly parents, though evil, know how to give good gifts unto their children. It is not said that parents know how to choose always what is best for their children. Neither would our Lord assert that parental affection is never overpowered by other principles. Long misbehaviour has sometimes induced a father to disinherit his son. Such, and so strong, is natural affection: a principle, necessary indeed for the preservation of the species; and so deeply implanted by our all-wise Creator, that it still survives the wreck of everything else that once was good in man.
II. THE DOCTRINE, FOR THE ILLUSTRATION OF WHICH THIS FACT IS ALLUDED TO. The doctrine is, that your heavenly Father is much more likely to give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Now, by following up the comparison which our Lord makes in the text, we shall see abundant reason for concluding, that God is not only as affectionate, but infinitely more so, than any human benefactor. For I may ask, in the first place, with Moses–
1. Is not He thy Father, that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee and established thee? Has not Creation made you His children? and did He make you to destroy you? But you think of your sins! You do well; but think also of the unfathomable mines of love, which those sins have brought to light.
2. What can this heavenly Father bestow on His children more worthy the name of a good gift than His Holy Spirit? He has given His Son; yet even that gift avails us not, till the Spirit be added.
3. Is the spiritual bounty of our heavenly Father limited, like the affection of earthly parents, to those who can prove that they are His children? No–it is far more wide and expansive. It is offered to all that are Hischildren by Creation; without stopping to consider whether they are such by regeneration or no. For here again our Lord makes a change in His language. It is not–How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to His children; but–to them that ask Him. (J. Jowett, M. D.)
The best gift
I. The Holy Spirit is spoken of, in the text, as the best gift which God in His rich bounty can bestow on man. And, if we consider who the Holy Spirit is, and what He does for those who truly believe in Christ, we need not wonder that our Lord should thus speak of this unspeakable gift. He is our Guide, our Comforter, our Sanctifier.
II. It is a plain and easy way which God has appointed for us, to obtain this precious gift: He will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. We are told in everything by prayer to let our requests be made known mite God. (E. Blencowe, M. A.)
The gift of the Holy Spirit
I. OUR PRIVILEGE as the followers of Christ.
1. What is meant by the Holy Spirit.
2. The Holy Ghost is enjoyed by all real Christians.
3. For what purposes He is received by them.
(1) As a Spirit of penitence and prayer.
(2) As a Spirit of power.
(3) As a Spirit of comfort.
(4) As a Spirit of purity.
(5) As a Spirit of wisdom.
(6) As a Spirit of fruitfulness.
II. OUR DUTY. To ask as God requires.
1. Sincerely.
2. Evangelically.
3. Importunately.
4. Believingly.
III. These words also ENCOURAGE OUR HOPE. Application:
1. Recollect your privilege with suitable acts of piety. Such as–self-examination. Do you enjoy this gift as a Spirit of penitence, &c. (2Co 12:5). Humiliation: on account of your enjoying no more of it Jam 4:2; Jam 4:8-10). Holy care: to cherish and improve what Divine influence you enjoy. By obeying Christ (Rev 3:2); and imitating St. Paul (Php 3:13-14).
2. Recollect your duty with perseverance in it (Col 4:2).
3. Recollect your encouragement with steadfast hope–of receiving the Holy Spirit in all His influences; as a Spirit of prayer, penitence, power, &c. (Theological Sketch-book.)
The availability of the Holy Spirit
For every moral virtue, for the first germ of spiritual life, for growth, development, usefulness and increase we are dependent on the Holy Spirit. The great want of the times.
I. Is THE HOLY SPIRIT AVAILABLE? Can His presence be secured? Surely.
1. If we consider the character of God, His universal beneficence, His desire to make His sentient and intelligent creatures happy, we need have no doubt.
2. This argument gains force in the light of Gods great love in giving His Son for the reclamation of His lost race. If willing to make the greater sacrifice, will He not be willing to make the less?
3. Our argument as to the availability of the Holy Spirit becomes absolutely conclusive when we consider that He is the promised and special gift both of the Father and of the Son.
II. HOW SHALL WE CONSCIOUSLY REALIZE THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT?
1. Common interest and sympathy, and united prayer.
2. Avoidance of all known sins.
3. A sense of need, of dependence, of meekness, of unworthiness, of penitence, and an earnest heart-cry for help. (S. D. Burchard, D. D.)
The gift of the Spirit
Four central principles underlie this passage–in fact, underlie the Bible and all religion in the world.
1. Man has a capacity for God as truly as the stomach for food. God is as imperative a necessity to our spiritual nature as is bread for the body.
2. Man has a distinct need of God impressed upon him. The body is disquiet, if food be withheld. The soul is restless without God.
3. The Fatherhood of God is a pledge and guarantee that these deepest yearnings of mans nature will be gratified. A judicious parent prefers for his son character rather than fame, genius, or wealth. God also desires, above all things, our sanctification.
4. God gives the Holy Spirit to the eager, ardent, persistent, importunate soul. Do you really want it? Honestly and earnestly asking, you shall receive. You must long for the Holy Spirit more than the hungry and thirsty long for food and water; more anxiously than the storm-tossed sailor longs for the port. With this spirit you may be sure of an answer, and as much more sure as God is better than the best human parent. (H. L.Thompson.)
How God feels towards mankind
Here is what the Redeemer says to you, and me; and all: If you want to know how God feels towards you, and how ready God is to give you everything that is really good: here is something to go by. You know how much you would do for your children: you know how anxious you are to care for them in every way. You know how a father will work, and how a mother will watch, all for the good of their little ones. You know how much of the work that is done by men in this world, and how much of the care that is felt, is not for themselves at all, but for their children: all for them. After the dream of fame is past–after ambition is outgrown–the man toils on as steadfastly and earnestly as in his most hopeful and most aspiring days, that he may provide for his little ones; that he may see them in comfort and happiness; that he may push them on (as he trusts and prays) to be far better and happier than ever he was himself. The human heart is always the same: you do that now, my friends; and so you may be sure that people did that long ago, in the days when Christ was here. Well, says Christ you know all that. You know all that, says His blessed voice: and now hear Me and believe Me when I tell you, that the great Father above is just like that; only a thousand-fold better. If even you, sinful and evil, would wear your fingers to the bone, would lose your rest, would cut off every selfish indulgence, that you might see your childrens wants supplied, that you might see the little things happy and good–then take this blessed truth to your heart, that in all you feel toward your children, you have a faint and far reflection of how the great God above feels toward you. He feels for us just like that: cares for us, loves us, wishes us well, works for us. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
Prayer for the Spirit answered
1. Our privilege here exhibited.
2. Our duty prescribed.
3. our hope encouraged. (Anon.)
Gods care for His children far greater than mans
Let us now consider the truth that God differs from an earthly father by being far kinder, wiser, and better. O brethren, there is an immense deal suggested by that how much more! It would be an unspeakable comfort to us–it would be a glorious and comfortable truth–that God was just as willing to give us all we need as you kind-hearted people are to give what is needful to your little child. I think I know men and women who have hearts so good and kind; who are so ready to do what they can to make their own children happy, or to add to the happiness of any little child; that I should feel safe enough and sure enough in going, sinful, weary, to Almighty God, to ask for His mercy and His Blessed Spirit, even if I knew no more than this, that I should find such a welcome at His throne of grace as these good men and women would give to any suffering, helpless child, even if it were not their own. But how much more! What a silent reference to an inconceivable depth of love and pity in the heart of God! It is as if Christ had said to those whom He addressed, You cannot understand the difference–words cannot explain the difference–here is the kind of thing, in yourselves; but in God how much more! Yet not a different kind of thing–the same kind of feeling you bear towards your children–only heightened up to a pitch you can never know.
1. God knows what is good for us, as no human parent can know what is good for his child. With the kindest intentions, we all know how injudicious parents often are; how often they err on the side of over-severity or of over-tenderness; how completely they sometimes mistake what is to conduce to the true good or happiness of their children; indeed it is not too much to say that a very great proportion of all the sorrow that is in this world arises from the mismanagement of parents in youth, or from the consequences of that mismanagement in after years. Now God knows us; knows what we are, and what we can do; knows what we are fit for, and how things affect us; knows all our peculiarities of temperament and disposition. He knows what we really need; He knows when to give us what we wish, and when to deny it; He knows how to make all things work together for good to such as love Him.
2. Another point in which appears the superiority of the great Father to whom Christ points us above all earthly parents, is His power. He is able to do all He wishes. He has all power to give us all good things; to help and save. You know how different it is with us; how well we often know what we should like to do for our children, to make them wise and good and happy; yet how very little we can do.
3. Then God is always kind. There are unnatural parents–let us hope, very few. There are people who repel their childrens confidence; who from mistaken principle or from a bad heart do all they can to make their children miserable; who point out with pride in the misery of a child, that things have come just as they said they would; who so act as to make us wonder that a trace of natural affection should be left in their childrens heart. I shall not dwell on a subject so miserable, save to remind you that our heavenly Father has anticipated such a case–Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee!
4. And now the last matter I shall name, as to which our heavenly Father excels the best earthly one, is that He is always near. Always within hearing; always within reach; never leaving, never forsaking; Father of the fatherless, Friend of the friendless; yea, When father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up! O Father of mercies, remember this word unto Thy servants, upon which Thou hast caused us to hope! (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
The gift of the Spirit
Cotton Mather, whose endeavours as a parent were highly blessed, says: Let my prayers for my children be daily, with constancy. Yea, by name let me mention each one of them every day before the Lord. I would importunately beg for all suitable blessings to be bestowed on them; that God would give them grace and give them glory, and withhold no good thing from them; that God would smile on their education and give His good angels charge over them and keep them from evil, that it may not grieve them; that when their father and mother forsake them, the Lord may take them up. With importunity I would plead that promise on their behalf: The heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, Oh, happy children, if by asking I may obtain the Holy Spirit for them! which every natural man, every man who lets himself alone and lives practically without God, apart from Christ, in the world, has in him a dumb spirit, and can only lose that spirit under the healing touch of Christ.
1. I might speak–but it would not affect or be true of all who hear me–of that calamity, that curse, which we designate as a bad temper. Has any one here present a bad temper? Have you not been reminded sometimes, in that experience, of the dumb spirit spoken of in the text? That sullen silence; that overcast brow; that gloomy, morose, most irritating reserve; that gathering, threatening, overhanging cloud of dull, dark, speechless displeasure, by which a long evening has been rendered miserable, and upon which night and sleep have come without mitigation and without relief; that obstinate nursing and cherishing of an untold grudge, which wakens again in the morning to its last nights sullenness, and seems almost to pride itself upon its tenacity and its perseverence; was not this indeed an example of possession by a dumb spirit?
2. Mark that man–his name indeed is Legion–who lives what is called an entirely preoccupied and self-engrossed life; who has his business and follows it, has his interests and pursues them, has even his pleasures and enjoys them, but in all these has in reality no partner and no associate; looks to himself as to all that most intimately touches him, and himself only; excludes from his true confidence alike friend and brother, alike child and wife; gives out in social converse the merest superficialities of his thoughts, and in domestic intercourse the veriest dregs and refuse of his being; locks up in his own bosom the affections which God gave him for blessing, pro-supposes selfishness in others because he feels it in himself, and will trust no other soul with that confidence which he knows could have no reception and no reciprocity in his own.
3. It is made in Scripture both the duty and also the test of a Christian, that his speech be not only innocent, but beneficial; not only kind and frank, but consistent also and edifying. Now, if this be so, by what name can we designate that use of speech which altogether overlooks or refuses this high object? Let us all look back, my brethren, this morning upon our past employment of the gift of language. What shall we say of it? Is not the review most disheartening? To whom can we point as having been benefited by our possession of this marvellous thing? Nay–for effects are Gods, not ours–when did we ever set ourselves seriously to do good by our conversation. Is it not true, alas! that as to any value, any worth, contained in the gift of speech, we might as well have been bereft of it. In the judgment of Him who heareth as well as seeth in secret, the spirit which has possessed us has been no better than a dumb spirit.
4. It has been so towards man. We have done no good with our speech. And how has it been towards God? The text stands in immediate connection with a passage of Holy Scripture about prayer. Strong encouragement has been given to our halting, failing faith, in reference to the duty of seeking God in prayer. A form of prayer has been given, in answer to the request of the disciples, Lord, teach us to pray; and words have been added, which show beyond all question that it is not in God but in ourselves that the work of prayer is straitened. Then follows immediately the brief narrative of the text: Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. If the possession of the evil one makes us dumb (as to all that is valuable) towards man, so also does it towards God. (Dean Vaughan.)
Dumb
Look at the Greek word here translated dumb; for, if it be considered that the mind of God is in any way breathed forth to us through the words of Scripture, those words will bear a careful investigation into their meaning. That Greek word means, in its first use, blunt, obtuse; and so a blunted or lamed man in tongue. Mark here, then, the first lesson enshrined in the little word. The power of speech was in that tongue, but that power was not presently available. The machinery of articulation was perfect, had once been used, but an intruding hand had grasped the driving-wheel, and the machinery was still. The power was there, I say, yet it was held in suspense; it needed some third stronger power to drive out the intruder and set moving the smoothly-going wheel again. Yet mark, what direction would the power take when the unloosed tongue told forth the thoughts within? Would the tongue burst forth into the direct ravings of impotent blasphemy, or speak praise from out of a convinced heart? It depended upon this, whether the intruding spirit within initiated the movement, or whether God again evoked the dormant power. Which should it be? (Canon Wilberforce.)
The downward course
I can never forget a picture I once saw of Satan tempting Judas to betray his Master, a picture in which the painter had pourtrayed the face of the tempter as a hideous caricature of the tempted; as if the man, if only he could suddenly turn round and look over his shoulder, would be able to see in the face and the form of Satan what he himself would one day become if he gave way to temptation, and threw in his lot with devils. The painter had caught the lesson, I believe, that this miracle teaches. Are we alive to it? It is well sometimes to view ones self from the outside as well as from the inside–to climb a hill, as it were, and thence look down at yourself; just as we look at some great cathedral from a neighbouring hill, and from that elevation see a wholly different aspect from that which we gain by merely looking at it from the inside. Look, then, my brethren, very briefly at some of the causes which induce this terrible change, and at the remedies which God provides. The change is threefold: a blunted tongue, a defective hearing, a dulled mind–all these are implied in that one Greek word. A tongue that cannot speak to God, an ear that cannot hear His word, a mind too dull to receive Him–how do these come to you? How is it that the dumb spirit broods so heavily over many now? Brethren, it is because there is a great deception still kept up by the father of lies, because he finds an ally in our breasts in that infection of nature which doth remain; yea, in them that are regenerate. There is much outside business in religion in the present day; there is much need for those who are thus busy to ask themselves, Is my heart silencing or silent towards God? There is nowadays much outside conformity to the Cross of Christ; there is surely much need for the conformers to ascertain whether their hearts and their lives are telling the story that their lips so often repeat. I speak to those who are struggling, however feebly; who are praying, however dumbly; who are turning to God, however uncertainly. Mark then, first, the silencing process employed by Satan, whereby he quenches the answering power of the spirit to the drawings of God. First, it is a gradual process–a slight impeding of the freedom of action–a little poison of sin which gently impedes the circulation of the spiritual life. So surely as the unused muscle or the long-bandaged limb loses strength, so does the impeded soul lose its power of communing with God. A neglected faculty becomes a withering faculty. A religion that becomes mechanical stops of itself. The power of faith towards God unused, unexercised, dwindles, decays, perishes, till at last one sometimes hears on a death-bed that awful self-pronounced sentence:–I cannot pray–I have forgotten how: I cannot believe–it is so long since I thought of God. Again, all indulgence of tastes that lead us from God weakens the spiritual apprehension and warps the understanding, or there comes the loss of the power of all sound judgment which we see so remarkably in sinners. The old words of Solomon are fulfilled. They err who devise evil. They look upon all questions of morality from their own standpoints which is an ever-lowering point. They now see no harm in that which would have once shocked them–no sin in that which once would have appalled them. They are satisfied; and satisfaction with a low moral standard is one of the surest signs of a dumb spirit. They have no gratitude to God, and inability to thank our God is an unfailing symptom of a silenced tongue. And if so, brethren, in conclusion, what is the cure? The old heathen philosophy honestly confessed that it could find no cure. Plato, said Socrates (we read), perhaps the gods can forgive deliberate sin, but I do not see how. In the life and death of Christ the Saviour the mystery is solved, and the cure is made plain. The difficulty in this case is that the deaf cannot hear the words of Christ, the dumb cannot pray to Him, the blunted spirit cannot lift itself up towards Him. And yet, O my brethren, there is one sense that can be used even in the most extreme cases. Look once more at Christ as He is about to work the miracle of which I have spoken this evening. Mark how He has caught the mute appealing look in the eye of the voiceless man, as he turns instinctively to Christ for protection from the fearsome dweller within, from the tenant over whom he has long lost the power of control or the possibility of ejection. We, my brethren, can look up to Christ even when our spirits are most dull, even when our prayers are most heavy, even when the whole soul seems weighed down, oppressed, silenced by the sin in our nature. We can look up to Him when He began to struggle for the mastery with the bad habit of a lifetime, with the coldness of years, with the carelessness of a long duration. We can bring ourselves before Him (Oh, be His name ever blessed for it!), relying on His pregnant words of faithful promise. Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. If there be the will to be set free Christ will know it. He knows all the Buffering, for the pangs that affect the member reach ever to the Head. By virtue of the mysterious sympathy which binds us to the incarnate God He knows it; but, my brethren, as you are wrestling with your sin Christ your God knows it. He only wants you to place yourself completely under His charge; He only asks you to obey His every direction, and He will complete the cure in His own good time. He can do it, He can make this dumb spirit eloquent with praise; He can make this deaf ear thrill with the sweetest sound; He can make this obtuse spirit quick and attentive to the Word of God; He can set us once more free, so that we may understand by how much things Divine transcend things earthly; He can set us free, so that with St. Augustine we may understand that it is because God has created the human soul for Himself that that soul cannot rest until it finds its boundless rest in the bosom of God; set us free, so that with St. Bernard we may understand that men remain unconverted simply because they remain ignorant of the character of God, picturing Him to themselves as being like themselves. He can bid the untied tongue now confess the sin, and as the full confession wells up from out of the depths of a penitent heart, he does obliterate the guilt. (Canon Wilberforce.)
A dumb devil east out
A friend in London, who speaks now with a voice as clear as a bell, and preaches a full salvation, spoke to me in great trouble some years after his conversion. You know i am such a fool; I am afraid to speak. The other day you called on some one to pray, and I shivered down to my shoes, I was so afraid you would ask me. I could not have prayed if you had paid me for it. This dumb devil was in full possession of him. He understood everything; you could not teach him much. I said, You have a dumb devil. Do you believe the Lord Jesus can cast him out? Yes, I believe He can. Yes, the devil himself believes that, but do you believe He will? I am afraid. I am very glad of it; now let us kneel down and see whether the Lord will cast out the dumb devil. We were in a railway carriage together alone. We knelt down in the carriage and prayed. He could scarcely hear my voice for the noise; I think that Wag an encouragement to him. I went on praying to the Lord to loose the string of his tongue that he might speak plainly for the glory of God. He said, Amen. Thank God, I said, the dumb devil is going. I began to pray again. He said, Lord, answer prayer. Amen, I said. Hallelujah! the devil is going, and sure enough he began to pray for himself. I began to praise, and he was praising too. The train stopped, but we did not know anything about it; we went on praying and praising. The collector came to the door and said Tickets, but we never stopped: we continued to praise God. Oh, we were happy! The guard shut the door and went away; he thought we were two madmen, I suppose! Oh, I wish there were more of such mad people. This man had got his liberty, and, glory be to God, he has used it since then. (W. Haslam.)
How devils may be expelled
In Charles Kingsleys Life there is a story of a madman who declared that the devil had got hold of him, and would not let him sleep. The surgeon, says Kingsley, came to me and said, As I cannot cure the mans mind by making his liver act, you must make his liver act by curing his mind. So I went to the patient and agreed with him fully that the devil was in him. And I will tell you, I said, why he is. It is because you have been a scoundrel. But if you will lead a new and honest life you may snap your finger at the devil. The devil left him presently, and the man was cured. So resolution may expel the devil of worry, even after the nerves are more or less broken. (T. M. Coan, M. D.)
Third Sunday in Lent
And as this miracle indicated the true nature of Christs mission and appointments, it was at the same time a complete demonstration of His capacity and fitness for the work. And yet, it very differently affected different classes of witnesses.
1. There were some whom it greatly amazed. It came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake, and the people wondered. These were the commoner class of persons who saw what was accomplished. Common people with common sense are the worlds best jury in nearly every case submitted to human arbitrament. Gods truth is never fruitless.
2. A second class of persons who witnessed this miracle consisted of certain rebellious spirits, who were ready to grasp at any absurdity, and to commit themselves to any sort of inconsistency and self-contradiction, rather than admit that Jesus was the Christ.
3. There was a third class, however, who assumed an attitude of feigned modesty in the case, who were scarcely less reprehensible. They would not say whether the miracle was of God or of the devil, but assumed to be earnest inquirers, quite ready to believe if only the Saviour would show them some sign from heaven. And very good and commendable did they evidently consider themselves in the attitude which they thus assumed. To them it was quite extreme and harsh to ascribe Christs miracles to the devil. They would not be guilty of such daring opposition, or commit themselves to such ultraism. No, no; they would be moderate and reasonable in their course. True, they could not yet regard the question as sufficiently cleared up for decided action. Things were a little too inchoate and indistinct as yet. They wished to have them freer from embarrassment and objection before they moved. A great deal of bitter feeling and controversy existed, and they did not wish to be prematurely mixed up with it. They would therefore hold their decision in suspense, and wait for further developments, meanwhile siding a little with both parties, consenting with the worst, yet keeping up a fair show in favour of Christ and the truth. But the Lord knew their thoughts, tore off the painted mask, and gave them to understand exactly where their pretended neutrality placed them. He that is not with Me is against Me: and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth abroad. The justice of this sentence is manifest. The evidence before these people was ample.
4. But there was yet another class represented among the witnesses of this miracle. As He spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto Him, Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the paps which Thou hast sucked. She spake as a mother, and she spake well and truly. Her feeling toward Christ was of a very different sort from that which so basely aspersed Him, or so hypocritically put Him aside under cover of pious friendship. She had seen the miracle, and was moved with reverence and admiration by it. Quite too fleshly and sentimental were this womans thoughts and emotions. Though well enough as far as they went, they did not penetrate to the true blessedness in Jesus, or to the right conditions on which its enjoyment rests. She did not rise to that evangelism which makes His truth in our hearts a far sublimer thing than to have our blood in His veins. And it is just here that the religion of many falls short. They have great admiration for Christ, the excellence of His spirit, the beauty of His teachings, and the beneficence of His works. And it is well as far as it goes; but it is not religion. It is a mere earthly sentimentalism which fails of any saving effect. From this subject, then, let us learn the true glory and office of Jesus. He comes to us as verily the messenger and Christ of God. He comes to us with the great power of the heavens. In Him the potencies of the eternal kingdom are brought near to us. And it is all for our liberation from the thraldom and disabilities which Satan has inflicted upon us. He comes to us to open our blind eyes; to unstop our deaf ears; to loose our tied tongues; and to set us free. He comes to cast out of us the unclean and disabling spirit. From this subject let us also be admonished of the dangers that beset us of making our high privileges of none effect. The sublimest demonstrations of Christs power and grace were the occasion of the deeper damnation to the Scribes and Pharisees; and we have in us the same sort of depraved hearts which they had. And, above all, let us learn from this subject what our great duty under the gospel is. It is not given by mere inference, but in plain and positive words, by the Saviour Himself. It is, to hear the Word of God, and keep it. (J. A.Seiss, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. The Holy Spirit] Or, as several MSS. have it, , the good spirit. See Clarke on Mt 7:11.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
13. the Holy Spiritin Matthew(Mt 7:11), “good gifts”;the former, the Gift of gifts descending on the Church throughChrist, and comprehending the latter.
Lu11:14-36. BLIND ANDDUMB DEMONIACHEALEDCHARGEOF BEING IN LEAGUEWITH HELL, ANDREPLYDEMANDOF A SIGN, ANDREPLY.
(See on Mt12:22-45.)
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children,…. [See comments on Mt 7:11].
How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? instead of the Holy Spirit here, the Vulgate Latin version reads, “good Spirit”, and so two copies of Beza’s; and the Ethiopic version, “the good gift of the Holy Spirit”; and doubtless intends the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, in distinction from, and as preferable to the good things given by earthly parents, to their children.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Know how to give ( ). See on Mt 7:11 for this same saying. Only here Jesus adds the Holy Spirit ( ) as the great gift (the summum bonum) that the Father is ready to bestow. Jesus is fond of “how much more” ( , by how much more, instrumental case).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Being [] . See on Jas 2:15.
Heavenly Father. Lit., the Father, he who is from Heaven.
14, 15, 17 – 23. Compare Mt 12:22 – 37.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “If ye then, being evil,” (ei oun humeis poneroi huparchontes) “Therefore if you all, existing wicked by nature,” yet have a paternal care for your children, when they plea to you, when they have a real need.
2) “Know how to give good gifts unto your children” (oidate domata agatha didonai tois teknois humon) “Know how to dole out good gifts unto your children,” those dependent upon you, who look to you, seek your care. If you know how to provide every thing good for their food and clothing and shelter physically, and you do, and are willing to do it, or you are worse than infidels, 1Ti 5:8.
3) “How much more shall your heavenly Father,” (poso mallon ho pater ho eks ouranou) “How much more (wisely) will your heavenly Father,” the spiritual Father of you, my following disciples, Luk 11:1.
4) “Give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (dosei pneuma hagion tois aitousin auton) “Give the Holy Spirit to the ones earnestly asking him,” the best gift of all, to help in prayer, Rom 8:26-27, dole out to them the spirit of understanding, and hope, and comfort, and guidance, upon their earnestly, repeatedly, and persistently asking Him to do it, day by day; It is an available, continuing unction to empower the lives of those who ask, then obey His will, in life and service; All saved people have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit does not have all of the saved person, except as the saved one is willing to be controlled, dominated, or governed in motives, thoughts, and deeds by the Holy Spirit, 1Jn 4:13; Rom 8:9; Rom 8:14-16; 1Co 2:10-14; Eph 1:13-14; Eph 5:17-18; Joh 16:27.
Though the Holy Spirit was given “once for all,” all time, to indwell and empower the church, as an institution on Pentecost, there is a special sense in which He empowers believers, in answer to their prayers, Joh 14:16; Joh 16:13; Act 2:1-4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
(13) How much more shall your heavenly Father . . .?We note a change here also, the one highest gift of the Holy Spirit taking the place of the wider and less definite good things in Mat. 7:11. The variation is significant, as belonging to a later stage of our Lords teaching, and especially as spoken probably to some of the Seventy, who were thus taught to ask boldly for the Spirit which was to make them in very deed a company of prophets. (See Note on Luk. 10:1.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Being evil The whole argument of the parable to which these remarks are appended, assumes that the good which man in his evil nature will do from his small human motives, will be munificently paralleled and surpassed by God, from holy and divine motives.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
And all this is sure, because if we, who are evil give good gifts to our children, how much more certain can we be that our Father, God, will give us, as His children, His Holy Spirit when we ask Him. He wants us to have Him in abundance.
‘If we who are evil.’ Note that we receive these things even though we are ‘evil’, that is, coming short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23). And that all of us are ‘evil’. (Jesus had no illusions about us). It is not of our deserving. Thus we do not have to hold back through a feeling of unworthiness.
This reference to the Holy Spirit gains especial significance in that in the body of Luke’s Gospel mention of the Holy Spirit is deliberately limited so that in Luk 11:20, where Mat 12:28 has the Spirit of God, Luke has the finger of God. In fact this is the only reference in the ministry of Jesus in the Synoptics to the general giving of the Holy Spirit before the resurrection.
What then is it referring to? We have already seen above on Luk 11:2 that ‘hallowed be your name’ contains a reference to the giving of the Holy Spirit in Ezekiel 36, thus here this is confirming the fulfilment of that promise. He will give us a new heart and a new spirit. And He will continually cleans and renew them. But as with so much in the Lord’s Prayer it has both a present and future reference. In one sense the present disciples can experience the Holy Spirit as their ‘daily bread’ in their daily lives now, as in Joh 3:1-6; Joh 4:10-14; Joh 7:37, but its major fulfilment will be in Joh 20:22 and Acts 2 (compare Joh 7:38), when the Holy Spirit comes in power (compare Luk 24:49). Then they will experience Him in abundance.
It should be noted that this has nothing to do with a desperate seeking after a special blessing of the Holy Spirit. It has to do with receiving His daily blessing. It is the receiving of our daily ‘bread’. For once the Holy Spirit has come to us in His transforming and saving power, which was the first thing that all should seek, we are to ‘go on being filled with the Spirit’ (Eph 5:18). He will be given in fuller and fuller measure. He will be a spring of water welling up to eternal life (Joh 4:14).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
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?
Ver. 13. See Mat 7:9-11 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Luk 11:13 . . , this epithet is attached to here though not in the Lord’s Prayer. instead of Mt.’s . The Holy Spirit is mentioned here as the summum donum , and the supreme object of desire for all true disciples. In some forms of the Lord’s Prayer (Marcion, Greg. Nys.) a petition for the gift of the Holy Spirit took the place of the first or second petition.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
know. Greek. oida. App-132.
children. App-108.
heavenly = out of (Greek. ek. App-104.) heaven.
the Holy Spirit = spiritual gifts. No articles. Greek. pneuma hagion. See App-101. Note the five contrasts. A loaf, a stone; a fish, a serpent; an egg, a scorpion; temporal gifts, spiritual gifts; earthly fathers, the heavenly Father.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Luk 11:13. [ , how much more) Since the readiness in freely giving is so great on the part of GOD: how great, I ask, must be thought to be the torpor which lurks beneath on the part of men, even though offering prayer, seeing that so few things are obtained by prayer!-V. g.]- , the Father who is of heaven) who is supremely good.- ,[107] the Holy Spirit) the best of all good gifts, and with it all things: ch. Luk 24:49. The Holy Spirit is a spirit good and joyous: , Psa 143:10, in LXX. It is the Holy Spirit Himself that works in man the first beginning of the desire for Himself. He is moreover more necessary to the soul than food is to the body.
[107] The Germ. Vers. prefers the reading , which is considered an inferior reading in the margin of both Editions.-E. B. AB and Rec. Text read . Dbcd (datum), Orig. 1,213c; 3,650d. read . L and Vulg. read . The and have both probably crept in here, through the harmonies, from Mat 7:11.-ED. and TRANSL.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
give
It is evident that none of the disciples, with the possible exception of Mary of Bethany, asked for the Spirit in the faith of this promise. It was a new and staggering thing to a Jew that, in advance of the fulfilment of Joe 2:28; Joe 2:29 all might receive the Spirit. Mary alone of the disciples understood Christ’s repeated declaration concerning His own death and resurrection Joh 12:3-7. Save Mary, not one of the disciples but Peter, and he only in the great confession Mat 16:16 manifested a spark of spiritual intelligence till after the resurrection of Christ and the impartation of the Spirit; Joh 20:22; Act 2:1-4. To go back to the promise of Luk 11:13, is to forget Pentecost, and to ignore the truth that now every believer has the indwelling Spirit; Rom 8:9; Rom 8:15; 1Co 6:19; Gal 4:6; 1Jn 2:20; 1Jn 2:27. (See Scofield “Act 2:4”)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
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?Luk 11:13.
1. The text is an inference rather than a demonstration. This was quite a favourite method with Christto take a generally admitted premise and shut His hearers up to a necessary conclusion resulting from it. Analyze the present statement and it comes to this: Human nature is confessedly selfish, yet men are not so exclusively devoted to themselves and to their own interests as not to provide for their offspring. Now, if they, being self-centred and self-regarding, do this, shall a supremely benevolent Being fall short, and fail to supply the deepest needs of those who seek His interference on their behalf?
2. Notice, again, that here, as always, Jesus draws His parable from the simplest habits of man. Giving to those we love is a necessary part of our happiness, one might almost say of our humanity. Imagine if you can a family in which there is no delightful giving from parent to child, child to parent, brother to sister; it is simply inconceivable. All family life is a daily acting out of the great saying, It is more blessed to give than to receive. Let any one think of a birthday in a household, of the gifts that pour in as symbols of the love that is felt. It needs no great virtue in a parent to rejoice in the pleasure of a child when it receives a gift; it may well be one of the few unworldly moments of a generally worldly life taken up and saturated with the poor desire of gain. But this poor desire slips aside for a time as he sees his child smiling and rejoicing over some small birthday gift.
Now this is the habit, the instinct, on which Jesus Christ fixes His eye. He detects in it a proof of prayer. He sees in it something of the majesty of God. No infirmity, no degradation even on the part of the parent can prevent him from so far being a witness, indeed an interpreter and representative of his all-perfect, all-bounteous Creator. 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?
Let us consider
I.The Giver.
II.The Gift.
III.The Recipients.
I
The Giver
1. The Giver is God, and we must begin by regarding Him as a personal Being. This may not seem so easy in these modern days as it was in the childhood of the race. Old Testament saints found no difficulty in clinging to God as to a friend; God was very personal to them. Every common bush was afire with Him. They spoke and acted as if they saw Him. Elect souls who had trained themselves to believe in the moral attributes of God came to trust the personal God Himself. Gods righteousness, mercy, loving-kindness, truth, are not so much abstract attributes of His essential nature as the forms through which He brings Himself near to mans life. By the manifestation of these in history and in the career of individuals, He reveals Himself. He cannot be separated from these attributes. They have no reality apart from Him; and this was the lesson which the prophets more particularly and the teachers of ancient Israel were continually insisting should be learned by their countrymen. A few of them learned it. They could not think of goodness and righteousness except as associated with one God, whose law, as it sought to rule mens lives, was the expression of His mind.
We marvel at times at the spacious prayers contained in some of the Psalms, and in some of the prophecies of the Old Testament. How easily, yet how grandly, these men of long ago moved among great thoughts of the Creator. The very names they gave HimAlmighty, Everlasting, King, Lord of Hostsreveal the magnitude of the ideas which dominated their minds. These names indicated something real and vast. They represented the supremacy of the Divine control, its absoluteness in great things as in small. A man who uttered such prayers never felt himself lost in the unlimited largeness of the universe, but was sure that He who knew all and was everywhere could never forget the least of His creatures, or be uninterested in him. O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. The majesty of God and the faith of man are brought together in thoughts and words that are made possible only to him who in endeavouring to understand himself strives to come near in reverent belief to his Creator.
Personality, like prayer, is a force of which we have daily experience in ordinary life. The south-eastern district of Lancashire became, as is well known, the seat of the great cotton industry because it was one of the few parts of England in which the atmospheric conditions made it possible to work up this natural product into the familiar fabrics of commerce. The rainfall of that region, which is a source of continual complaint to those who live in it, has been the cause of its wealth, for cotton will break in the working if the air is not damp. But to-day, so far have we advanced in knowledge and invention that the manufacturer can make himself independent of the variations of climate by raising the atmosphere of his mill to the point of humidity required for weaving. It is in this way that human personality is on every hand adapting, modifying, selecting the conditions under which it acts, and Nature is conquered by obeying it. So is it, I conceive, that those spiritual beings, whether good or evil, which rise above the race of men in the hierarchy of personal life, live and move and operate. And the great Father, whose robe Nature is, is surely no irresponsible Sultan but Himself as one under authority when He makes the winds His messengers, His ministers the flames of fire.1 [Note: J. G. Simpson, The Spirit and the Bride, 169.]
2. Christ taught us to call God Father. The name which Christ gives to God elevates the whole idea of prayer, and places within the reach of us all a truth about the Creator which only a few of the most serious minds before had reached. Christs teaching that God is our Father supplies us with the belief about God that quickens and purifies all our entreaties and resolutions. We begin then to understand that prayer is one of our privileges as His children, and we regard it less as a means of obtaining the gratification of our personal wishes than as an occasion of confidential inter-communion by which all our cares and griefs pass from us into the Divine heart, and we are made of one will with the Father.
Tennyson thus describes the love of a true father for his offspring:
Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat!
Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet!
All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet,
My sweet.
Sleep, little blossom, my honey, my bliss!
For I give you this, and I give you this!
And I blind your pretty blue eyes with a kiss!
Sleep!
Father and Mother will watch you grow,
And gather the roses whenever they blow,
And find the white heather wherever you go,
My sweet.
3. The Heavenly Father transcends all earthly parents in His willingness to bless His children. Christ singles out an intensely human characteristic and makes it the hint of a corresponding attribute in God. He takes it for granted, as a familiar fact, that parents are disposed to grant the reasonable requests of their children for good things, and, building upon this basis, He proceeds to bring God within the range of our apprehension by the affirmation that He is equally willing to bestow upon mankind what He considers to be the best thing He has to give. It is clear that, according to Christs representation, God, their Maker, is generously disposed towards the children of men. He wishes to help them, in the highest sense; He would enlighten, enlarge, elevate, enrich them. This statement is of itself equivalent to a revelation. It announces this splendid truth, that benevolence, generosity, helpfulness, are basal and underlying attributes of God. It is His nature to communicate of His life, of His fulness and exuberant richness, to the moral creatures He has made. He wishes to impart to them, so far as they are able to receive it, His own point of view, His own contentment and repose, His own moral perfections.
It is told of Thomas Chalmers, that he was seen on the last morning of his life wandering among the flowers in his garden, as he murmured the words, O, heavenly Father, my heavenly Father. What nobler attitude towards the universe could you desire than that? I ask for no God who would deflect from its orbit a single star, or violate the laws which govern the growth of the meanest flower. I ask for no God who has no reverence for the way of the wind, or for those hidden processes whereby the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child. But in the evening and morning and at noonday will I pray out of the deep of my own personality to Him who maketh the seven stars and Orion, and who is the God of my life, knowing that He will cause all things to work together for good to them that love Him, and that He will hear my voice.1 [Note: J. G. Simpson, The Spirit and the Bride, 170.]
4. The Heavenly Father has knowledge which earthly fathers have not. If even an evil parent has natural affection enough to lead him to supply this simple want, so the most ignorant have knowledge enough, not always to do it in the best way, but at least to give what is absolutely necessary, and what is asked for. But we have deeper wants than the want of bread, and wants that require a far deeper knowledge to supply them; yet the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God are sufficient for them all.
Sometimes, for instance, we are placed in difficult circumstances, and know not how to act. In such a case mans knowledge, both our own and that of our fellow-creatures, fails. Man cannot help us then; but we seek guidance of God, and find that He knows how to give us just what we want. Our prayer is heard, help and guidance are given, and we are brought through our difficulties. Not perhaps immediately, and not by any strange means; yet in the end we are brought safely through. Our Heavenly Father knows how to give us just what we want.
Our little children in their ignorance make many a foolish request, but we do not insist they shall ask for nothing again. We simply by our refusal train them to ask better, and to confied in a larger wisdom than their own. We sometimes ask God to deliver us from things that do not necessarily injure the soul, however unpleasant and dangerous they look, such as illness, poverty, bad business, loss, and death. And God does not hear our prayer. It takes us long to see that our prayer is best answered, not by what it does for us externally, but by what it effects in our mind and heart, in the way we look at life, and the way we trust God. We can never fail, however, to have the answer to our prayer when we ask to be delivered from sin, and callousness of spirit, and pride, and unbelief, for these touch us in our divinest part and imperil the souls beauty and security. God loves our good more than our happiness, and works more for the sake of securing in us a childlike disposition than comfortable circumstances. Some of us may have said with Jean Ingelow: I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered.1 [Note: W. Watson, Prayer, 102.]
II
The Gift
1. The gift here promised is the Holy Spirit, and this gift includes every blessing. It is the essence of all good things, the highest good.
The worth of this gift is immeasurable. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as the promise of the Father; the one promise in which Gods Fatherhood revealed itself. The best gift a good and wise father can bestow on a child on earth is his own spirit. This is the great object of a father in educationto reproduce in his child his own disposition and character. If the child is to know and understand his father; if, as he grows up, he is to enter into all his will and plans; if he is to have his highest joy in the father, and the father in him, he must be of one mind and spirit with him. And so it is impossible to conceive of God bestowing any higher gift on His child than this, His own Spirit. God is what He is through His Spirit; the Spirit is the very life of God.
Every seventh day, if not oftener, the greater number of well-meaning persons in England thankfully receive from their teachers a benediction, couched in those terms:The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you. Now I do not know precisely what sense is attached in the English public mind to those expressions. But what I have to tell you positively is that the three things do actually exist, and can be known if you care to know them, and possessed if you care to possess them; and that another thing exists, besides these, of which we already know too much.
First, by simply obeying the orders of the Founder of your religion, all grace, graciousness, or beauty and favour of gentle life, will be given to you in mind and body, in work and in rest. The grace of Christ exists, and can be had if you will.
Secondly, as you know more and more of the created world, you will find that the true will of its Maker is that its creatures should be happy; that He has made everything beautiful in its time and its place, and that it is chiefly by the fault of men, when they are allowed the liberty of thwarting His laws, that Creation groans or travails in pain. The love of God exists, and you may see it, and live in it if you will.
Lastly, a Spirit does actually exist which teaches the ant her path, the bird her building, and men, in an instinctive and marvellous way, whatever lovely arts and noble deeds are possible to them. Without it you can do no good thing. To the grief of it you can do many bad ones. In the possession of it is your peace and your power.1 [Note: Ruskin, Lectures on Art, 12. (Works, xx. 115).]
Christ came to bring mans spirit into immediate contact with Gods Spirit; to sweep away everything intermediate. In lonely union, face to face, mans spirit and Gods Spirit must come together. It is a grand thought! Aspire to this! Aspire to greatness, goodness! So let your spirit mingle with the Spirit of the Everlasting.2 [Note: F. W. Robertson.]
We know that men, corrupt and vain,
Will grant their childrens prayer,
And can we think Thou wilt not deign
To make our wants Thy care?
For Thou, O God, our Father art,
And Thou art wholly good,
And every need of every heart
By Thee is understood.
Not wealth, nor length of days our quest,
Not years untouched by pain;
A purer gift, of gifts the best,
Thy children seek to gain.
More of Thy Spirit is our want;
That Spirit now instil;
We know Thou wilt; for this to grant
Must be our Fathers will.1 [Note: S. C. Lowry, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 26.]
2. The Holy Spirit is indispensable. There is a sublime and unspeakable side to religion; its superlative attainments are not the outcome of our native powers, but require an impulse, an initiative, originating in another sphere. Of course, knowledge, intellectual apprehension of its doctrines, duties and expectations, is a material element in it, but it does not exhaust the subject. There enter into it certain frames of feeling, a certain attitude of the will. It embodies the emotional and voluntary nature. There is considerable religious knowledge; the creeds of Christendom are well known, multitudes apprehend intellectually all that is important for them to know at present; but does this do much perceptible good? Do our pious, orthodox, abstract convictions give spring, courage, enthusiasm? What is wanted to make them vivid, dynamic, controlling, compelling? The truth, in this obscure matter, seems to be that the soul of man needs to be moved upon, illuminated, energized from above. In order to come into close and fruitful relation with religious truths and ideals, these should be made to pass before the imagination with such port and majesty, to commend themselves to the conscience with such convincing demonstration, to appeal to the affections as so intrinsically lovely, that the soul shall spontaneously espouse them. But our nature cannot develop such enthusiasm. We are swayed by other desires and ambitions. To get a sense of God as a perpetual presence, as a mighty inspiration, as an abounding joyfor such high achievement the natural man is not equal. The great mystics, the great religious natures in every age, have felt this to be true. They have agreed with St. Paul that they were wretched men, and did not find it in themselves to be much better; could not overtake, or come abreast with, their noblest aspirations. The potent, ineffable influence, the Holy Spirit, appears to be indispensable in order that man may realize his highest possibilities and come to the crown of his being.
Those of you who still go to chapel say every day your creed; and, I suppose, too often, less and less every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles of it, and,admitting Christianity to be true,still be forgiven. But I can tell youyou must not cease to believe the third! You begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood, and yet be forgiven. You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship, and yet be forgiven. But the third articledisbelieve if you dare! I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life.Disbelieve that; and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind; and the elements of dissolution have entered your very heart and soul.1 [Note: Ruskin, The Eagles Nest, 16. (Works, xxii. 236).]
3. Christ could commend the Holy Spirit to His disciples, because He knew from experience what this gift would mean. See how the Saviour Himself from the moment of His baptism saw His life of service, His victory through death, unfolded before Him in the power of the anointing, the consecrating Spirit; how in the Spirit He was driven into the wilderness to meet the ordeal of fire by which He was annealed for His redemptive cross. See how one New Testament writer after another with sympathetic insight represents the Son of Man as through the eternal Spirit offering Himself without spot to God, and through the same indwelling presence raised from the dead by the glory of the Father! It is the Spirit who alone can show us the shining vesture of Him who has the keys of Death and of Hades in the coarse garments of the Syrian peasant arraigned before Annas and condemned by Pilate, for no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Ghost. It is the Spirit who alone can show us in that figure stumbling along the way of sorrows none other than Jehovah Himself, travelling in the greatness of His strength mighty to save. None but the Spirit can put a new song in our mouths as we uplift our eyes to the deserted cross, bidding us cry with the innumerable company of celestial choirs, and with the spirits of the just, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the Churches.
If I have to speak more than once at a Convention, I invariably give at least one address to the subject of the Holy Spirit. But I am more and more deeply impressed with the fact that Jesus Christ is the great centre of Christianity, and that the Spirits work is to reveal Him. If we speak so as to fill people with a vague desire and expectancy to receive something into their heartsthey dont quite know whatwe may lead them away from the truth. This prevents my saying all that I hear some men say, but I quite agree with you that the Spirit has not been sufficiently honoured in the churches, and that we have not cultivated as we ought a sense of dependence on Him. In this way He has been dishonoured and grieved, and His work restrained. All this modern sensationalism is a sad token of our loss of faith in Him. Amid all these varying theories and conflicting views there is great comfort for a man like me in the remembrance that the Holy Spirit is the gift of God, and that He will certainly fill with His Spirit a surrendered, open, believing heart. There are times when I am quite sure that I speak in the power of the Spirit, though I should hesitate to say precisely what was my relation to the Spirit. I mean that I could not state it in any doctrinal form.1 [Note: John Brash: Memorials and Correspondence, 137.]
(1) At Christs Baptism, the Spirit descended like a dove, and filled His soul with peace. And this peace He wished to share with His disciples. It is the peace that comes after victory. For forty days Jesus was tempted of the devil, but not overcome. The Spirit brought Him into the wilderness, and now when the conflict is over what takes place? We are told that angels came and ministered unto Him, but we are also told of the Spirit ministering unto Him, for it is said that He returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee. Yet it is not said that He, like the angels, came unto Him. No, He did not come, for since His descent upon Him, He had remained with Him. It is characteristic of the Spirit to abide. And he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth.
Well might the Saviour recommend this Spirit. He had been with Him all through His temptation, and He is with every one who receives Him, from first to lastnever leaving or forsaking him. Surely He is the good gift of God!
Oft in a dark and lonely place
I hush my hastened breath,
To hear the comfortable words
Thy loving Spirit saith;
And feel my safety in Thy hand
From every kind of death.
Then in the secret of my soul,
Though hosts my peace invade,
Though through a waste and weary land
My lonely way be made,
Thou, even Thou, wilt comfort me
I need not be afraid.
Still in the solitary place
I would awhile abide,
Till with the solace of Thy love
My heart is satisfied;
And all my hopes of happiness
Stay calmly at Thy side.1 [Note: A. L. Waring.]
(2) Again, the Spirit meant power. The prophet had represented the servant of Jehovah as having the Spirit upon Him, and there was He, conscious that the prophecy was an accomplished fact in His own experience. He is anointed for His ministry of blessing among the poor, the wounded, the bound, the blind, and the oppressed, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him. And so it was all through His lifetime of labour. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Never at any moment was Christ bereft of that comfort; and what a comfort it must have been to Him! Men did not understand Him, but the Spirit did. Men did not love Him, but the Spirit did. Many who had followed Him turned away from Him, but the Spirit never did.
Well might He then speak of Him as the sum of all good gifts and so recommend Him to His disciples. The work which He was doing they were to continue, and to do it effectively they needed the same Spirit.
How many do you count me for? asked the Macedonian general, as his soldiers expressed their fear of going into battle against great odds. How many do you count me for? asks the Holy Ghost, who still abides in the church with His undivided presence and His undiminished power. Christ, in the person of the Holy Spirit, dwells in every church in the fulness of His presence. Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them, is the Magna Charta of the local church. Christ is not divided; He has not distributed Himself among His churches, giving a part of Himself to each, so that only by a union of all the churches can we secure the presence of the whole Christ. Herein is the immense difference between spiritual force and physical force.1 [Note: A. J. Gordon: A Biography, 242.]
4. The Holy Spirit means the redemption of our common life. The deepening of the spiritual life which we lack can come to us only through the solicited energy of the Holy Spirit. Just as in the sphere of music men invoke the spirit of music that they may become great musicians, and in the sphere of art invoke the spirit of art that they may become great artists, so we must invoke the Spirit of Holinessno mere idealized conception in this instance, but the Living Spirit of the Living Godthat we may become holy men and holy women, that we may become great and good in the spheres of character and conduct, that we may live that deeper and diviner life of which we are capable.
The Whitsuntide Fair with its crowds and its noise, its vulgarity and its coarseness, its low buffoonery, reminded one of what goes on behind the scenes in mens lives, and of how much there still is of the brute and the savage in many of us. Mans world outside corresponds to his world inside, and I say that the only thing which can bring to us sweetness and order, and good government, and effectual and holy living, is that power which is obtained by prayer, and which comes to us through the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.2 [Note: T. Sanderson, The Illimitable Domain, 91.]
III
The Recipients
1. The recipients of the Holy Spirit are those who ask the Father for Him. Jesus reminds us that the man who prays is only applying to the sphere of his fellowship with God the principles which obtain in the ordinary intercourse of daily life. The dictates of common sense suggest that he should ask if he wishes to receive. The bell at our front door, the forms of application issued by the thousand from every office which has favours to distribute, the advertising columns of the daily press witness to the important place which asking holds in the development of human lives and in the conduct of human affairs. How foolish would be the person who should plead a rigid theory of determinism as an excuse for waiting until something should turn up! How many doors remain closed because those who are free to enter are too shy to knock! How many opportunities are lost because those for whom they are waiting are too lazy to seek! How many boons are never granted because those for whom they are intended have not courage to ask! Bread will not fall into our mouths. Work will not drop from the skies. It may be true enough that the labour exchange is not the final remedy for want of employment. But our method of dealing with the man who will not put down his name should be short and sharp. It is the ordinary experience of life to which our Lord appeals when He says, Ask, and it shall be given you. Every one that asketh receiveth is a universal proposition.
It is this principle that the man of faith carries with him into his spiritual life. What others have tried and tested in the daily play of human intercourse he has found good also in that larger world in which the soul holds communion with the Eternal. Too often has he proved its prevailing efficacy to mistake the silence of God for a rebuke to his persistent petitions, or for an evidence of an ear that hears not, of an arm that cannot save. It is not presumption, it is trust that prays.
Is it said that only the prayer of faith is heard? True; but every real prayer is a prayer of faith.1 [Note: Thomas Erskine, Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel.]
It is a great law that Gods blessings must be sought. If we want them, we must ask Him for them. It is no hard condition. The instinct of prayer has been firmly planted within us. We have but to exercise it. There are times when we could not repress it if we tried. It is true that when we argue about it we can find difficulties, and perhaps make them. We can, of course, imagine that God might have made His giving to be independent of our desiring. We can see also that, by permitting us to ask, He has allowed us an intimacy of intercourse with Himself which could not otherwise have been ours.
The condition is part of the law of labour under which we live. Nothing can be done without effortsomebodys effort. Nothing can be done for us permanently without our own effort. Prayer is the noblest kind of effort. Truly, to pray needs the fullest exercise of all our highest powers.
The condition is part, too, of the law of liberty under which we are placed. The best things are not forced upon us. In one of His lessons on the subject of prayer, our Lord points to a difference between the action of the forces of good and of evil. The evil spirit is rude and inconsiderate. It intrudes unbidden. When it has been expelled, it insists upon returning with violence the moment it sees a chance. The Heavenly Father cannot act thus. He is most willing to give the Holy Spirit, but it must be to them that ask him.1 [Note: A. W. Robinson, The Voice of Joy and Health, 79.]
Above the beautiful waters of Rydalmere there is one of the most enchanting spots in the English Lakes. An old grey wall fences in a road which runs beside the slopes below, shaded by varied trees and rich with wild flowers. In an opening in the wall stands an aged and venerable gate, much inscribed by names and initials of many generations. It is the Wishing Gate; and there for centuries, young and old, happy lovers and saddened mourners, men and women in every phase of life, have leant, and looked with admiration at the exquisite landscape, and formed a wish which is not to be whispered to a friend or companion. Beyond the outline of the hills opposite, shines the glory of the southern sky, suggesting thoughts of the infinite and the eternal. That is an emblem of what our Lord wants to see in the daily life and thoughts of each one of us. We are not to walk through life in solitary pride and scornful self-sufficiency; for each of us, in the secret of our souls, there is to be a Wishing Gate; we are to call for everything that we need upon the illimitable love of our Divine Father.2 [Note: W. M. Sinclair, Difficulties of our Day, 143.]
2. The Father is free to answer the prayers of His children. He is not a prisoner held fast by the forces He has made. The world is not, as some suppose, a vast machine, which its Maker cannot control. Science cannot explain what force is, or how its changes of form are brought about; and is there any reason against our supposing that God may employ the forces of Nature to meet the changing requirements of His moral government? May the Divine Mind not have other purposes to fulfil than those that are expressed in the works we see? May there not be laws higher than the laws which we have discovered, and may not the will of God, which is before and beyond all things, make these, by processes we cannot imagine, serve the great ends of His providence? He is a living God, and Nature is ever evolving, and we may surely believe that His relation to the thing He has made is close and operative and constant. For aught that we know to the contrary, God may employ the forces of Nature to carry forward and complete the purposes He has in view in His moral government of His children. We know so little of them that we dare not say He does not so use them, and we are so sure of His goodness and power that we shall hesitate to disbelieve that He can do all things.
At sixty years of age Dr. Pierson was not too old to learn, and, with humility and an eager thirst after knowledge, he listened as Mr. George Mller of Bristol gave detailed testimony to show God as a hearer and answerer of prayer. In one of these interviews he asked Mr. Mller if he had ever petitioned God for anything that had not been granted.
Sixty-two years, three months, five days and two hours have passed, replied Mr. Mller with his characteristic exactness, since I began to pray that two men might be converted. I have prayed daily for them ever since and as yet neither of them shows any signs of turning to God.
Do you expect God to convert them?
Certainly, was the confident reply. Do you think God would lay on His child such a burden for sixty-two years if He had no purpose for their conversion?
Not long after Mr. Mllers death, Dr. Pierson was again in Bristol, preaching in Bethesda Chapelthe meeting-place of the Brethren. In the course of his sermon, he told of this conversation, and as he was going out at the close of the service a lady stopped him and said: One of those two men, to whom Mr. Mller referred, was my uncle. He was converted and died a few weeks ago. The other man was brought to Christ in Dublin.1 [Note: Life of A. T. Pierson, 277.]
3. Prayer becomes potent, when it represents the attitude of the soul. It is only as prayer becomes a habit, a kind of second nature with us, that it is really effectual. The giving of the Spirit is not like the opening and the shutting of a door. It is not like a parcel flung into our hand, of the reality of which we have ocular and tangible proof. There are some people who shoot up their prayers like a rocket, and they expect the answer to come to them like the falling of the stick after the powder has exploded. But all this is grossly to misconceive the character of prayer. The Heavenly Father gives the inspiration of the Spirit as He gives the summernot in one sudden burst of magnificence, and in an instantaneous ripening, but by a gradual growth, and by slow processes, and by many subtle and silent operations, extending over a period of several weeks: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. So God gives His Spirit in answer to prayer, gradually, persistently, silently, and for the most part without realization of the fact by the recipient, yet effectually energizing the powers of the mind and heart. Individual acts of prayer may or may not avail to ensure what we pray for, but the habit of prayer never fails.
Prayer, in so far as it implies that the mind has been uplifted towards an ideal of all goodness, a going out into the infinite, is invaluable to man, and marks the great distinction between him and the lower animals. It is answered so far as it is high and holy aspiration, being an exercise of mind which thereby creates the condition it prays for. After all, we do not know that mind-power has not a material existence somewhere, just as much as electricity has. If will-power could be brought together as a concentrated force, it might have very astonishing results. At present it is too broken up.1 [Note: George Frederic Watts, in Life, ii. 223.]
4. The Fathers answer to our prayer will be evident in our life and bearing. The gift of the Holy Spirit will mean a holy and resplendent life. With every true prayer God has more to do than the person who prays, and therefore every true prayer carries part of its own answer. God, as the old mystics loved to say, is an unutterable sigh in the innermost depth of the soul. What God prompts within us He knows how to meet. We learn slowly to put away childish things from our mind when we pray, and our main desire is that He will, in ways that He Himself deems best, give us that which will more deeply and visibly impress on our character the strength and calm of Christ, and arm us for the battle and make us more than conquerors in it.
Where the Spirit of the Incarnate is indwelling, He is present neither as a distinct or extraneous gift, nor as an overruling force in which the self is merged and lost, but at the consummation of the self. He is not a mere presence in me, overruling, controlling, displacing. What He in me does, I do. What He in me wills, I will. What He in me loves, I love. Nay, never is my will so really free; never is my power so worthy of being called power; never is my rational wisdom so rational or so wise; never is my love so really love; never moreover is any one of these things so royally my own; never am I, as I, so capable, so personal, so real; never am I, in a word, as really what the real I always tried to mean; as when by the true indwelling of the Spirit of God, I enter into the realization of myself; as when I at last correspond to, and fulfil, and expand in fulfilling, all the unexplored possibilities of my personal being, by a perfect mirroring of the Spirit of Christ; as when in Him and by Him I am, at last, a true, willing, personal response to the very Being of God.1 [Note: R. C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 251.]
Nobody can tell us what makes a carbon a diamond. The same substance is in both, but the one will shine in the dark and the other will not. We cannot see what makes the difference, except that the diamond, which is carbon after all, has managed to feed upon the light somehow, and store it, and shine by its lustre. Holiness is character, the shining light that never was on sea or land; holiness is character with a fragrance; holiness is an influence of itself, and it is begotten of communion with the Unseen, and without that you never have it, and no man has ever had it. When you speak about the men you know in business life who are living well and nobly without any particular faith in God, with nothing more than a faith in right, you know, as well as I know, and as well as they know too, that if you place a Spurgeon and a Catherine Booth alongside them, the difference is that of the diamond and of the carbon, and the difference is made by prayer. The one is mighty in the communion with the Unseen, and the other is not. The witness of holiness to the efficacy of prayer is this, that no saint ever prayed and doubted about his answer; if it came not in one way, it came in another. Unvarying, unaltering is the witness of holiness to the fact that God does hear prayer, however it is done.2 [Note: R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, 43.]
The early Christian missionaries of Scotland, on their long missionary voyages from Iona, found their burdens grow lighter, and their fears become less dismal, and their hopes break into a warm enthusiasm, when they reached the most difficult part of the way, and they said to one another, The secret prayers of our aged master, Columba, meet us here at the points where we need them most. If we were but unchangeably confident in God we should be conscious again and again in our neediest hours of the inbreathing into our feeble life of the strength of Jesus Christ.1 [Note: W. Watson, Prayer, 112.]
The Gift of the Holy Spirit
Literature
Binney (T.), Sermons in Kings Weigh-House Chapel, 1st Ser., 214.
Bourdillon (F.), The Parables Explained and Applied, 150.
Campbell (R. J.), City Temple Sermons, 38.
Clayton (C.), Stanhope Sermons, 166.
French (R. A.), Gods Message through Modern Doubt, 165.
Jones (J. S.), Saved by Hope, 134.
Matheson (G.), Voices of the Spirit, 105.
Murray (A.), The Ministry of Intercession, 20.
Murray (A.), With Christ, 48.
Sanderson (T.), The Illimitable Domain, 81.
Shedd (W. G. T.), Sermons to the Natural Man, 123, 140.
Simpson (J. G.), The Spirit and the Bride, 163.
Christian World Pulpit, xxi. 362 (A. Scott); xlv. 145 (H. M. Butler); Ix. 376 (E. Griffith-Jones).
Churchmans Pulpit: Whitsunday, ix. 165 (S. P. Bevan); Sermons to the Young, xvi. 276 (E. Garhett).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
being: Gen 6:5, Gen 6:6, Gen 8:21, Job 15:14-16, Psa 51:5, Joh 3:5, Joh 3:6, Rom 7:18, Tit 3:3
know: Isa 49:15, Mat 7:11, Heb 12:9, Heb 12:10
how: Mat 6:30, Rom 5:9, Rom 5:10, Rom 5:17, Rom 8:32, 2Co 3:9-11
heavenly: Luk 11:2, Luk 15:30-32, Mat 5:16, Mat 5:45, Mat 6:14, Mat 6:32
give the: Pro 1:23, Isa 44:3, Isa 44:4, Eze 36:27, Joe 2:28, Mat 7:11, Joh 4:10, Joh 7:37-39
Reciprocal: Num 20:8 – speak 1Sa 17:17 – Take now Psa 25:8 – teach Psa 51:11 – holy Psa 73:24 – Thou Pro 2:3 – if Eze 11:19 – I will put Hos 14:2 – receive Mat 7:7 – and it Mat 10:20 – but Luk 18:7 – shall Luk 18:19 – General Joh 14:26 – Holy Ghost Act 1:4 – the promise Act 1:14 – all Rom 8:9 – if so be Gal 3:14 – might Gal 4:6 – God Eph 1:13 – holy Eph 5:18 – but Phi 3:15 – God Jam 1:17 – good
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Satan’s Strategies against the Son of God
Luk 11:13-26
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The Scripture chosen for this study describes a continual conflict which existed between Christ and Satan. The Lord Jesus is the “Stronger Man” of this Scripture, while Satan himself is the “strong man.” The strong man is endeavoring to put his hand upon men, however, the real strategy of Satan is centered against the Son of God. Everything beloved of the Son is hated by Satan, and is opposed by him. Our Scripture gives us, however, positive assurance that the Stronger Man will overcome the strong man, and take from him his armor wherein he trusted, dividing the spoils.
When Jesus Christ came on the scene the demons trembled before Him, and He cast them, out with a word. Satan himself, was not so easily vanquished. Conflict between him and the Lord began far back in history. It focused its fury against the Lord during the period of Christ’s earthly life. Although Satan was vanquished by the Lord, he was not altogether conquered. His work continues to this hour with deadliest intent, and amazing force against the Church which is Christ’s Body. Thus Satan will continue until, finally, he is cast into the pit of the abyss.
We wish to suggest a few things which lead up to Satan’s direct conflict against the Son of God.
1. Satan and creation. When God first created the heavens and the earth. He created them not waste and void; therefore we take it that Gen 1:2 describes God’s curse upon the original creation. This judgment and its cataclysmic catastrophe was brought about, we have no doubt, as a sentence upon Satan for his pre-historic activities against the Almighty.
2. The first murderer. When Cain rose up against his brother he must have been empowered of the devil. We read that Satan was a murderer from the beginning, and the murder of Abel was in the beginning so far as man’s history is concerned.
3. Satan in Noahic days. As we see the whole earth by sin, we cannot fail to grasp something of Satan’s mighty power against the race. Even the fallen angels who are under Satan’s sway, had much to do with man’s pitiful state at the time of the flood.
4. Satan and Babel. The spirit that prompted the sons of men to build the Tower of Babel was the spirit of pride. This spirit came from Satan’s maneuvering. He is the consummation of all that lifts itself up against God.
5. Satan and Babylon. Satan had entrenched himself in the heart of Nebuchadnezzar and his great city which dominated the first world empire. It is not difficult to see in Nebuchadnezzar’s boastfulness the spirit of the devil. Thus we could go on through the history of the Old Testament, and we would find Satan ever active against God and God’s world.
I. SATAN AND THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS (Mat 2:16-18)
The twelfth chapter of Revelation describes the dragon standing before the woman ready to devour her child as soon as it was born. This Scripture gives a secondary reference to the Lord Jesus, and it refers incidentally, and, in its backward look, to the time when Satan sought to slay the infant, Christ, as soon as He was born.
How did it happen? Herod had inquired diligently of the wise men where Christ was to be born. He did this under pretext of going down to worship Him. Herod’s real objective was, however, that he might slay the holy Infant.
During the centuries Satan had endeavored to make impossible the birth of the promised Seed of the woman. Now, that the Seed was born, and the annunciation of the angels had been made, Satan entered into Herod.
The result was Herod’s edict that in all Judea every male child from two years of age and under should be killed. Thus it happened that “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children.”
Satan’s strategy failed because God, by night, gave Joseph warning saying, “Arise, and take the young Child and His mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”
We can learn a great lesson here. The slaughter of the “innocents” was undertaken in order to slay Mary’s holy Babe, not because Satan or Herod had ought against the “kiddies” in Judea. Thus we see that Satan’s attack against the saints is, in reality, an attack against the Son of God. For His sake we are counted as “sheep for the slaughter.”
II. SATAN AND THE WILDERNESS TEMPTATION (Mat 4:3-4)
From the slaughter of the innocents unto the temptation in the wilderness there lay a period of thirty years. During most of that time Christ had been shielded from the attack of the enemy. He had dwelt with His mother and with Joseph in the city of Nazareth, and had followed the carpenter’s trade. Now, however, Christ had gone to the river, Jordan, where He was baptized of John.
After His baptism He stood, and lo, the Heavens were opened, and a voice from Heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The effect of this voice was startling, indeed, so far as the Satan dominated principalities and powers of the air were concerned.
Satan immediately was forced by the Spirit to meet the Son of God face to face.
The conflict took place in the wilderness whence the Spirit led the Lord. The temptation followed along the general lines of the temptation which overcame the first Adam. Christ was tempted from the viewpoint of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. To every thrust of Satan He was impervious. He proved Himself to be not only the all-conquering Christ, but the impeccable Son of God. In each case of the threefold testing Christ met Satan with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Thus, He threw down His enemy and vanquished him. In this victory Christ did not achieve our redemption, but He proved Himself to be the Son of God worthy of all praise, and a possible Saviour.
Let us comfort our hearts with the fact that we have a Lord who conquered Satan, and who leads us in the train of His triumph and makes us more than conquerors.
III. SATAN AND THE HILL AT NAZARETH (Luk 4:29)
After the temptation in the wilderness Jesus Christ went into the city of Nazareth where He had been brought up as a youth. As He entered into the synagogue, He took from the attendant the scroll of the Prophets, and began to read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”
Having closed the Book He began to speak from these words. At first the people marveled at His gracious message. However, as the Master proceeded, He evidently began to speak of how Satan had imprisoned the people and blinded them to the truth of the glory of God. It was because of this that He told them that He had come to open the prison doors, and to set them free. Immediately the people were enraged against Him, and they led Him to the brow of the hill upon which the Temple was built that they might cast Him off and kill Him.
In all of this we plainly see Satan trying to do away with the Lord Jesus; he would have killed Him if he could.
From the pinnacle of the Temple he had already asked Christ to cast Himself down. Now, from the brow of the hill he was intent on thrusting the Lord over and down to His physical destruction. With majestic power, however, the Lord quietly moved away leaving Satan, and the Satan-dominated crowd, amazed at the power of the Man of Calvary.
Shall we not once more take comfort? No weapon raised against us can prosper. The Lord is saying, “Because I live, ye shall live also.” He offers His life as security for ours-and that sufficeth.
IV. SATAN AND THE GALILEE STORM (Luk 8:23-24)
As the disciples, accompanied by the Master, were crossing the Sea of Galilee the Lord, being weary, lay soundly sleeping in the boat. As He slept a tremendous storm came rushing down from the hills, and fell upon the lake turning it into the madness of fury.
The boat was about to sink, as it was rapidly filling with water. Peter awoke the Master, saying, “Master, Master, we perish.” With nothing of fear, yea, without a shadow of worry, the Master quietly arose. He rebuked His disciples with the words, “Where is your faith?” Then He held up His hand, and addressing the waves and the winds said: “Peace be still” (Mar 4:39).
We read that “there was a great calm.” Who was it, think you, had whipped those waves into madness? Satan, realizing that he could not cope with Christ while awake, sought to attack Him while He was asleep. Perhaps Satan thought: “While Christ is unawares, I will sweep down with Euroclydon force against the little boat, and overwhelm the Son of God. This, however, Satan could not do, yea, nor can he do it now.
We who sail the sea of life need have no fear so long as the Lord rides with us in the boat. Storms may come and storms may go, but God’s children go on forever.
There hath no temptation, no attack from Satan, overtaken us, but that God is able to deliver us. Yea, and He will deliver those who put their faith in Him.
A little girl, seeing a picture of Christ asleep in the boat, said: “I wouldn’t have been afraid as long as Jesus was there.” Why, then, should we fear?
V. SATAN AND THE CRUCIFIXION (Col 2:15)
As the three years of Christ’s ministry came to their close the clouds darkened deeply over the Master’s head. The thunders began to roll, as the lightning” flashed across the sky of His life. All men seemed set against Him. Those who had eaten of His loaves and fishes joined with the rabble in seeking His death. In the upper room the Lord finally sat with His disciples, saying, “The hour is come; behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” Then it was that Satan entered into Judas, and Judas went to the scribes and Pharisees and sold his Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
Out into the Garden of Gethsemane the traitor led the haters of the Son of God. From thence the Lord Jesus was led to Caiaphas and Annas, and then to Pilate in the judgment hall. Plainly we see demonized men, Satan-driven, centering themselves against the Son of God. Surely that night was a devil-filled night. Christ said it was their hour and the power of darkness. When finally the ordeal before Herod and Pilate had passed; when the anguish of the whipping-post was over; when the crushing weight of the Cross under which He fainted was behind Him, and when the Son of God was upon the Cross numbered with the transgressors, with the principalities and power of the air commandeered by Satan, and Satan-energized and driven men all gathered with one heart and mind against the Son of God and God, the Son. Then the Lord all alone met them and vanquished them triumphing over them in it. In His seeming hour of defeat, He wrought His greatest victory.
VI. SATAN AND THE ASCENSION (Eph 1:19-20)
We would have thought that Satan would have given up the fight with the bruising of His head at Calvary, but no-he is determined to press on against every obstacle and every power. Satan is still the prince of the power of the air, for we read in Ephesians that Jesus Christ ascended up far above all principalities and powers, and took His seat at the right hand of God.
We cannot for a moment believe that He went up above those principalities and powers, unopposed. If ever there is to be a war in heaven, there was one then. He who went up above principalities and powers went up through them. The very fact that He sat down at the Father’s right hand with Satan and his forces under His feet is sufficient proof that He is reckoned a Victor.
The twenty-fourth Psalm may be indeed the Psalm of Christ’s Return, but we love to think of it in its relation to His ascension. Hear the words,-“Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in.”
This was the cry of the ascending hosts who accompanied our Lord on His upward way. Down from the parapets of Heaven came the response: “Who is this King of Glory?” The second call given by the ascending hosts is: “The Lord mighty in battle”! Do these words not have a reference beyond Christ’s conflict, and victory over Satan in the wilderness of temptation, in His earth life, and in the conflict at the Cross? Do they not strongly suggest the conflict in the skies as the Lord ascended, a conflict where the Lord proved Himself strong and mighty in battle?
One thing we know: that the Lord Jesus Christ now sits with the Father, a Victor, and He is able and willing to lead us in the train of His triumph, and to acclaim us more than conquerors because of His own conquest.
VII. SATAN AND THE SECOND COMING (Rev 12:7-9)
When the Lord Jesus Christ went up into Heaven, He went up above principalities and powers-above the air and all of its forces. When the Lord Jesus Christ descends from Heaven into the air, Satan must be cast down to the earth, inasmuch as it would be impossible for Christ to dwell in the same realm where Satan rules. Our text describes this war in Heaven. The first battle in the air was as Christ went up; the second is as Christ comes down.
We read that Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought against Michael.
We remember that there had been another conflict in the skies when Michael contended with the devil over the body of Moses. That seemed to be in the nature of a dual between the mighty archangel, Michael, and the mighty fallen angel, Satan. When Christ comes again, however, the conflict will be enlarged, Michael will be joined by his angels, and the dragon, by his angels. Satan will not prevail, but will be cast down to the earth.
A warning will then be sounded to the people inhabiting the earth: “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.” Then the voice will add: “Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”
Thus do we read of the great battle wherein Satan once more will meet defeat. It is not, however, until the end of the Millennium that Satan is altogether overcome. At the beginning of the thousand years, a great angel will lay hold upon him, chain him, and cast him into the abyss! After the Millennium Satan will be cast into the lake of fire, where he will forever be shut out from God, and God’s children, and God’s universe.
AN ILLUSTRATION
During the war of the sixties, Mr. Seward, Secretary of War under Mr. Lincoln, said something like this: “We will whip the South in just six months.” The reason he spoke thus, was because he had not rightly judged either the strength or the vitality of the South. He did not know what the South was made of. So it is, that when you go out and fight against the devil you may imagine that you have a little battle on hand, and you will not therefore be fully prepared to meet your enemy. The devil is not merely a myth. I believe in the old-fashioned devil; I don’t mean that he is old-fashioned at all, he is up-to-date. I mean that I believe in the old-fashioned Bible story of the devil, a literal devil, a devil of marvelous and unspeakable power. It is of that devil we speak today.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Luk 11:13. If ye then, being evil If ye, who are, at least, comparatively evil, and perhaps inclined to a penurious and morose temper, yet know how to give good gifts to your children And find your hearts disposed to relieve their returning necessities, by a variety of daily provisions; if earthly parents, though evil, be yet so kind; if they, though weak, be yet so knowing, that they give with discretion, give what is best, in the best manner and time; much more shall your heavenly Father Who has wrought these dispositions in you, and who infinitely excels the fathers of our flesh, as in power, so also in wisdom and goodness, be ready to bestow every necessary good, and even to give the best and most excellent gift of all, his Holy Spirit, to them that sincerely and earnestly ask him; a gift, inclusive of, or followed by, all the good things we ought to pray for; more than which, with its effects and consequences, we do not need, to make us wise, holy, happy, and useful; the Holy Spirit being the source of spiritual life to and in us here, and the earnest of eternal life hereafter; a gift which, therefore, it concerns us all earnestly, constantly, and perseveringly to pray for. Observe well, then, reader, both that it is our indispensable duty to ask this gift, and that we have all possible encouragement to believe that, if we ask aright, we shall not ask in vain. For as certainly as Gods power enables him, so certainly does his goodness incline him, and his promise bind him, to give it, and that to all those that ask as they are here directed.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 13
If ye then, being evil; that is, if men, unfeeling and selfish as human nature is, &c.–The Holy Spirit. This expression seems to imply that Jesus considered it of course that these earnest requests of his disciples would be for spiritual favors. There cannot, in fact, be this eager and unhesitating importunity, in asking for temporal mercies or for deliverance from temporal ills. There will always be, in a soul imbued with a right spirit, a certain reserve and qualification,–If it be possible,–or, Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Jesus drew His climactic conclusion (cf. Mat 7:11). Since God is perfect He will do much more than a sinful earthly father would do. When Jesus gave this teaching the Holy Spirit did not yet indwell every believer (Act 2:33; cf. Luk 24:49; Act 1:4). The greatest blessing God could give a believer then was the possession of His Spirit. Thus the gift of the Holy Spirit was God’s greatest possible gift for the disciples who first heard this teaching. In effect Jesus was saying that the heavenly Father would give the very best gifts to those who ask Him. Believers today do not need to ask God to give them the Holy Spirit because He does this when we trust in His Son (Rom 8:9).
The fact that God gives only good gifts to His children explains why He does not give us everything we request, even things that look good to us. Thus we need to understand Jesus’ promise that God will give us what we ask (Luk 11:9-10) as referring only to things that are good for us. God will without fail give only what is best to His children who request of Him in prayer.
In this important teaching on prayer Jesus gave His disciples a distinctive prayer to pray that expressed appropriate concerns for them because of their unique relationship to God. Then He showed how eager and ready God was to answer their prayers. Finally He promised that God would definitely respond to their prayers but only by giving them truly good gifts. Throughout He stressed the character of God and the disciple’s privileged relationship to Him. [Note: For a biblical theology of prayer, see Thomas L. Constable, Talking to God: What the Bible Teaches about Prayer.]