The Holy Spirit Glorifying Christ

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John 16:14

He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you.

We shall use our text —

I. AS A TEST. There are a thousand things that claim to be of the Holy Ghost; how can we know whether they are or not? Here is a simple mode. Apply this test —

1. To ministries. Now, there are some ministries which clearly are not of the Holy Ghost, because they —

(1) Glorify ceremonies.

(2) Extol doctrine. Against a sound creed we have not a word to say; but still we must exalt Christ rather than Calvinism, or any other system of theology.

(3) Magnify a certain experience — If you have felt thus, and thus, no words of praise can be too strong for you; but if you have been led in another way, you never knew vital godliness at all. I say not a word against experimental preaching, but it must be experience about Christ.

(4) Exalt morality. If we will do this, and that, and the other we shall be saved. But if any man put the works of flesh before the finished work of Christ, his ministry is not of the Holy Ghost.

(5) And what might I say of many who produce their pretty little essays, and high-sounding periods, but that they are as "sounding brass, and a tinkling cymbal," inasmuch as they forget Christ. How bitterly shall we lament much of our ministry because it hath not glorified Christ on our dying beds. What joy it shall be to remember that, however feebly, we did extol Him.

2. To doctrine. Any teaching, whatever authority it may claim, which does not glorify Christ, is most assuredly false. Socinianism must be utterly abhorred of us, for it strikes at once at the Deity of our blessed Lord and Master. If, on the other hand, a doctrine layeth man in the dust and lifteth up Christ as a Saviour, the Alpha and Omega of salvation, you may safely say that is the Holy Ghost's doctrine, for He shall glorify Christ.

3. To the conviction through which a sinner passes. In the first dawn of our spiritual life, a mighty tempest of spiritual influence sweeps over the heart. The Holy Ghost is active, and the Prince of the Power of the air is active too. How, in this confusion, can a man know what part of his conviction is of God, and what part of the devil? You have a thought in your head that you are too great a sinner to be saved. That is not of the Holy Ghost, clearly, because it detracts from the power of Christ as a Saviour. "I am not fit to come to Christ." Surely this is not of the Holy Ghost. What, are you to make yourself fit to come to Christ? Why that is making you a Christ "But I heard Mr. So-and-So say, that when he was converted, he seemed to be dragged by the hair of his head to the very depths of hell, lost beyond the reach of mercy." No doubt that was his experience; but do you want to experience every piece of devilry that a good man has known? Much of what your friend felt was not of God, but of his own corrupt heart. If the Lord brings thee to put thy soul just as it is into the hands of the Redeemer, honouring him by a childlike trust, thou hast an experience infinitely more precious than the ravings of thy proud heart could ever yield thee.

4. To what is called experience. Much of the experience of a Christian is not Christian experience. If any person should mount the platform and inform us that he had been five times tried at the Old Bailey, you would say, "Well, you may have experienced that disgrace, but it is not fair to call it human experience." So, a Christian man may fall into great darkness, and sin. But if he shall set up his darkness and sin as being Christian experience, we say, "No; you may be a Christian and know all this, but we cannot allow you to decide our spiritual state according to your peculiar method of feeling." When we get to that which cometh from beneath we ought to say "Oh! wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord." That only which glorifies Christ is true Christian experience.

5. To ourselves. Art thou saved or not? If saved, the tenor of thy life is to glorify Christ. What sayest thou in looking back? And what about the present and the future?

II. A DIRECTION. How are we to glorify Christ? We must have the Holy Spirit. Let our text, then —

1. Be sanctified to our humiliation. Here are we saved, and yet such weak things that we cannot glorify Christ without the Holy Ghost. Thou hast ten talents, but those ten talents shall make thee ten times a worse defaulter to thy Master unless the Holy Ghost help thee.

2. Be an excitement to earnest prayer.

3. Teach us entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit. All the farmers in England cannot make it leave off raining, but when it does leave off, and the sun shines, they can get their wheat in as quick as they can. All the sailors on the ocean cannot make a capful of wind; but when the wind does blow they can crowd on every yard of canvas. So all the Christians in the world cannot make the Holy Spirit work. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," &c., but when we have the Holy Spirit, we can use Him; when He is with us we can work.

III. A STIMULUS. Does the Holy Ghost glorify Christ? Then —

1. How should we aim to do it! You have been in a large way of business. Could you say that your object was to honour Christ in it? You have come down in the world; but suppose you can glorify God more. Then you are in a better position than you used to be.

2. While we make this our aim, let us take every opportunity of glorifying Christ. We throw thousands of opportunities away. Whether ye work at a lapstone, or drive a plough, or lay the stones in a building, or are diligent with the pen, or buy and sell, do all, even to your eating or your drinking, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and so, like the Holy Spirit, let it be said of you, "He shall glorify Me."

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