OUT OF HIS BELLY.

"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of the midst of him shall flow rivers of living waters."

Those operations of the Spirit of God, of which I am afraid some christians are almost ignorant, are of wonderous power. The text says, " he that believeth on me, out of the midst of him shall flow rivers of living water." THESE OPERATIONS ARE OF MARVELOUS POWER. Do you understand my text? Do river of living waters flow out from you?

NOTICE first that this is to be an inward work, the rivers of living water are to flow out of the midst of the man. The words are according to our version, "out of his belly," that is from his heart and soul. The rivers do not flow out of his mouth, the promised power is not oratory. We have had plenty of words, floods of words, but this is heart work. The source of the rivers is found in the inner life. It is an inward work at it's fountain head. It is not a work of talent and ability, and show, and glitter, and glare, it is altogether an inward work. The life-flood is to come out of the man's inmost self, out of the bowels and essential being of the man. Homage is shown too generally to outward form and external observance, those these soon lose their interest and power, but when the Spirit of God rests within a man it exercises a home rule within him and he gives great attention to what an old divine was wont to call "the home department." Alas, many neglect the realm within which is the chief province under our care. O my brother in Christ, if you would be useful, begin with yourself. It is out of your very soul that the blessing is to come. It cannot come out of you if it is not in you, and it cannot be in you unless God the Holy Ghost places it there.

THE HOLY GHOST.

A very interesting subject is the work of The Spirit upon the Person of Our Lord Jesus.We see The Holy Ghost mysteriously operating in the formation and birth of the holy child Jesus, for by the overshadowing of The Holy Ghost He was born of a woman. This work of The Holy Spirit was manifested to all believing eyes when The Lord Jesus came out of the waters of the Jordan after His baptism, and The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested upon Him. Before He was said to "wax strong in spirit," but afterwards He is described as " full of The Holy Ghost." Then He was led of The Spirit and inspired by His divine energy, and this was shown throughout the whole of His life, for The Spirit was with Him in innumerable miracles, and in the demonstration and power which followed His word, so that He spoke as one who had authority, and not as the scribes. In Him was fulfilled abundantly the prophecy which saith "and The Spirit of The Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of The Lord, and shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of The Lord, and He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth."The Holy Spirit had also a peculiar interest in His resurrection, for He was "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by The Spirit. That same Spirit wrought mightily when The Lord ascended up on high, and led captivity captive, then succeeding His ascension, the gifts of the cloven tongues of fire and the mighty rushing wind were witnessed by His disciples, for The Spirit of God was given abundantly to the church in connection with the ascencion of the Redeemer. Oh how sweetly doth The Spirit co-operate with Christ at this very day, for it is He who takes the things of Christ and reveals them unto us. He is the abiding witness in the church to the truth of the gospel, and the worker of all our gifts and graces. Jesus gives repentance, but The Spirit works it, faith fixes upon Christ, but The Spirit of God first creates faith and opens the eye which looks to Jesus. This whole dispensation through it is the peculiar office of The Spirit of God to be revealing Christ to His people, and Christ in His people, and Christ in the midst of an ungodly and gainsaying generation, for a testimony against them. Blessed be the name of The Holy Spirit, that He is that divine anointing, and so proves His hearty assent to the great plan of redemption.

THE OIL OF GLADNESS.

Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness,

therefore God, thy God, hath anointed Thee

with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.ps45v7

We know that the anointing recieved by our Lord Jesus Christ was the resting of The Holy Spirit upon Him without measure. We are not left to any guesswork about this, for in Isaiah 61 we are told, "The Spirit of The Lord God is upon Me, because The Lord hath anointed Me." Our Lord appropriated these very words to Himself when He went into the synagogue at Nazereth and opened the book at the place wherein these words are written, and said ," this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears." The apostle Peter also, in act.10:38. speaks of " how God anointed Jesus of Nazereth withThe Holy Ghost and with power," so we know both on old testament and new testament authority that the anointing that rested upon The Lord Jesus Christ was the unction of The Holy Spirit. Therefore, by the "oil of gladness " which we have before us in the text is intended The Holy Spirit Himself, or one of the gracious results of His sacred presence. The divine Spirit has many attributes, and His benign influences operates in divers ways bestowing upon us benefits of various kinds, too numerous for us to attempt to catalogue them. Amongst these is His comforting and cheering influence, " the fruit of The Spirit is joy." In acts13:52 we read, " the disciples were filled with joy and with The Holy Ghost." Wherever He comes as an anointing, whether upon The Lord or upon His people, upon The Christ or the christians, upon the anointed or upon those whom He anoints, in every case the ultimate result is joy and peace. On the head of our great High Priest He is joy, and this oil of gladness flows down to the skirts of His garments. To the Comforter therefore, we ascribe " the oil of gladness."

FATHER, SON, AND HOLY GHOST.

The needs of spiritual men are very great, but they are not greater than the power of the Divine Trinity to meet. We have one God-Father, Son and Holy Ghost,-One in Three and Three in One, and that blessed Trinity in unity gives Himself to sinners that they may be saved. In the first place, every good thing that a sinner wants is in The Father. The prodigal son was wise when he said, " I will arise and go to my father." Every good and perfect gift comes from God The Father, the first Person of the blessed Trinity, because every good and perfect gift can only be found in Him. But the needy soul says, " how shall I reach The Father? He is infinitely above me, how shall I get to Him?" In order that you may obtain the blessings of grace, God was in Christ Jesus, the second ever-blessed Person of the sacred Trinity. Jesus said " All things that The Father hath are Mine." So you see that everything is in The Father first, and The Father puts all things into Christ, for, " it pleased The Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell." Now you can get to Christ because He is man as well as God. He is " over all, God blessed forever." But He came into this world, was born of the virgin Mary, lived a sinless life, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, was buried. He is the conduit-pipe, conveying to us all the blessings from The Father. In the gospel of John we read, " of His fulness have all we recieved, and grace for grace." Thus you see The Father, with every good thing in Himself, putting all fulness into the mediator, the Man Christ Jesus who is also the Son of God.
Now I hear a poor soul say, " but I cannot even get to Christ, I am lame and blind. If I could get to Him , He would open my eyes, but I am so lame that I cannot run or even walk to Him. If I could get to Him, He would give me strength, but I lie as one dead. I cannot see Christ or tell where to find Him." Here comes the work of The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the blessed Trinity. It is His office to take the things of Christ, and show them to saints and sinners alike. We cannot see them, but we shall see them fast enough when He shows them unto us. Our sins put a veil between ourselves and Christ. The Holy Spirit comes and takes the veil away from our hearts, and then we see Christ. It is The Holy Spirits office to come between us and Christ, even as the Son of God comes between us and The Father, to lead us to The Father. So that we have the whole Trinity uniting to save a sinner, the Triune God bowing down out of heaven for the salvation of rebellious men.
Every time we dismiss you from this house of prayer, we pronounce upon you the blessing of The Sacred Trinity. " May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of The Holy Ghost be with you." And you want all that to make a sinner into a saint, and to keep the saint from going back to being a sinner again. The whole blessed Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Ghost must work upon every soul that is to be saved. See how divinely they work together, how The Father glorifies The Son, how The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus, how both The Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus glorify The Father? These Three are One, sweetly uniting in the salvation of the holy seed.

What would We Have Been?

I mean of course without The Holy Ghost. You that are believers have the most forcible reasons to hold Him in the highst esteem, for what are you now without Him? What were you, and what would you have still been if it had not been for His gracious work upon you? He quickened you, else you had not been in the living family of the Living God today. He gave you understanding that you might know the truth, else you would be just as ignorant of the things of God as the carnal world is at this hour. It was He that awakened your conscience convincing you of sin, it was He that gave you an abhorrance of it and the earnest desire to be rid of it, it was He who taught thee to believe and to see the altogether lovely One who is to be believed in, even Jesus the Son of God. The Spirit has wrought in you your faith and love and hope and every other grace, there is not a jewel that adorns the neck of your soul which He with great love has not placed there.
Notwithstanding all that The Spirit of God has already done in us it is very possible that we have missed a large part of the blessing which He is willing to give, for "He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think." We have already come to Jesus and we have drunk of the life-giving sream, our thirst was quenched and we are made to live in Him. Is this all? now that we are living in Him and rejoicing to do so have we come to the end of the matter? Assuredly not. We have only reached as far as the first exhortation of The Master "if any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink" but do you think the generality of the church has advanced to the next? "he that believeth in Me, as the scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow streams of living waters" I think not, I think I am not going beyond the grievious truth if I say that only here and there will you find men and women who have believed up to that point.
Their thirst is quenched and they live, and because Jesus lives they shall live also, but health and vigour they have not, they have life but they have not life more abundantly. They have little life with which to act upon others, they have no energy welling up and overflowing to go streaming out of them like rivers to the needy world around them. Perhaps they have not thought it possible, or thinking it possible they have not imagined it possible to themselves, or believing it possible to themselves they have not aspired to it. They have stopped short of the fullest blessing. May God The Holy Ghost create in each heart the earnest desire to attain to it.