Acts 2:4

WITH THE HOLY GHOST

4. In the old dispensation the Holy Ghost operated extrinsically in the people. It is the crowning glory of the gospel dispensation to be filled with the Holy Ghost, in which case He operates on us intrinsically. The law must be satisfied before the glorious Retribution, back to the Edenic state in which God filled Adam and Eve like angels, can take place. The incarnation of the Son defeated the devil and magnified the violated law; thus sweeping every difficulty out of the way and lifting the flood-gate of perfect love to pour its Niagaras of full salvation into the consecrated believing heart. Hence the crowning glory of the Pentecostal dispensation is the filling of the heart with the Holy Ghost. We find the gospel standard uniformly recognized throughout the history of the apostolic church. It was not only the indispensable qualification of the gospel herald, but it was a sine qua non in the deacon, entrusted with the temporal interests of the church, as well as the eldership, charged with the graver responsibilities of the immortal soul. At this point Satan long ago maneuvered to derail and thus blast the purity and blight the glory of the Christian Church; seducing the fair Bride of Christ to receive his black hand in wedlock, deck herself in all the ornamentation of the world, and verify the horrific prophecies pertaining to the harlot of Babylon. Revelation, 12 th and 17th Chapter s. If the church had remained true to the Pentecostal doctrines and experiences she would long ago have enjoyed the honor of conquering the world and bringing back her glorified spouse to be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords. The filling is impossible unless preceded by a radical emptying, a complete evacuation of our spiritual being by all evil. This is the negative experience under the cleansing blood, the invariable antecedent of the glorious positive experience, i. e., the impletion of the Holy Ghost. If you are true to the infallible Monitor, you can always have at your command the needed information relative to this glorious and extraordinary experience, as He is sure to reveal to you an emptiness in your heart, “an aching void” the world can never fill. Spirit filled people alone constitute the Bridehood of Christ (Matthew 25). Our Lord proposes to rule the world during the coming millennial age through the instrumentality of His Spirit-filled, transfigured Bride (Revelation 20:6). He is now depending on the Spirit filled members of the Bridehood to preach the gospel of the glorious coming kingdom to all nations, calling out the elect and thus preparing the world for His glorious return to reign in righteousness (Matthew 24:14). Reader, I abjure you, by the infinite value of your soul and the infinitesimal glories of the coming kingdom, that you get truly filled with the Holy Ghost and by doubtless faith and martyr obedience keep filled, on tiptoe watching and waiting to hail your Lord descending on a cloud (Revelation 1:7).