THE DIVINE TEACHER
‘The Holy Ghost … He shall teach you all things.’
I. Merely human teaching will never make a Christian.—The great difficulty of all teaching is to rouse attention. The scholar must co-operate with the teacher,
(a) This is one reason why sermons are so often in vain. They fall on dull ears, and never enter at all.
(b) The same thing makes preaching bad. A preacher longs to rouse attention; so he tries to say something new, or in a new way. But truth is old, and the best way was found out long ago. So sermons are dull, for who can help being dull when he knows it matters nothing what he says?
(c) And even supposing that the mind takes in what it hears, and assents to what is proved, there is another struggle yet. For we have to act and live by our rules. Some think the fall of man consisted in the loss of his power to govern himself; and certainly it is very weak. Memory, judgment, will all fail us at times. A crying need for something beyond ourselves.
II. The remedy for it all is the power of the Holy Ghost.
(a) The outward Teacher is not so great as the inner Helper.
(b) We have not lost Christ when the Holy Ghost brings to our remembrance all He was, and did, and said.
III. The Holy Ghost is everywhere the pervading influence of God.—By the one Spirit come all gifts, inward and outward.
(a) The Sacraments are His.
(b) The renewed heart is His dwelling-place.
(c) Christian graces are His work.
(d) Whatsoever we see in the world, of good, is His.
(e) He is the finger of God, by which great works are done.
IV. Hence the absolute necessity of prayer and submission, and the inevitable humility of a Christian. For, we can consent, we can co-operate, but alone we can do nothing. The work may all be ascribed to God, because without His strength it is nothing; and yet it is our work, because it is by our will that God acts. A Christian, then, need fear nothing if the Holy Spirit be his Comforter. And for this must come—
(a) A willing mind.
(b) A longing prayer.
(c) A ready consent and obedience.
We know how, by the use of natural force, men can do work beyond all unaided human strength. When men’s strength fails, they call on God’s creatures to help them. There is a greater power than all natural forces. May we have grace to ask for and use well this power, which is God’s Holy Spirit.
—Bishop Steere.
Illustration
‘The Spirit of God is eternal, not only in time, but also in sympathy and power. And there is no nation and no race, however abject, however far, that the Spirit does not reach, and draw into the bonds of Christian fellowship. And what holds true of the Church is also true of the individual. He who has the Spirit of God may fall, yes, does fall, yet will, and can rise up again because of the all-powerful presence and indwelling of the Spirit. No true Christian, true in will and purpose, however feeble in effort or in accomplishment, need despair. It is not the individual’s strength, but the Spirit’s strength which will enable him to recover his ground, and overcome the temptation, or triumph over the habit, or purify the life.’