The Holy Spirit — Walter Wilson

The Holy Spirit as a Person

I intend to speak to you about the same subject our brethren have been talking to you about, the person of the Holy Spirit, and always I feel bad about it. I think I know a little more about the subject than I know about the person.

I feel ashamed, really, when I talk about him, because I feel my own utter unspiritual condition always, to be filled with the Holy Spirit is wonderful. I know what it says about it. I'd like to know something about it personally.

I don't know how you feel about it, but I think sometimes we're more afraid of holiness than we are of sin. We're more afraid of the Holy Spirit filled than we are of Brother Simpson and Brother Mitchell and Brother Reedhead, who have all been talking to us about him and his precious, wonderful work.

So I want to talk to you about him himself and getting acquainted with him, our personal relationship to him. I know you know a great deal about his work, but I'd like to talk more about himself, if I may, today.

Let me remind you that if you know him personally, you will never be bothered with this thing called tongues or any of that kind of physical demonstrations. It'll never bother you one bit if you know this person.

Do you hear what I said? A person doesn't make you act crazy and funny and peculiar. A person doesn't give you physical manifestation. This precious person is somebody you ought to take into your life, beloved, as your personal.

Giving One's Body to the Holy Spirit

And the way you do it is to go right to him and tell him so. That's the plain English of it. I wonder if you ever did. Romans 12 and 1 says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you make a present of your body, holy and acceptable unto God, God the Spirit.

He wants your body, and he wants you to come definitely and give it to him. That's the plain English. No, he's given you a whole book full of yarns and theologies and doctrines. In simple English, you go right straight to the Holy Spirit and give him your body and make him your Lord.

I'm just putting it plain and simple, because that's exactly what it is. You gave your body, you married folks, you gave your body to each other. And when you were operating, you gave yourself over to the surgeon and gave him your body.

Everybody ought to have an operation, everybody. Then you have something to talk about the rest of your life. And you can compare your scar with the length of Coolidge's scar. That's the standard scar of present Coolidge's.

And you can tell how long you were on the table, and four doctors never saw a case as bad as yours. It's wonderful, and you can date everything from before your operation so be sure you have one. But you gave yourself, and you boys that went into the army, and you ladies that went into the army or navy, you gave your body to them, and you didn't have any reservations on it.

The service, I gave my body to them. I gave my body to a surgeon one time when I had injuries in my back and paralyzed me. I gave my body to the Holy Spirit January 14, 1914. I'd been saved 17 years, never saw a soul saved, and I was preaching and preaching and giving away tracts and doing all sorts of Christian work.

I never saw anything happen until the night that James M. Gray came to Kansas City and told me about the Lord, the Spirit of God being Lord of the life and wanting my body. I went home and laid down on the carpet and said, Holy Spirit, you can have my body.

I'm giving it to you right now, and you say it's acceptable to you so I don't have to ask you to accept it. When he becomes a real person to you, beloved, you'll never ask him to use you. You don't have to ask God to use you.

That indicates that you have potential possibilities and you have great abilities, but he hasn't got sense enough to see it and use you. I want to say to you, beloved, he wants to use people. He's waiting for more servants.

He wants them. All we have to do is be fit to be used. You don't have to ask him to do it. If you have something you can use, you use it. The trouble is we don't get prepared for it. We don't get ready for it because we don't treat him as a person.

Treating the Holy Spirit as an Indwelling Person

May I ask you, beloved, do you treat the Holy Spirit as a person? Do you? If I came to your home and you knew I was there and you gave me the guest room upstairs, and I'm there, but you pay no attention to me.

You don't talk to me. You don't consult with me. You don't confide in me. You don't trust in me. You don't pay attention. You're just glad I'm there. Beloved, I wouldn't feel at home there. I couldn't help you.

Suppose I was a multimillionaire and an expert at everything connected with the home, with cooking, with interior decorating, with all sorts of things, an expert, but you paid no attention to me and didn't use me.

I'd feel awful bad. How do you suppose the Holy Spirit feels? He came to you before you were saved and convicted you of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, as our brother was telling us. Then he revealed the Lord Jesus to you, and then he led you to trust the Savior, but you paid no attention to him.

Never talk to him, never love him, never communicate with him, never give him credit for anything. Suppose I was going on a wedding with Brother Beck, and he's going to do the marrying, but I'm the best man and I have some part in the service.

We're both dolled up in full dress suits and all those white silk gloves and all sorts of things and spats and patent leather shoes, and we're all dolled up for the wedding. And we're in a car going out for the wedding, and we get stuck in the mud because the rain comes up on this mud road, and we sink down to the axles in the mud.

And I get out, and I say, here, Brother Beck, you stay in because you're going to the wedding, and don't mean to disrupt me. I get out and put on the chains. I get out in the mud and get myself all dirty and covered with mud, and we get to the wedding about 45 minutes late.

And Brother Beck goes up to the front door. Oh, what makes you late, Brother Beck? Oh, we got into a rain, you know, the rain came up, and we got down in the mud to the axles. But we finally got the chains on, we got here.

And a voice from the bathroom, yeah, who put on the chains? That's the way we do. We just pay no attention to the Holy Spirit at all. We don't give him any recognition. And you may know all about his work and never have him.

I don't mean he isn't present. He has to be present. You wouldn't be saved. Did you ever go to him personally and welcome him? The Lord Jesus said in John 16, if I go away, I'll send him to you. Did you welcome him when he came?

Pay attention to him? Do you sin? I want to tell you something, precious friends. I'm in a different church almost every week. I could count on one hand the times I've heard any Christian give any credit to the Holy Spirit for anything.

That's the honest truth. You don't yourself. I was led to do this, I happen to do this, I happen to be this, I happen to be this. No recognition to the one that does it. Beloved, he's a wonderful Lord.

The Holy Spirit's Gift and the Evidence of Salvation

You notice that in Peter's first sermon in Acts 2, he said, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He didn't say you'll receive the gift of eternal life, that's what we say. He didn't say you'll get peace, that's what we say.

He said you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For Peter knew that was the wonderful effect of being a child of God, having this other person, this lovely person to be yours. And then you remember when he baptized Cornelius?

You Baptists listen to this. He said, can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? Not who have received Jesus Christ. Why didn't he say that?

That's what we say. That's what he said. Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we? Of course he knew the presence of the Holy Spirit meant they had received Christ.

He wouldn't be there if they hadn't been saved. The evidence, the proof that they were saved was the presence of this lovely person in the life. I wonder how many people we'd baptize if we looked for that.

And when Paul went down to Ephesus, he didn't say, did you receive Christ Jesus? He didn't say that to these Ephesians in the 19th of Acts. Did you receive the Holy Spirit? Oh, what's he interested in that for?

Because, beloved, their lives would be wasted unless he took charge. The Lord Jesus saves your soul and the Holy Spirit saves your life. I went through this myself. And ever since that January 14th, 1914, when I met the Holy Spirit personally, my heart's desire to help God's people to know this lovely person.

The Spirit Reveals Christ and Fills the Believer

And the more you know him, beloved, the more he'll make Christ precious to you. There's no jealousy in the Godhead, remember. You can't put one above the other. Don't be afraid of getting too much place to the Holy Spirit.

You can't. He's God, and he wants to fill your life. Now, he's not a guest at all. He is with most Christians, that's right. As our brother Simpson said, people call him a holy guest. Well, he is. That's just what he is in most Christians' lives, just a guest.

With no power at all. Doesn't do a thing in your life. Don't expect him to. Oh, beloved, let me urge you, get acquainted with the Spirit of God personally. Go right to him and do it today. Say, Holy Spirit, I'm making you my Lord.

To reveal Christ, to open the scriptures, make known the Father. He makes known the Father, too. To make us known the schemes and tricks of the devil, to tell us the images in the Old Testament and what they mean, the types of the Bible, the meaning of the scriptures, to show you lost souls to whom you may go, to tell you what to say when you meet anybody that's lost or a Christian.

He does all that. And when you know him personally, I tell you, beloved, you'll never be the same. He won't make you act crazy, either. He'll make you the most sensible Christian, but a useful Christian, and tell you what to say and how to say it.

John 16 and the Spirit's Witness

Now, they say he doesn't talk about himself, but, beloved, he talks about himself 1 ,700 times in the Bible. In that scripture in the 16th of John, the devil has used to wreck God's dear saints. He shall not speak of himself.

John 16. He doesn't say he won't speak about himself. Of course he does, over and over and over again. But you know the Lord Jesus' brother, Brother Mitchell, told us last night, it's on the hillside, three times the Lord Jesus said, I do not speak of myself.

In the 7th chapter, in the 12th chapter, in the 14th chapter of John, the Lord Jesus uses those same words about himself. And you know, beloved, I looked up in all my commentaries, and I have lots of them, to see what the commentary said about that.

Not one of them said a word about that passage in those three places which referred to Christ. Every one of them said the Holy Spirit doesn't talk about himself. It's absolutely false. Of course he talks about himself, over and over.

How would we know him if he didn't talk about himself? He wrote the Bible, but put in the word of, it's a bad translation, and if you have a revised version, you'll notice the correct word. He shall not speak from himself, as though he was inventing a new religion, different from Christ and different from the Father.

When the Savior said, I do not speak of myself, it's the word from. I do not speak from myself. He's telling these Jewish friends that he wasn't originating a new religion. He's simply telling what God had told them all through the Old Testament.

He's just repeating the Father's thoughts and the Father's words. And he's saying when the Holy Spirit comes, he won't bring a new thing. He'll just repeat to you and bring to you what I've been telling you, what the Father's been telling you.

Don't you let the devil cheat you, beloved, out of knowing this lovely, precious, wonderful person. In that lovely verse that our brother Mitchell was bringing before us, I think Brother Simpson did, too, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God.

Not God the Father. Don't add things to the Bible. He isn't talking about a Father's love in that verse at all. And the love of God and the communion, not communion and fellowship, for those are the same two words.

Don't add your word of God. And the communion of the Holy Spirit. Now, what is communion? Why, I had communion with some of you precious friends, and I love you. I thank God for every one of you. It's just my heart's good to come to, when I don't see you dear saints who go out every year.

But communion is an interchange of thoughts and words and feelings, isn't it, between one another? My brother Kerr Young down there, we've had the sweetest fellowship, he and I, and his sweet wife. Brother Becker, Brother Mitchell in Kansas City, I was with him in England, had a lovely visit with him.

We communed together. Do you have any communion with the Holy Spirit, beloved? Well, ask yourself. You heard the preacher say it over and over again. When did you ever sit down with the Holy Spirit and have a lovely time with him?

He's here, and he's a person, and he's God. Do you pay any attention to him? That's what the verse says, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, that's a lovely thing to do. Oh, beloved, get alone with him sometime, clear away from the crowd, and just commune with him in sweet fellowship.

Do you? He's a person. I wrote in my Bible some months ago, that poem that Brother Simpson's been quoting to us, a couplet. I thought he wrote it. Kerr said it was written by Dr. Edward Simpson. The Spirit clothed himself, he makes the record say with Gideon.

Four Biblical Figures Clothed with the Holy Spirit

So he became as nothing in the fray, but just a suit of working clothes the Spirit wore that day. Have you ever had that experience? Four men in the Bible had that said about them. Four men were the clothing of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit clothed himself with Othniel, that's the first one. Then the Spirit clothed himself with Gideon, that's the second one. Then the Spirit clothed himself with Amastei, that's the third one. And the Spirit clothed himself with Zacharias, the high priest, that's the fourth one.

The same words he said about those four men. The first one was for leadership. No, the first one was for fight, to be able to attack the enemy. The second one was for leadership. The third one was for fellowship.

And the fourth one was for holiness. The Spirit clothed himself with these four men. So does this little couplet says. So the Spirit clothed himself, he makes the record say, with Gideon. So he became as nothing in the fray, but just a suit of working clothes the Spirit wore that day.

May I ask you, precious friend, would you like to be clothed and be the clothing of the Holy Spirit? So you'd be so full of him, it wouldn't be much of you left. I crave it myself. I've come so far short of it.

I get alone in myself and tell the Lord what a fool I am, what a wreck, what a failure. I can't describe to you what it means to be Spirit-filled. So no matter where you are, the things of God are filling your soul and heart.

You go in the grocery store to buy something and you're thinking about his soul. You get on the bus to ride and you're thinking about the soul of the person that sits next to you. The word of God fills your mind and heart all the time.

All the time. At work, at play, over the operating table. I have a surgeon I work with, and the minute we go in the operating room, he starts talking to me about, asking me questions about the things of God.

He isn't a Christian. A lovely fellow, though. One of the finest surgeons I ever knew. He just wants me to tell him about the things of God. And I love to do it. Right in the operating room, over the person that's lying there.

The Holy Spirit Makes Christ Precious in Scripture

There are three particular marks of a believer. One is he that believes, unto you who believe, he is precious. I think Brother Stratton was referring us to that. Unto you who believe, he is precious. You know the Holy Spirit will make the Lord Jesus so dear to you, beloved, that everything else will seem like shadows.

If you know him, and he's with you, and you adhere on good terms, and you love him, he'll reveal things to you about Christ in the strangest places in the Bible. When you turn the sacred pages, then you find the rock of ages.

He's on every page. And the Holy Spirit will show things to you about him that you never dreamed of. Because that's one of the things he does, revealing the beauty of Christ. And that's the reason, as our brother Mitch was pointing out, Israel has to turn back to the Holy Spirit before they can ever see the Messiah.

That's what's said in 2 Corinthians 3. He's the only one that can reveal the Savior. And the reason so many of God's dear people get nothing out of the Bible is because the teacher who teaches isn't recognized.

When I started studying Spanish, I got a Spanish teacher. When I started studying Hebrew, I got a Jewish rabbi. I taught him algebra in exchange for his teaching me Hebrew. He knew it. He knew Hebrew.

Of course, we studied out of the Messianic Psalms. I made him turn to that for my textbook. It was wonderful. But I got a man that knew. The only one that knows the things of God is the Holy Spirit. Do you get that in the second chapter of 1 Corinthians?

He's the only one. And you won't get a thing out of your Bible. You'll read a chapter to soothe the conscience and get nothing. Haven't you had that experience? Read a chapter and got nothing? It's because you didn't pay any attention to the teacher.

The Holy Spirit as Teacher and Guide

This lovely person is a teacher. Suppose I want to learn to play the piano, and they send me their best teacher, Dr. Stratt. So he comes, Stratt, you felt. But I don't pay attention to him. He sits down there beside me on the piano bench, but I pay no attention to him.

And then I come across in the book some words in this music book that says R .I .P. RIT. I bought RIT at the drugstore, but I don't know what this stuff is. And so I call up the conservatory. I say, how about this word RIT?

What does that mean? Then I come across the word CRESS, and I've eaten watercress. So I call up and say, hey, Mr. President, how's this CRESS stuff here? And I notice at the bottom it says FINE, and I didn't play it well at all.

And the teacher's sitting here, and I'm paying no attention to him. I call up the president all the time, talk to him about it. Don't you think Stratt feels kind of funny? That's what you do, you dear saints.

You go and ask the father to teach, and he sent this person to do the teaching. Why don't you go to him about it? That's the reason you don't learn anything. And most of God's people don't. I couldn't tell you the difference between justification and forgiveness, or about the Lord's comings, his various comings, or about justification, or redemption, or pardon, or the doctrines, the twelve great doctrines, most of God's people couldn't give you an intelligent answer.

And God expects every one of us, beloved, to know him well. We can't know him well unless the teacher teaches us. Why don't you sit at his lovely feet and say when you open your Bible, Holy Spirit, I expect you to give me what I can hold onto your word.

I expect you to teach me, and let me know what it means. You see, you said to the twelve disciples in the ninth of Matthew, you pray the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.

That's the Holy Spirit. He's the Lord of the harvest, as our brethren have been telling you already. Then in the tenth of Luke, he said to the seventy, you pray the Lord of the harvest. Evidence that the twelve must have done it.

Of course, here's seventy. And he said to them, you pray the Lord of the harvest. They must have done it. Of course, just a little while later, there's a hundred and twenty of them gathered together up there, ready for the service of the King.

The Spirit's Direction in Mission and Ministry

Do you go to the Holy Spirit about anything at all, beloved? And some friend says, where does the Bible say you can pray to the Holy Spirit? Well, I've been calling in homes now since 1904 as a doctor.

I never did take a note along with me saying you can talk with the doctor while he's there. I've had the plumbers come to my home. They never brought any notes saying I could talk to them while they were there.

The paper hanger never brought a note to me saying while I'm in the house, oh, you can talk to me. Why, what absurdity. The personal presence of the Spirit of God carries with it the privileges and the joys of talking with the one that's with you.

Don't let the devil cheat you out of it. Pray the Lord of the harvest, the communion of the Holy Spirit. There are prayers to the Holy Spirit, quite a few in the Bible, but the trouble is in each place he's called God when prayers are addressed to him.

And when he's called God, your mind at once goes to the Father. You forget he's God. When you read about God something, doing something or going to God, remember there are three persons called God, and the context will show you which one he's talking about, the communion of the Holy Spirit.

And then he's the Lord of the harvest because you remember in the Old Testament and in the New, he's the Lord of the harvest. In Ezekiel chapter 2, the Spirit of the Lord entered into me and he said to me, go to these people and say unto them, and then he gives them the message.

In the next chapter, the third chapter, the Spirit of the Lord entered into me and he said to me, go into thy house and shut thy door, and I shall be dumb and shall not speak to this people till I send you.

See, he told him in the second chapter to go. He told him in the third chapter to stay home. Now, Paul had the same experience. In the 13th of Acts, the Spirit said, separate for me, not for the Father, not for the Lord Jesus, separate for me.

That's what he said. Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereinto I have called them, doesn't say God called them by the Spirit. I hope, beloved, I may help you to see through, never to use that expression, by the Spirit.

God doesn't do things by the Spirit. God himself does it. The Spirit himself does it. You don't say that the Father died for you by his Son. You never say that. You never say the Father was born in a manger in a stable by his Son.

You never say that. Of course, you know it isn't true. But we carry this other thing over because the devil wants you to miss the Holy Spirit. He tries to keep the sinner away from the Savior, and he tries to keep the Christian away from the Spirit.

That's his job. That's his two big jobs. He knows that if he can keep the sinner away from the Savior, he'll be lost. He knows that if he can keep the Christian away from the Spirit, his life will be lost.

And you know it's true? How many folks do you know in your church that amount to anything for God? You know them. Nice and sweet and lovely, and carry the Bible and come and sing in the choir and usher, and maybe don't know it, never get any knowledge of God, and couldn't stand up and talk fifteen minutes to anybody about the Savior?

You know that's true. And the reason is, we've missed this person. Separate from me. Barnabas and Saul, for the work unto whom I have called them, and they being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, the priest Jesus Christ.

But in the sixteenth chapter, is it, or seventeenth, sixteenth I think it is, Paul says, I saw the need in Asia, and I started to go over there, and the Spirit suffered me not. Then I ascended into Bithynia, and the Spirit suffered me not.

The very same thing he got in Ezekiel. In the thirteenth, the Spirit told him to go. In the sixteenth, the Spirit told him not to go. He's the Lord of the harvest. Are you conscious, beloved, of him telling you anything?

Don't say I had a hunch. I was led to do this, I was led to do that. If you know the Holy Spirit, you'll give him credit for it. I want to urge you, dear saint, get acquainted with this person by going to him directly and today, and tell him the way you've mistreated him through the years.

Surrendering Fully to the Spirit's Lordship

I had to do it. I laid flat on the carpet, in utter shame, and I said, Holy Spirit, you've never been a thing to me. In the seventeen years since you led me to Jesus Christ, I paid no attention to you, and now I'm making you my Lord tonight.

You're mine, and I'm yours, and you can have this body and give it a cancer, or send it to Africa, or give it tuberculosis, or cut off a leg. I don't care what you do with it. It's your property, and I'm through with it.

And the very next day, God gave me two souls, two folks who had been coming in my business office for months. Every month they came in to get a contract. I never said a word to them about the Savior. But this morning, you see, my lips weren't my own.

They were His. He started using them. Both those friends were saved the next morning. Oh, dear beloved, I can't tell you the difference. It's one thing to know about this person. It's an entirely different thing to know him as your own precious God in your life.

And he'll do things to you that you'll be surprised. He loves to do it. Then you won't say, Father, won't you do something by the Spirit? You'll never use that expression anymore. The Spirit Himself does it.

You don't have to ask the Father to make the Spirit do something, or let the Spirit do something. He is the servant of the Father. Christ is called a servant over and over again, but the Holy Spirit's never called a servant once, never any place, in the Old Testament or the New.

Oh, I come to do thy will, O God, said our lovely Savior. The Spirit never said that. But you don't, I hope you get the point. I'm talking to you about a person that's God, and a lovely person who wants to make Christ Jesus' life in you and me real.

Remember, Paul said that the life also of Jesus might be manifest in our mortal bodies. Christ's life in us, the only one that can make it possible, the Holy Spirit. And He loves to do it. He loves to do it.

And I've known so many of God's dear saints in this country and other countries that just live Christ. We had a teacher in our Kansas City Bible College that just lived Christ. You couldn't get near that praiseful woman.

And one morning we sent up to see why she didn't come down for breakfast, and she was on her knees, dead. Got up to pray and went to be with the Lord. And I tell you the tears at that dear woman's funeral.

Mr. Baker was that way. He just lived for God. You never found that dear man, but while he was in touch with the blessed Lord, he gave the Holy Spirit the praise of being Lord in his life. And at his funeral, I saw poverty-stricken people, poor people, bankers, lawyers, doctors, five hundred of them go by that catholic, many of them in tears.

That man walked with God. Beloved, I commend you a personal knowledge of this lovely personal Savior that our dear other speakers have been telling you so much about. Let us pray.