Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
prophets, seers, and sacred scribes were under His direct influence.
The Lord Jesus Christ was rilled and wholly directed by
the Spirit. The apostles of Christ were promised, and afterwards
received, the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth and
bring to their minds all the instruction that Jesus had imparted
to them, during His earthly ministry (John 14:25-27). By
means of the truth thus revealed, the Holy Spirit converts the
sinner and sanctifies the child of God. He dwells in the Christian
and sheds the love of God abroad in his heart (Rom. 5:5).
The child of God is "led by the Spirit," "quickened by the
Spirit," "lives in the Spirit," "walks by the Spirit." The Spirit
"seals him unto the day of redemption," gives him an "earnest"
of his future inheritance, and fills him with "joy" and "comfort"
in
believing.
The Holy Spirit is "grieved" when His benign influence is
"resisted." To so act is a most awful and dangerous sin. He
will "not always strive with men"; but will leave the rejectors
to their doom. To blaspheme against the Spirit is an unpardonable
sin (Matt. 3:29). "Of how much sorer punishment, think
ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden underfoot the
Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith
he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite
unto the Spirit of grace ?"(Heb. 10:29). Those who come fully
under the beneficent influence of God's Holy Spirit receive the
fulness and richness of God's grace. Those who despise and
reject that influence expose themselves thereby to the most
awful of God's judgments.
820. The Spirit is not promised to any persons out of Christ.
It is promised only to them that believe in and obey Him. These
it actually and powerfully assists in the mighty struggle for
eternal life. Some, indeed, ask : "Do Christians need more aid
to gain eternal life than sinners do to become Christians? Is
not the work of conversion a more difficult work than the work
of sanctification ?" Hence, they contend more for the work of
the Spirit in conversion, than for the work of the Spirit in
sanctification. This, indeed, is a mistaken view of the matter, if
we reason either from analogy or from divine testimony. Is it
not more easy to plant than to cultivate the corn, the vine, the
olive? Is it not more easy to enlist in the army than to be a
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