Second Friend Day - Elmer Towns

1. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer. When you were saved, the Holy Spirit
came into your life. Most people picture salvation as only asking Christ to come into their life,
but the Father and the Spirit also entered at salvation. As a result, the Holy Spirit dwells in every
believer. "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4:6). Again, the Scriptures teach, "Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his" (Rom. 8:9). This verse shows that if you don't have the Holy
Spirit, you are not saved. When the Christians at Corinth sinned, Paul never threatened them, "If
you sin, you will lose your salvation." When Paul saw sin in the lives of Christians, he was
shocked. "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you,
which ye have of God" (I Cor. 6:19). His message was, "Quit sinning, because you have the
Holy Spirit."
When you were saved, the Holy Spirit came into your heart and gave you a desire to clean
up your life. The unsaved are pictured as dead bodies, and a dead man doesn't have desires. He
doesn't even want to quit sinning. The Holy Spirit motivates him to seek holiness.
You don't get better to get saved,
You get saved to get better.
You can't get half of the Holy Spirit when you get saved, you get all of Him. You can't
have any more of a person than the whole person. When you marry, you get all of your wife.
You don't get an arm one day, a foot the next, and later, her hair. When you say "I do" she
belongs to you and you belong to her. Therefore, you don't beg to get more of the Holy Spirit.
You have the Holy Spirit who came into your heart at salvation. You need to act on His power
that is already there.
2. The Holy Spirit will never leave you. Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit. "I
will pray the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you
forever" (Jn. 14:16). The word forever is applied to individual Christians. Paul repeats this
truth when he tells the Ephesians to quit sinning because it irritates the Holy Spirit: "Grieve not
the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed until the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30).
Obviously, your iniquity grieves the Holy Spirit. He will dwell in you until the second coming
(Eph. 1:13,14). "Ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our
inheritance unto redemption of the purchased possessions." Once a friend mentioned that he was
seeking the Holy Spirit.
" I fasted . . . tarried . . . and I've thirsted according to the Bible. Why can't I get the Holy
Spirit?" The sincerity of the question was evident.
I told him, "The Holy Spirit is in you and He will not leave you. The Holy Spirit is a
person who wants to control your life more than you want to control your life. You've already
got the Holy Spirit in your heart, now yield to Him so you can realize the potential that is yours.”