24 Sermon Illustrations on Holy Spirit

"The heathens counted that the fire which was enkindled by a sunbeam was more fit and pure for their altars than a coal taken from a common hearth." Wherein they blindly stumbled upon the image of a great spiritual truth. The right fire for a preacher of the gospel is fire from God himself. All else defiles the sacrifice, and is sure, sooner or later, to die out. When we speak for God it is a blessed thing to speak through God. Excitement arising from animal spirits is a poor substitute for the Holy Ghost. Far worse is the stimulus of wine or strong drink, which is an absolute profanation of holy things and a presumptuous provocation of God. To attempt to serve God under the influence of the "mocker" is to mock the Most Holy One. To preach under the stimulus of anger is horrible, and to do so from motives of ambition is equally so. Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord for offering strange fire, and this should be a perpetual warning to all who bear the vessels of the Lord. O fire of God, touch our lips, yea, burn in our hearts. Let no strange fire come near us: neither from the furnace of anger, nor from the flames of ambitious desire, nor from the flash of carnal excitement may we ever borrow our fires, when we wait at thine altar, O Lord.

"Fire is quenched by pouring on water or by withdrawing fuel; so the Spirit is quenched by living in sin, which is like pouring water on a fire; or by not improving our gifts and graces, which is like withdrawing fuel from the hearth." Many are found carefully avoiding outward sin, and yet they daily neglect the gifts of grace! What folly! Will it not come to the same thing in the end with the fire upon my hearth whether I pour water on the logs or refuse to place fresh brands thereon? It will die out with equal certainty, whichever is my mode of procedure. So will it be with the fire in my heart. To be careless is as dangerous as to be disobedient. Not to do good is to do evil. Sins concerning neglected grace and omitted duty are as mischievous to us as actual wrong-doing. This is a caution to thousands; possibly to the reader; certainly to the writer. Oh for grace to attend to the state of the inward fires, lest Satan should get an advantage over us by our neglect! Though he may have been foiled in every attempt to lead us into active rebellion against God, the enemy may yet prevail by bringing us into a negative state of indifference and apathy. There is a passive disobedience, which is exceedingly injurious to the soul. The Lord save us from this great peril. Let us hear him say, "Quench not the Spirit," and yet again, "Stir up the gift which is in thee."

The spirit of holiness gives to the Church an aptness and a grace in all its movements and efforts for the conversion of the world. The influences of the Holy Spirit are, on that account, as well as for the sweet odor with which they perfume the church, called "the unction of the Holy One." The Agonistes in the Grecian games anointed themselves with unguents in order to attain quickness, agility, and nimbleness of action; and this gave a grace and beauty to their various movements. Before they could attain this, the unguent must have pervaded their frame, and not glistened in superficial application. In like manner, before the Church can acquire a grace in doing good, and in acting "after the Spirit," the unction from the Holy One must penetrate all the muscles of its frame, and all the members of its body.

— Dr. Jenkyn

"Tell me," said a father to his son, "what difference you can detect between two needles,—one of which has received an electric shock, whilst the other has not. And yet the one has hidden virtues, which occasion will show, of which the other has none. The electric shock has rendered the one needle a magnet, which, duly balanced, will enable man to find his way across the trackless ocean. As this needle, so may that soul be which has received the electric shock of the Holy Ghost: on the ocean of a sinful world, it shall point wanderers to the heaven of everlasting rest."

It was the custom of the Roman emperors, at their triumphal entrance to cast new coins among the multitudes; so doth Christ, in his triumphal ascension into heaven, throw the greatest gifts for the good of men that were ever given.

— T. Goodwin

A young man who had been piously brought up, but who had given himself up to every kind of vice and folly, at last joined himself to a company of pirates. A voice, soft and gentle as a mother's, seemed to be always pleasing with him: it was the cooing of a dove. He tried to shake off the effect; but again and again the sound threw his soul into a turmoil. One night, when all was still around him, the tender, reproachful murmur seemed to pierce his very heart. He could stand it no longer; but, throwing himself on his knees in an agony of contrition, he vowed before God to forsake his evil ways. By God's help he did so. He went back to his home, became an altered man, and lived henceforward a pious and useful life.

It is not the drapery in which divine truth may be clothed, nor the force and beauty of the illustrations with which it may be presented, but it is the truth itself, — the bare, naked, unvarnished truth, — that is the instrument of the Spirit's power. That is the sword of the Spirit; and it is the sword that does the work, not the scabbard in which it is sheathed. The scabbard may be finely fitted, and beautifully embellished, bound with the finest gold, and glittering with jewels of polished diamonds; but it is not the garnished scabbard, it is the drawn sword, which the Spirit wields, and which, when wielded by him, is quick and powerful, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and interiors of the heart. J. A. Wallace.

It is as if you saw a locomotive engine upon a railway, and it would not go; and they put up a driver, and they said, "Now, that driver will just do." They try another and another. One proposes that such and such a wheel should be altered; but still it will not go. Some one then bursts in amongst those who are conversing, and says, "No, friends; but the reason why it will not go is because there is no steam. You have no fire; you have no water in the boiler: that's why it will not go. There may be some faults about it; it may want a bit of paint here and there: but it will go well enough with all those faults if you do but get the steam up." But now people are saying, "This must be altered, and that must be altered." But it would go no better unless God the Spirit should come to bless us. That is the Church's great want; and, until that want be supplied, we may reform and reform, and still be just the same. We want the Holy Spirit; and then, whatever faults there may be in our organization, they can never materially impede the progress of Christianity when once the Spirit of the Lord God is in our midst. Spurgeon.

Oh! there is a voice in love; it speaks a language which is its own; it has an idiom and a brogue which none can mimic; wisdom cannot imitate it; oratory cannot attain unto it; it is love alone which can reach the mourning heart; love is the only handkerchief which can wipe the mourner's tears away. And is not the Holy Ghost a loving comforter? Dost thou know, O saint! how much the Holy Spirit loves thee? Canst thou measure the love of the Spirit? Dost thou know how great is the affection of his soul towards thee? Go measure heaven with thy span; go weigh the mountains in the scales; go take the ocean's water, and tell each drop; go count the sand upon the sea's wide shore; and, when thou hast accomplished this, thou canst tell how much be loveth thee. He has loved thee long, he has loved thee well, he loved thee ever, and he still shall love thee: surely he is the person to comfort thee, because he loves.

— Spurgeon

Mark the rain that falls from above: the same shower that drops out of one cloud increaseth sundry plants in a garden, and severally, according to the condition of every plant. In one stalk, it makes a rose; in another, a violet; diverse in a third, and sweet in all. So the Spirit works its multifarious effects in several complexions, and all according to the increase of God.

— Jeremy Taylor

In a village church in one of the midland counties, at the side of a beautiful tomb in the chancel, there is a flourishing young forest-tree some nine or ten feet high. Its history is remarkable. One Lord's Day, a boy, talking with his companions in this part of the chancel, was detected by the schoolmaster playing with a horse-chestnut. The master took it from him, and threw it on one side. It flew over the tomb, and settled between that and the wall. There for many weeks it remained, unthought of. Having lodged in a crevice, where some considerable quantity of dust appears to have lodged beforehand, it found sufficient soil and moisture to take root. By and by its existence was discovered; and, the fact being thought interesting and uncommon, it was allowed to remain. It was a witness, a speaking tree: it was the living witness of that boy who played in God's house on the sabbath. Biblical Treasury.

"THE WIND BLOWETH, &c."—It was on Sunday evening following the old Thanksgiving in Mass.,

* See "Letters on Revivals." (says a writer in the S. S. Treasury,) that I left my father's house to attend a religious meeting in the neighborhood. The moon, as I distinctly recollect, had just appeared above the horizon, and cast its gentle beams full in my face, while all around was hushed in silent repose. I had walked but a few steps, when a strange solemnity stole in upon my heart. Whence it came I knew not. Why I should feel thus, I could not tell. But I was solemn, I was grieved: and as I walked slowly along, my burden increased, for a burden it was, and while I live I shall not forget the spot where I thought I should soon be pressed down to the earth.

At length I reached the place of worship. It was a private house that had seen many a hard winter, the humble abode of a widow in Israel. I entered and took my seat with some boys of my own age; I was then but little more than nine years old. They soon began to whisper and play, wishing me to join them. But I was wounded in spirit. I could not join them. I had no disposition to do so, and wondered that they could act thus in a place so sacred as that seemed to me. I kept silence and wished to remove from their company.

The neighbors having assembled, the services commenced. It was a conference and prayer meeting, the pastor being present and taking an active part. What was said by him, or by others, I cannot tell now, nor have I been able to tell from that day to this. I know that all who took part in the services were much engaged, and the effect on my mind was to increase my seriousness. I wept; I could not refrain from it. My heart was pained. I was in distress. My pious father, I think it was, sitting near me, and seeing my trouble, took me in his arms and abored to quiet me, thinking me unwell. But no, I was not sick. My body was not in pain. The arrows of the Almighty were in my heart, and under his rebuke I trembled.

I do not recollect as any one at the meeting found out the true cause of my sorrow; if so, I was not aware of it. After I returned home, however, my aged grandfather, a man that feared God, ascertained it. He was overcome by his feelings, as were indeed all in the house. It was a place of tears,—parents and grandparents mingled theirs with mine. But this did not relieve me; nor did I experience essential relief before retiring for the night, though, as I well remember, my father did so far compose himself as to commend me to God in fervent prayer.

I am the more inclined to think that the state of mind described above was the effect of Divine influence, from the fact that nothing had been said to me personally on the subject of religion. There was no revival among the people, and so no chance for the operation of sympathy; a powerful source of influence among children, as I have since had occasion to observe. From that day to this I have loved the church of God, and hoped for salvation through grace in Christ Jesus.