In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of being filled with the fullness of God. He explains that simply memorizing and reciting scripture is not enough, but rather we should seek the spirit of wisdom and revelation to truly understand its meaning. The speaker uses the analogy of a wedding ceremony to illustrate the absurdity of receiving God's fullness and then going on separate paths. He shares a dream in which a bowl represents the heart, and various objects symbolize important aspects of life. The dream reveals the need to surrender these things to God and seek His guidance in prioritizing them. The speaker acknowledges the common experience of fluctuating between spiritual highs and lows, but encourages listeners not to feel discouraged and to continue seeking God's fullness.

Will you turn, please, to Ephesians, fifth chapter and the third chapter, our theme, how to continue in the fullness of the Spirit, and our text, verses 18, 19, and 20. I shall read the text and then go back to consider briefly the questions we have held before us the two preceding Sunday nights, and endeavor to relate them to the theme of this evening. Paul was given to using contrasts, and here is one, one of the strongest in the New Testament. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The latter part of that 18th verse is best translated, if you exactly adhere to the tense of the Greek, be ye being filled with the Spirit. Now, obviously this in no way circumvents the necessity of being filled with the Spirit the first time. If you have not been filled with the Spirit, then you must be in order to, to be filled with the Spirit. The point that confuses so many Christians today is that they feel that because they were born of the Spirit, this automatically means they were filled with the Spirit. But such is not the case, and I have no intention or time to repeat what I've been giving in the previous nights in detail. But let me point out that we did use a pattern. The pattern was that of the Lord's dealing with the Lord, with the God, the Father's dealing with the Son. And our Lord Jesus said, As the Father sent me, so send I you. Christ was born of the Spirit, conceived by the Holy Ghost, that is, indwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily. But he wasn't ready for his ministry until his divine human spirit was clothed upon with the Holy Spirit. Now, I pointed out that one of the arguments that is used against a crisis of being filled with the Spirit is this. Now, you can hear it. I think it is probably the strongest argument that I know against such teaching as I am endeavoring to give you. Since no man is a Christian unless he's been born of God, and since to be born of God is to be born of the Spirit, and since to be born of the Spirit is to have the Spirit, as you read, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Then, since the Spirit comes to bring life and regeneration, since you have him, a person, and God, the Spirit, is a person, a person can't come in parts. It therefore remains that you got all there was to get of God when you were saved. It just remains for him to get more of you. Now, this sufficed for at least 14 years of my life to keep me in hunger. It was amazing. I used to get up and preach and say, Dear friend, if anybody ever talks to you about something after regeneration, don't listen to them. When you were born again, you got all there was to get of God. It's just for him to get more of you. Well, I'd preach this way and then I'd go home and get down on my bed and cry out, Oh God, do for me what you did for D.L. Moody. My heart, you see, was better oriented in this than my mind was. My mind had been confused by some of the analogies that had been put into it, whereas my heart still retained its hunger and still came to the Lord in deep longing for everything that God purposed for me. Well, this argument that was so, so strong gave way the moment that I saw what happened to Christ. That when John saw the Holy Spirit come upon Christ, the Spirit of God was in Christ. But you see, this isn't difficult because the Holy Spirit is God, infinite, omnipresent God. And all of the analogies that you would make from human to divine are an error. You might say, Well, when you come to my house, you're there, I have all there is to get of you. But you see, you're reasoning from the natural to the divine, from the human to God, and it won't work. Your analogies break down, because I turn to you and say, Yes, the Spirit of God is in her and in him and in her. Well, how can that be? Well, he is a person. As a person, he is in each, and yet with no division of his essence or his being. And we come then to the fact that God is omnipresent. And all of our analogies that we use to describe the working of God are erroneous. They don't hold up. When we come to the Scripture, there was an anointing of Christ. He said, The Spirit of the Lord is epi, upon me. He has anointed me. He didn't say, The Spirit is in me. For the Spirit had been in him from the moment of his birth. In him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He said correctly and exactly, The Spirit is upon me. This was an epi, an upon relationship. Now, making this application to your case, what would it be? I have said, since we began this consideration, that at no time will I allow myself to think that God has to work the way I am describing. Because we have in the Scripture the fact that at the house of Cornelius, as far as we can see, these people were filled with the Spirit at the same time they were saved. And if you feel that you were filled with the Spirit at the same time you were saved, I shall not argue with you, and you can cite this Scripture, and I will have to say yes. If you're satisfied, I'm satisfied. But for most people this isn't the case, and it only occurred the once in the Scripture. The pattern more nearly applicable to most of us is that that you find in reference to the people at Samaria where Peter, where Philip preached to them, and they believed in Christ and were baptized in water baptism. And Peter and John came down and prayed for them, laid hands on them, prayed for them, and they were filled with the Spirit. This was the case in Paul's experience when Ananias came praying for him, and he was filled with the Spirit. Now, for most Christians I would have to say this, that when they come to Christ they come with their need. And for most of us our need was removal of the great mountain of guilt that separated us from God. Therefore, when we came to the Lord Jesus, we came to one who had died for us, to pay the penalty of our sin, and to save us from that penalty and from hell. And we received Christ as Lord and as Savior, and we received everything we believed for. But in addition to that which we believed for, which was forgiveness, the Spirit of God came in regenerating life. He came in regenerating life. But you did not have to take the Holy Spirit. You did not have to believe in the Holy Spirit. There was no exercise in your faith or mine. We took Christ as Lord and as Savior, and he came in regenerating life. Now, what we have is this. The Spirit of God presented Christ to us as sinners. Now it is the Son of God that speaks to us about the Holy Spirit since we are saints. It was the Holy Spirit that said to us as sinners under the weight of our guilt, Jesus Christ died for you, receive him as Lord and as Savior. And when we did receive him as Lord and Savior, the Spirit of God joined himself to us, but it was through no act of faith, volitional choice, no exercise of will at all in our case. Our faith was directed toward the Son, and as a byproduct of believing in the Son, we were regenerated by the Holy Ghost. It wasn't anything that had to do with our faith, for most of us at least. Now, it is the Lord Jesus that is saying to you and to me, to us as believers, I want to live in you and dwell in you. I want to possess you. I want to live my life through you. And I am asking you to take. Now here comes this word receive in its active sense, which is the sense in which it's presented in the Scripture. Take the Holy Spirit. Now, I think we can make the application again as clearly as possible. Christ was born of the Spirit, indwelt by the fullness of the Godhead bodily, but not ready for his ministry until his divine human nature was clothed upon with the Holy Spirit. You are born of the Spirit or conceived by the Holy Ghost. Regenerated means born again by the Spirit. And in that sense, you have him as your regenerating life. But you are not ready for your ministry until he who came to bring life at regeneration comes upon to bring power, to possess, to clothe, to fill you with himself. As the Father sent me, so send I you. What is involved in this? You've got to see yourself for a moment to understand how you're going to continue filled with the Spirit. You are a spirit living in a body. The body is your house. And one day you're going to leave it. In Job chapter 32 and verse 8, I believe it is, the word is given, There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding. The in-breathing of the Almighty. There is a spirit in man. You are body, soul, and spirit. The part of you that leaves is the soul, the spirit, when you die, that invisible part. Now, your body as a sinner, as an unsaved person, a natural man, was directed and controlled and empowered by your spirit. When you leave, the body is there. All of its faculties and functions and powers are gone, however, though the mechanics of it still remain. Those of us that have had loved ones leave us remember at that irrecoverable moment when we've looked down into the still face of someone dear and have had to say, he's gone or she's gone. What do we mean? We mean that the invisible part that animated is gone. Now, with a natural person, the direction to the brain, to the eyes, the ears, all of the direction of the life flows out of this invisible part we call the spirit. When you are saved, when you were born again, God joins himself to your spirit in quickening life, in regenerating life, in forgiveness, in pardon. But there is at that time a two-fold function or ministry of the Spirit of God to you. First, he witnesses that the blood has availed, you've been cleansed, and you can call him Abba Father. He is the witness. This is an automatic ministry that depends in no way upon what you do toward the Holy Spirit. The ministry he performs in his regenerating work is to witness. The second ministry that he performs is to that that we have given to us here where it says, He now becomes the stimulus to our spirits in these two directions. When we are wrong, when we say or do something that's wrong, when we sin, we are conscious that we have grieved God because the Holy Spirit within us is grieved. This is one of his ministries in his second area. And the second is that he stirs us with hunger and longing for all that the Lord Jesus died to make ours. And he becomes now the one who leads us on and draws us on and quickens our hearts with hunger. So if you're hungry for God tonight, it's not the natural consequence of your superior intelligence, but it's the gracious work of God himself creating in you a desire for himself. Before you were saved you had no hunger for God. It's only since you've become a Christian. Now we've said repeatedly, and it's axiomatic with us and part of the tools of our testimony, that there are three things that characterize a child of God. A hatred for sin, a hunger for God, and a heart of compassion for the lost. And this too is the work of the Spirit of God, giving you his grief when you sin. And you've noticed how when God has been dealing with you, you've said something that was wrong or you've done something that was wrong, and immediately you are so unhappy and so disturbed. And peace was gone. You had to do something about it. What is this? What causes this distress? Your active imagination or intellect? I think not. I think it is the Spirit of God grieved. And he's communicating this grief to you. And then again you find that you're hungry. Why is it that times you are hungry and other times the hunger seems to pale a little and you lose your appetite for spiritual things? I think you will find that when you give yourself to contemplation of the Word and you think about the Scripture, this is the time of hunger. But you see there are so many things that come to intrude and draw away our attention in so many activities, that in the state of as a born-again believer being drawn on into maturity, you come to expect this. Periods of intense hunger, but often a failing to press through. So the life becomes more or less of an up-and-down experience. Have you ever heard or felt or sensed anything like that? Now because we're in a special time of emphasis, there's prayer, there's Bible reading, there's witnessing, all of the activities of a Christian seem very lovely and precious and meaningful. But then pretty soon we find we're down at the bottom of the valley again. And then we're made aware of this and we climb up to the top, and then we go down, and then we go up, and then we go down, and we go up and down. You had this type of experience? Well, I don't expect you to nod your head, lest everyone does, because it would might give you away. But don't feel badly about it if you'd like to, I know. We follow, we're made of the same clay and cut in the same bolt of goods as we've said, so I'm not troubled about it. This up-and-down experience is distressing to all of us. And what we'd like to do is to come to a place where we're past this up-and-down matter, and we're moving on in an expanding and enlarging relationship with the Lord. So it isn't promising God to pray and read and witness and then falling into sin and grief and then back again and up and down. This is past. We've entered into an enlarging, expanding, fulfilling, satisfying relationship with the Lord. Well, now, if you have a hunger for anything more than you have tonight, if there's any desire in your heart tonight for God, then this hunger and this desire was given to you by the Lord. You see, God's great problem is not to satisfy the hungry, but his problem is to create a market for what he wants to provide, to get you to want what he wants. And because you, especially when we're younger, we have so many interests and drives and so much energy, that many times only in certain periods of concentrated thought does God have a chance to bring our hunger to the fore and move us toward him. Now, if you're hungry for God, thank God for it, because God never gives anyone a hunger to mock them. He doesn't bring you, as a child of his, up against the bakery window and say, look at all, look what D.L. Moody ate, and look what Hannah Whitehall Smith had, and look at over there what Charles Finney had, and see what A.B. Simpson had, and look at here what Andrew Murray saw, and there's where Reuben Torrey was. And you come and press your nose like a hungry child against the window, and you say, oh, I wish I'd have lived a hundred years ago. My, it would have been wonderful to have been alive when they were here. God doesn't bring you up like that to show you what others have had and then send you away hungry. This would be to mock him and you both. Never. If you have any desire for God tonight, it is deep crying to the deep. God within you quickening in your heart a hunger for himself. Now, if you'll understand, these are the two ministries that he performs upon regeneration. As your conscience stimulating, directing, causing you to know right and wrong, witnessing to you that you are saved, and perhaps we should classify it as a third, stirring within your heart a deep hunger for all the riches of grace that are there. Now, there's a third or another ministry, if we number it fourth, there's another ministry that he will perform upon request. These ministries he performs without request. But there is another ministry that he only will perform upon request. And again, when I say only of God, I know that tonight he's going to do something for someone that completely contradicts what I'm saying. And this is his wonderful privilege because he's the God of infinite variety. And I don't want you to think that I'm putting the deity into a straight jacket. I am simply trying to expound certain principles, which may, I trust, be helpful in your experience. He waits for you to want to be guided. You see, God has prepared wonderful things for them that love him. He said, I can't see, an ear can't hear, and the mind can't perceive what God has prepared for them that love him. But God will reveal them unto us by his Spirit. But this ministry is not one that he forces on you. He doesn't make you. He waits to be wanted. He waits to be asked. Here is a ministry that Paul gives to us in this first prayer in Ephesians, where he writes to this church of born-again people, saints at Ephesus, faithful in Christ Jesus. And he says, Where I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love unto all saints, I ceased not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. He said, I'm not underestimating what the Lord has done. That the God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being open. Now, why did Paul say, I am praying that you will recognize that the Holy Spirit will be unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation? I believe it's just this simple. He said to that church, I am praying that you will recognize so that when you recognize, you will pray, and the Spirit of God will be released to do this for you. So when you find out that he is the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Christ, when he is the one that is going to show you the things that God has prepared for them that love him, do you not feel that it's your automatic or at least your spiritual response to say, Lord, I'm trusting thee to open the eyes of my heart and show me my heritage in Christ? You've given me a hunger. You've quickened my heart with desire. Now I am coming to thee, Lord, asking thee, trusting thee, to lead me as fast as I'm able to go into that which you've prepared for me and for all your children. What is this? Well, it's two things. First, it's a recognition that Bible study, Bible reading, Bible searching is important. But that the final benefit from Bible study comes when the author of the book explains what it means. Have you ever heard a poet read his own poetry? Well, it's a great, it's a tremendous experience to have the poet read his poetry. You see worlds in it that were never there before. You ever heard an author read a portion of his own book the way he intended it to be read? My, it's a thrilling thing if the book is valuable. Well, then the Holy Ghost begins to explain. He adds to all of your study. You've searched the Scripture. You've analyzed it and divided it and written it and memorized it. And now you say, Lord, as good as this is, it's not enough. Open the eyes of my heart and show me what it means. And he now becomes the spirit of wisdom and revelation, unfolding the Scripture to you. Now, this is a ministry you must ask of him. It's not enough for me to say, Lord, I've got to stand before these hungry people on Sunday. Open the word to me. How many times when we're praying we say, Lord, anoint the speaker as he preaches. And we ought to do that. And I covet your prayers. But you know we ought to turn right around and say, Lord, anoint the hearers as they listen. Because it not only requires anointed speaking, but it also requires anointed listening. I can give you an ever so valuable truth, but if your mind is off wool gathering and your heart is perplexed about the rain out there, is my window open? I wonder if I left, put the timer on, will that roast burn before I get home? You can have, the Lord himself could be here expounding the glorious truth and it would be profitless because of the fact that the mind wasn't disciplined. Well, discipline is important, but in addition to that there must be illumination. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, to illuminate the word to you, to cause you to see it, and to put under the feet of your faith the rock of God's promise. And it's only as the Spirit of God speaks that word into your heart, faith comes by hearing, hearing the word. You mean when I read it, you hear it, therefore you have faith? No. It's when, when he speaks that word. Someone said to me tonight, I came from a certain place and as I came out I had a plug in my ear and I, and I heard the, go to church tonight. Well now this was the hearing voice. And oh how precious it is in certain situations to have God speak the word and immediately the rock comes under you in this situation and your faith is founded on the word, you've heard it. Not just with the hearing of the ear, but with the hearing of the heart. Now when it comes to the matter of being filled with the Spirit, you need this teaching ministry of the Holy Ghost to put the word under you. I can tell you there's a relationship where you are to be filled with the fullness of God. I can read as I shall in a moment Ephesians the third chapter. I can do my best to expound this to you, but you've got to recognize that your faith cannot rest in my confidence. Your faith must rest in that word that God has spoken to your heart. Now in direction to you that are hungry to be filled with the Spirit, I would advocate to you that you search the scripture. I know when God was dealing with me there was so much I didn't understand and so much that seemed confusing and perplexing that I began the habit that continues until the present. I got the biggest piece tablet of paper I could find. I bought the legal size paper in the stationery store. And then I began to put some headings down on the paper. The promises concerning the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Promises John the Baptist made concerning the Holy Spirit. What Christ said about the Holy Spirit before his crucifixion. What he said afterward. What is recorded here? What happened? What does the word the epistles teach? Page after page and column after column was filled with scripture verses. But you know it wasn't just writing it. It was taking that and meditating upon it and looking at it. And as I looked at it my objections began to vanish. The word of God began to fit together like a foundation. Stone against stone. Mortared by his presence. And the first thing you know you begin to find it under you is the truth of God. It's not an emotion. It's not just a response to logic or exhortation. But your faith no longer stands in the excellency of men's speech or wisdom. But it stands on the word of God. And it's the Spirit of God that will do this. And I commend it to you as most valuable. Now there's another ministry of the Spirit of God. You know for every priceless privilege there's also preparation. For instance in marriage this is a divinely chosen analogy. But here is the eternal bridegroom that wants to present himself to his bride. Let me give you an analogy from another quarter. A young woman has a young man come to her and he says you know I've been with you. We've been friends. I love you and I want to marry you. And she looks at him and says well all right. I guess it's I'll marry you but there are certain conditions. The first condition is I don't like your name. Yours is a awkward long name and it has no standing in the community. You're a relative newcomer. So I'll marry you but I want to keep my own name. Well he looks a little askance at the moment says well all right as little it is difficult but we'll see what we can do. And she says and furthermore my father has a beautiful home and I don't think you could afford anything equal to it. I'd like to marry you but I'm going to stay at home. And then she looks and says and I'd like to marry you you know but I don't want to do dishes and housework. I'd much rather stay and keep my job. And then she says and furthermore my grandmother gave me some money and I want you to know I have plans for that and I'll marry you but I'm not going to give you that money. And then she says as the claps this whole ridiculous argument she says and I want you to know that I will marry you but I have a lot of other friends that I like nearly as well as I do you and I don't intend to give them up. Can you imagine anyone agreeing to marriage on those terms? Never. And so we say to the young woman that's about to be married I understand you've given up your name. It wasn't hard. I understand you've given up your home. Nor was that. And you've given up your job and you've given up all your possessions and and you've given up your friends. My what a price to pay for marriage. She looks at you and says price. I never thought of that as a price. You see he's giving me himself. This isn't payment. This is just preparation. She has a right. You have a right. Everyone has a right to name, to reputation, to possessions rightly gained and earned, to friends. These things aren't sinful. And yet the heavenly bridegroom comes to you and he says I am asking you to give up the right to your rights. This is what we might call a deeper repentance. An extension into the life. Now I believe that the Lord wants to deal with these things before you are filled with the Spirit. I believe if you turn to Ephesians 3, I think I can relate it chronologically by that 15th, that 16th verse. That he would grant you to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may take up his lasting dwelling place. And if you are in earnest about being filled with the fullness of God, then as the man who found a field in which was a pearl of great price and gladly sold all that he had that might possess it, so you too are willing to make any preparation that the Lord may ask of you. I hate to teach doctrine by an illustration, but I think it is appropriate now not to teach but to illustrate. I think I've sought to establish at least from this the point where this preparation is made. I've used this before, and many of you have heard it, but I trust it will not be tedious nor redundant. I think of that lady who was a teacher at one of our fine colleges in the Midwest. Roman Catholic lady, wonderfully, wonderfully saved, and yet deeply hungry for God. Some of you here would know her if I were to mention her name. One year she read and studied and the Word of God came alive to her, and she knew that there was a relationship for the Lord which was hers that she hadn't entered. Instead of going to her friend's home in the Southland, she stayed at the college for Christmas, furnished a little holiday fellowship for the children of missionaries that had no homes to which they could go. But her prime purpose for staying was to seek the Lord, and she spent a great deal of time in meditation and prayer. One noon, after a night spent almost entirely in prayer and reading, she took a nap, and in her nap she dreamed the Lord came into that little dormitory room. She saw a table. On it was a large bowl filled with colored objects. She heard him speak, though she didn't see him, his face, in the dream. She heard him say, you've asked me to fill you with myself, and this I want to do. Just as soon as that bowl is empty, I will fill it with pure water. Just as soon as your heart is ready, I will fill you with myself. And then, she said, in her dream she went to the bowl, and here were these objects like Christmas ornaments with no place to fasten them to the tree. Each one had on it a word. She said she began to take them out quickly until she came to four. One was a person in her life, the other was a possession, one was a privilege, and so on. And finally she said, Lord, I never knew how important these were to me. I've been telling thee in these extended periods of prayer that my all is on the altar, and yet now I see these things are here. And Lord, I don't know which to take first. Help me. And she cried out, and the Lord strengthened her, and she took one, and then another. And finally she got to the last one. She said, Lord, I never realized how important this was until now. Give me strength to put out my hand and touch it. Then give me strength to lift it. Now, Lord, give me strength to let it go. And she said with each prayer there was an inflow of strength. And as soon as she had let go of the last precious thing to her, the hand with the picture appeared, and the bowl was filled. This is what I mean about preparation. None of these things were sinful. They just stood in the way of the bridegroom having his perfect way in the life of the one he loved. And she dealt with these things beforehand. And dear heart, this is what I long for you. I could lead you as many have. I could lead you into something precipitous and early and perhaps premature. But if we should make a detour around this, we've still got to come back to it sooner or later. Why don't we head right into it? Why do we detour? Why look for a subway or bypass or an overpass? Why not say, Lord, I know that you promised to fill me with your fullness. I know this is the normal state of the Christian. I know it. And therefore I haven't any question but what this is what you're going to do for me. But Lord, I want the preparation to be so complete that when we when we're there we won't have to go back to a lot of unfinished business. You see, why not just head right into it and face every issue squarely. Lord, I want this relationship not just to satisfy me but to satisfy you. I said people sing, my all is on the altar, I'm waiting for the fire. That isn't true. When your all is on the altar, you don't wait. But tonight, let us suppose that there is something. Perhaps with some of you you say, I've been through all of this, Brother Eden. I'm through with all of it. I'm right here on the threshold. Well, wonderful. But I want to assure you of this, that God isn't going to make this process any longer than it needs to be. Not a day. He's got a lot more to gain in this in one sense than you do. He's not trying to just hang you there and dangle you there. He's got far more for you than you have in a sense for him. All you can bring to him is your nothingness and present your body to him and all the rest has to be from him. And then it will be glory that he gets to himself by himself through you. So what I'm asking tonight is that you take this attitude. Here is the promise that Paul is holding out before us, that Christ may take up his dwelling place. He came to bring life. It's like this. I wish you'd have been here last year in the afternoon service when Dr. Turner brought that concluding message about the work of the Holy Spirit in the life. Oh, it was thrilling. God blessed him so to me and to all that were here to share in it. Some of you will undoubtedly remember this. He told about the doctor up in New England, worked so hard to get his medical training, became a brilliant surgeon, and then married Boston Society. And here was his mother who'd served and sacrificed and prayed to get him through medical school. But the higher he went, the less interest he had in his mother. She had enough to care for. He never told his wife about his mother. He just didn't talk about his mother. Well, my parents are gone. They're gone. And then time came and friends wrote to him and said, your mother's in need and someone must care for her. And he went to his wife and he said, you know, back home in New England when I was a child, there was a woman that took care of us children. She washed our clothes and cooked for us and she's in need. Would you mind greatly if we brought her to the home and gave her that upstairs apartment? So he went to get his mother and says, now mother, I'm not going to call you mother. My wife doesn't know you're my mother. I'm going to call you by your first name, Jesse. You were a servant in the home. I hope you won't give me away. Broke his mother's heart, of course, but she agreed. Well, one day a letter came after a year or so and the wife intercepted it and found out that the woman upstairs, Jesse, whom she loved so anyway, was her husband's mother. And it broke her heart. And when he came home, she said, just think, you cared enough about her to want her here in our home, but you didn't care enough about her to give her the privileges that your mother should have. Said, oh, I could leave you for this, your cruelty. He broke before her, for he had lived with this crime on his heart for too long. And then together they went up and he threw himself at his mother's feet and sobbed like the little boy he wanted to be again and asked her forgiveness. And the one that was there that they were a little, he was a little ashamed of, now was invited down and given a bedroom on the main floor and the whole house was hers. This is what he's talking about, that Christ may not just be in the room of resalvation, but that he may possess the whole house, may take up his dwelling place, every closet, every drawer. The whole house is his, so that you can be filled with the fullness of God. Now, don't you think that that house knew when mother came down? Of course they did. And don't you think, dear hungry one, that's been hungry enough to meet God through these days, that you're going to know when God fills you with himself, you will know, you will know. Because he'll tell you, he'll let you know. Now, when he comes down, when he fills, when you're filled with the fullness of God, our question is, how are you going to continue in that fullness? And the answer, and I'm just touching on it and undoubtedly we'll have to take another night, but when you've been filled with the fullness of God and know you have, then you're going to know in what kind of a climate it was that you were filled. I believe the climate is one of praise, of thanksgiving, of expectancy. Well, now, if that's the climate in which you were filled, that's the climate in which you're going to continue to be filled. What does this mean? I've spoken to you, or somewhere recently, when you preach seven, eight times a week as I have, you just don't remember exactly where you said what. But somewhere or other I used the illustration, perhaps to you in this series, of the wedding ceremony in the church. And after it's over, the bridegroom turns to the bride and she said, it's been so nice knowing you. Yes, I'm happy to have met you. It's been a lovely wedding. Thank you for cooperating. Goodbye, goodbye. And he goes this way and she goes that. Isn't that ridiculous and absurd? What's the purpose of it all? Isn't it that they should go on in union and fellowship? What is the purpose of being filled with the fullness of God? You go on in union and fellowship with God. Now, what will it be? Here it is. Be filled with the Spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual melody, making spiritual song, melody, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord. Be filled speaking. Be filled speaking to yourselves in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks. How to continue in the fullness of the Spirit? So simple. Do you have time every day when you can get along? You notice this doesn't talk about a celestial shopping list, does it? This doesn't talk about a long gimme list. There's a place for petition. But you're not going to be filled with the Spirit when you come in sort of, hi God, now let's get down to business here, get your pencil ready, which characterizes a great deal of our praying. Just the nicest, just the quickest perfunctories over with them. And then to begin, oh listen, you're not going to be filled with the fullness of God or be filled with the Spirit that way. What will it be? Going into the presence of God. I don't know what anyone else will ever do about this, but I have my plans and methods. And maybe they're helpful, maybe they aren't. But if they aren't, you improve on them. Don't do anything less valuable. I like every time I can to get alone with the Lord. I have a Barca lounger in the office and couch at home. I like to get on my back during the day. There's so much tension and pressure. Some of you that work in offices, it's very hard. But you ought to have a room. I think one of the great benefits of civilization is a private room. And if you don't have someplace you can be alone. I feel you ought to try and pray and make some adjustment about it, because you've got to be alone with God. You've got to be alone. Somewhere you've got to get alone. And I just lie down and don't pray for anybody, not much as I'm burdened and concerned. This time is just ours, the Lord's and mine. What is it for? Speaking to yourself in psalms, in hymns, in spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks. What do you call, what's one word that summarizes all of this? Worship. God's worth it all, so you pour it out. That's what worship is. Worship. He is worth the love. He's worth the adoration. He's worth the praise. He's worth the thanksgiving. And because He's worth, you pour it out before Him. Be filled with the Spirit in worship, in breathing. If you take the old red hymnal, Dr. Simpson, you go through it and you'll find breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing, breathing in, breathing in, over and over and over again. How is, what is this breathing in? Going into the presence of the Lord in worship, in breathing the life of God. You know, remember, He's breath. He's pneumatized. He's breath in breathing. Not that He's the wind. He's God. But just as you breathe in, we were coming down from Freehold, New York yesterday on the Taconic Parkway, and the driver said to me, oh, said to us, another gentleman with him from the same church, and I was with them, three of us, he said, let's stop and just breathe this wonderful mountain air. And there we were, the three of us from New York, you know, sort of storing up a little bit when we get back. Here you'd see us out just inhaling this wonderful, wonderful air. Now that's what we mean, in breathing the life of the Lord. George Mueller knew this. The great English, or German actually, but preacher in England, George Mueller. F. B. Meyer came to him. As the young men were wont to do, he said, Father, for he was indeed a father of the children of the Lord. He said, Father, why is it sometimes I preach with power, and sometimes it's so flat? The old man, who was ninety then, or nearly, eyes dim and couldn't tell what was happening in current events, but keen as an eagle with the things of God. The old man looked at F. B. Meyer, and he said, Son, it's because you breathe out twice, when you've only breathed in once. Be being filled with the Spirit. This is the private, devotional life of the Spirit-filled Christian, alone with God, speaking to yourselves in psalms, in hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always to God for all things. But you aren't going to be being filled with the Spirit until you have been filled with the Spirit. You must be before you can be being. Have you been filled with the Spirit? I hope I've spoken to you tonight. I hope I've spoken to you that God is real. Everybody, I guess, wants to be something other than he is. But if I could say to the Lord tonight, Lord, there's one thing I want you to make me to my generation, you know what it would be? I'd say, O God, make me an apostle of reality. In a day of superficiality, in a day of the counterfeit, and the spurious, and the false, and the shallow, and what I covet for you, dear heart, in this fellowship more than anything else in the world, is reality in your relationship to God. And I'll continue to preach, and pray, and labor, and counsel, and do everything we can to see this become your testimony. Christ taking up his lasting dwelling place in your heart through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to experience the love of Christ which passes intelligence that you might be filled unto all of the fullness of God. Now, bless your heart, what kind of an invitation can you give with a message like this? The whole message has been an invitation for you to go on from where you are to where God wants you, and then to go on in what God wants for you. Will you do it? It's going to repay you infinitely for everything it costs you. Let's stand for prayer. With our heads bowed and our eyes closed, have you been filled with the Spirit? Can you look back and say, yes, there came a time when I know that I was brought into this relationship. I could no more ask for it than I could ask for something I know has happened. But I'm not walking in the fullness of the Spirit. Then it's here in this place of worship, waiting and breathing, in his presence that this life becomes yours. Perhaps you haven't been filled with the Spirit. You know you've been born again. You know you're a child of God. I'll be so glad to counsel with you, to talk with you tonight, anytime we can arrange it, come to your home, anything. Have you come to the office? This is of the utmost importance to you and therefore to me. And I'm not just here to talk, but I'm here in any way God can use clay to help you to himself, to be used by him. Father of our Lord Jesus, we thank and praise thee that thou hast purposed this wonderful life. And thou hast said, blessed is the one whom thou choosest, whom thou causest to approach unto thee, for he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. Now, Lord, there's some that are stirred with hunger. They've been hungry and they are, and thou hast not given them this hunger to mock them and taunt them, and they're nearer to the satisfying of their hearts now than they've ever been. Oh, Lord, there's so much I wish I could do for every hungry heart, but after all thou alone art able for some of these things. So help, Lord, each one that comes to thee. May the fowls of the air not snare thee, snatch away the good seed, but may these dear ones that are so concerned and burdened give themselves to the Word, and we know then the Spirit of God will quicken it. So, Father, we thank thee for thy presence. We thank thee that thou art going to make thyself wonderfully real to many in this company. We believe, Lord, that these days and weeks are months of meeting thee. We believe, Lord, that thou art giving us a new release in ministry to the hearts of thy people, and we know that thou art going to satisfy our hearts with thy goodness and fullness. And so let thy Word abide and guide us, Lord, in all we do. Every one we help, and let every one that seeks thee find. We have thy promise and we leave it now, Lord, as thy benediction. Ye shall search for me and ye shall find me when ye shall seek for me with all your heart. Amen.