"HE SHALL TESTIFY OF ME"
“HE SHALL TESTIFY OF ME”
The mission of the Holy Spirit, in John 14: 26, “the Comforter ... whom the Father will send in my name”, is for the individual believer, but in chapter 15: 26, He is sent by Christ to His own here on earth to testify of Him, as He says, “He shall testify of me”. It is of the deepest importance to apprehend what this means, as to the mode and measure in which this testimony is to be effected. It does not say that the Spirit is to lend His aid in conjunction, or in co-operation, with all human means, but that He is to be the Testifier - “He shall testify of me”. Thus He can use any of Christ’s own as His vessel in effecting this work.
It is a very simple question, but fraught with great issues - what would be the difference between a believer who would use all natural means for the spreading of the gospel, not seeing that the Spirit is the Testifier, and the one who fully believes in His mission, and solely depends on Him to do His work. It is clear which of these would be right. When such a transcendent power as the Holy Spirit takes up His abode with us, who are so infinitely less, He of necessity takes the lead, and carries us with Him as His vassals. Lesser lights fade before the noonday sun; how much more do we, and all our efforts, become insignificant before Him! He comes to do a great work, and He uses us as vehicles, as the atoms of the air are so many vehicles, or ways, of conveying the light of the sun to every corner of the earth. If the light of the sun be shut out in noonday, there is no light, unless there be a resort to some artificial and lesser light; and this is just what has occurred in christendom. The greatest [p. 324] power and the greatest light has been excluded by unbelief; and hence human power, education, or some human means, has been resorted to, to supply the lack. The man who uses any human means outside of the Spirit, clearly has lost sight of the word, “He shall testify of me”. The Spirit is the One to do it, and not the instrument, though He may use the instrument. I may speak the word, or write the word, but it is only in proportion as I do either in the Spirit that the fruit of it will be the Spirit’s work. It is an abnegation of man’s power and means when we rely simply on the Spirit of God to testify of Christ; and this is but just and proper, seeing that man has rejected Christ. Satan’s tool is man, and he has no place when man is completely excluded, and then it is that the Spirit has full sway.
The more ardent a man is, the more ready is he to rely on human means, or to enlist them in aid of the Lord’s work; and when he does, he evidently has no practical belief in the Spirit of God, or he does not think Him enough for the occasion. Now this flaw in his faith betrays itself on every side. There is sure to be a defective apprehension of the Spirit’s activities in himself individually. The dark part in him naturally is not detected and refused; a worldliness, corresponding to the defect, is always to be seen in the man who has not accepted in heart the complete rule of the Spirit in himself; and as he has not faith in Him for himself, he cannot have faith in Him for Christ. So, in seeking to testify of Christ, in preaching or otherwise, he uses human or worldly means, and he has never in his own soul a very distinct or joyous apprehension of things above; he is not heavenly. Thus truth acts and reacts. The man who believes that a divine Person resides in him, not only to enrich his heart with Christ, but to lead him, as He pleases, to testify of Him, is sure to be found breaking from the world at the side where naturally he had been most held by it. It is always so when the subjection is real;
[p. 325] the fortress, the spot in the heart where the will has centred gives way; and if the fortress be captured, the enemy has lost his footing.
The compensation assured to the witnesses of Christ here, led and supported by the Spirit of God, is that while the world is utterly set aside and reproved, there is, through the Spirit, the glorifying of Christ, and “he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you”(John 16: 15); heavenly things are their portion.
One word more. I am convinced that all our present weakness is traceable to disregard of the Spirit’s presence. One of the fruits of this is the use of secular means, placards, etc., and I am thankful to note that, as men of God advance in nearness to the Lord, and in the knowledge of His grace, they entirely refuse them; while, on the other hand, when workers are carnal or have declined, there is often a desire for notoriety which passes for zeal, they turn more to these carnal means, and are, in my judgment, giving man a prominence that literally shuts out Christ; and this is Laodicean in nature.