Talking of the disciples..... Look at the change it made in their own inner life. It was, up to Pentecost, a life of failure and of weakness. I have spoken of their pride. Christ had to reprove them for their pride, time after time. You know how they longed to be faithful to Him, and yet their pride and their self-confidence was the cause of continual failure. Peter said to Him, Lord, I will never deny Thee, and all the others said the same; and yet within a few hours they did it, just as the result of pride and self-confidence. They did not know the evil of their own nature. Jesus had done everything to teach them humility, but He had failed, and hence their weakness. Peter had said, I will go with Thee to prison and to death, but at the word of a maid-servant he began to swear and to declare that he never knew the Man. What utter weakness! But what a change when Pentecost came! I will not say they had victory over sin, for I do not think it came in the way of direct fighting. But when the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God - became their life, they were filled with the might and the power of the living Jesus, the Saviour from sin. You know, dear friends, that the great work of Jesus is to take away sin. And how does He take it away? Many Christians just look upon Him as taking it away on the cross. Others get a step beyond that, and say: He takes it away from heaven; He cleanses and keeps me. But the true taking away of sin is this: if the light comes in, the darkness is expelled. It is the presence of Jesus, indwelling by the Holy Spirit, that can make us holy. And the disciples - what a change came over them! See now how boldly, time after time, they can speak in the presence of those who threaten them with death. We must obey God rather than men, they said. They go to prison, and there they can sing praises to God at midnight. Oh, the wonderful change in their life that the Holy Spirit wrought! ~ Andrew Murray, D.D.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 01:07:40 +0000
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