the Holy Spirit and the One Church. This sermon was first preached on December 13, 1857, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon. The text for today comes from the book of Jude, Jude 1, verse 19. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit. When a farmer comes to thrash out his wheat and get it ready for the market, there are two things that he desires. First, that there may be plenty of wheat and of the right kind, and that when he takes it to the market, he may be able to carry a clean sample there. He does not look upon the quantity alone, for what is chaff to the wheat? He would rather have a little clean wheat than he would have a great heap of wheat that contains a vast quantity of chaff. On the other hand, he would not so winnow out his wheat as to drive away any of the good grain and so make the quantity less than it needs to be. He wants to have as much as possible, to have as little loss as possible in the winnowing, and yet to have it as well winnowed as it can be. Now this is what I desire for Christ's Church and what every Christian will desire. We wish Christ's Church to be as large as possible. God forbid that by any of our winnowing we should ever cast away one of the precious children of Zion. When we rebuke sharply, we would be careful lest the rebuke should fall where it is not needed. and should bruise and hurt the feelings of any whom God has chosen. But on the other hand, we have no wish to see the church multiplied at the expense of its purity. We do not wish to have a love so great that it takes in chaff as well as wheat. We wish to be just loving enough to use the fan thoroughly to purge God's threshing floor, but yet loving enough to pick up the most shriveled piece of wheat, to preserve it for the Master's sake, who is the farmer. I trust in preaching this morning, God may help me to discern between the precious and the vile, that I may say nothing unloving, nothing which would cut off any of God's people from being part of His true and living and visible church. And yet at the same time, I pray that I may not speak so loosely and so without God's direction as to embrace any in the arms of Christian affection whom the Lord has not received in the eternal covenant of His love. Our text this morning suggest to us three things. First, a question. Do we have the Holy Spirit within us? Secondly, a caution. If we do not have the Holy Spirit, then we are sensual. Thirdly, a suspicion. There are many persons that separate themselves. Our suspicion concerning them is this. that despite their strong and bold profession of faith in Christ, they are sensual and don't have the Holy Spirit. For our text tells us, these are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. First, our text suggests a question. Do we have the Holy Spirit within us? Do we have the Holy Spirit within us? This is a question so important that the philosopher may well suspend all his other investigations just to find an answer to this question for his own personal benefit. All the great debates of politics, all the most engrossing subjects of human discussion may well stop today. and give us time to ask ourselves the solemn question, do we have the Holy Spirit within us? For this question does not deal with any externals of religion, but it deals with religion in its most vital point. He that does have the Holy Spirit, although he is wrong in 50 other things, being right in this is saved. But he that does not have the Spirit, be he ever so orthodox, be his creed as correct as scripture, yes, and in his morals outwardly as pure as the law, yet this person is still unsaved. He is destitute of the essential part of salvation, the Spirit of God living within him. To help us answer this question, I will try to set forth the effects of the Holy Spirit in our hearts under various scriptural metaphors. Do I have the Holy Spirit within me? My reply, and what exactly is the operation of the Spirit? How am I to discern it? The Spirit operates in various ways, all of them mysterious and supernatural. all of them bearing the real marks of His own power, and having certain signs following whereby they may be discovered and recognized. The first work of the Holy Spirit in the heart is a work in which the Spirit is compared to the wind. The first work of the Holy Spirit in the heart is a work in which the Spirit is compared to the wind. You will remember that when our Savior spoke to Nicodemus, he represented the first work of the Spirit in the heart as being like the wind, which blows wherever it pleases. So it is, he says, with everybody born of the Spirit. Now you know that the wind is a most mysterious thing. And although there are certain definitions of it which pretend to be explanations of the phenomenon, yet they certainly do not answer the great question of how the wind blows and what causes its blowing in a certain direction from where it was before. Breath within us, wind outside of us, all the motions of air are to us mysterious. and the renewing work of the Spirit in the heart is especially mysterious. It is possible that at this very moment the Spirit of the living God may be breathing into some of the thousand hearts sitting in the pews before me. Yet it would be blasphemous if anyone should ask, which way did the Spirit go from God to such a heart? How did it enter there? And it would also be foolish for a person who is under the influence of the Spirit to ask how it operates. You do not know where the storehouse of the thunder is located. Neither do you know the weight of the clouds. Neither can you know how the Spirit goes out from the Most High God and enters into the heart of man. It may be that during a sermon two men are listening to the same truth. One of them hears as attentively as the other and remembers just as much of it. The other is melted to tears or moved with solemn thoughts. But the one, though equally attentive, sees nothing in the sermon except maybe certain important truths well set forth. As for the other, his heart is broken within him and his soul is melted. Ask me how it is that the same truth has an effect upon the one and not upon the other. The one only feels the force of truth, and that may be strong enough to make him tremble, like Felix. But the other feels the Spirit going with the truth, and that renews the man, regenerates him, and causes him to pass into that glorious condition which is called the state of salvation. This change takes place instantaneously. It is as miraculous a change as any miracle of which we read about in the scripture. It is supremely supernatural. It may be mimicked, but no imitation of it can be true and real. Men may pretend to be regenerated without the Spirit, but they cannot be truly regenerate. It is a change so marvelous that the highest attempts of man can never reach it. We may reason as long as we please, but we cannot reason ourselves into regeneration. We may meditate until our hairs are gray with study, but we cannot meditate ourselves into the new birth. This is worked in us by the sovereign will of God alone.

The Spirit, like some heavenly wind, blows on the sons of flesh, inspires us with a heavenly mind, and forms the man afresh. But ask the man how. He cannot tell you. Ask him when. He may remember the time, But as to the manner of it, he knows no more of it than you do. It is to him a mystery.

You remember the story of the Valley of Vision. Ezekiel saw dry bones lying scattered here and there in the valley. The command came to Ezekiel, say to these dry bones, live. He said, live. and the bones came together. Bone to bone and flesh appeared on them. But as yet, they did not live. Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live. They look just like life. There was flesh and blood there, there were the eyes and the hands and the feet. But when Ezekiel had spoken, there was a mysterious something given, which men call life. And it was given in a mysterious way, like the blowing of the wind.

It is even true today. Unconverted and ungodly persons may be very moral and admirable, They are like the dry bones when they are put together and clothed with flesh and blood. But to make them live spiritually, it needs the divine impulse from the breath of the Almighty, the divine soul, the divine spirit, the divine wind must blow on them and then they would live.

Say, my listener, Have you ever had any supernatural influence on your heart? For if not, I may seem to be a little harsh with you, but I am faithful. If you have never had more than nature in your heart, then you are full of bitterness and captive to sin. No, don't sneer at that remark. It is as true as this Bible, for it is from this Bible it was taken. And for proof of that, then listen to what the Bible says. No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of the water and of the Spirit. What do you say to that? It is in vain for you to talk of causing yourself to be born again. You cannot be born again except by the Holy Spirit, and you will perish unless you are.

You see then, my friends, the first effect of the Holy Spirit, and by that you may answer the question. In the next place, the Spirit in the Word of God is often compared to fire. The Spirit in the Word of God is often compared to fire. After the Spirit, like the wind, has made the dead sinner live, then comes the Spirit, like fire. Now fire has a searching and tormenting power. It is purifying, but it purifies by a terrible process. Now, after the Holy Spirit has given us the life of Christianity, there immediately begins a burning in our heart The Lord searches and tries our reins and lights a candle within our spirits which discovers the wickedness of our nature and the awfulness of our iniquities.

Say, my listener, do you know anything about that fire in your heart? For if not, you have not yet received the Holy Spirit. To explain what I mean, let me just tell you a piece of my own experience. by way of illustrating the fiery effects of the Spirit. I used to live a careless and thoughtless life. I could indulge in sin as well as others, and I did so. Sometimes my conscience convicted me, but not enough to make me cease from vice. I could indulge in transgression, and I could love it. not so much as others loved it, because my early training would not let me do that, but still enough to prove that my heart was debased and corrupt. Once upon a time, something more than conscious pricked me. I did not know what it was. I was like Samuel when the Lord called him. I heard the voice, but I did not know where it came from. A stirring began in my heart, and I began to feel that in the sight of God I was a lost, ruined, and condemned sinner. I could not shake off that conviction. No matter what I did, it followed me. If I sought to amuse my mind and take it off from serious thoughts, it was of no use. I was obliged still to carry about with me a heavy burden on my back. I went to my bed, and there I dreamed about hell, and I dreamed about the wrath to come. I woke up, and this dreary nightmare, this oppressive thought, still brooded on me. What could I do? I renounced first one vicious habit, then another. It did not matter. All this was like pulling one firebrand from the flame that fed itself with blazing forest. Whatever I did, my conscience found no rest. Up to the church I went to hear the gospel. There was no gospel for me. The fire only burned all the more fiercely, and the very breath of the gospel seemed to fan the flame. Away I went to my bedroom and to my closet to pray. The heavens were like brass and the windows of the sky were closed tightly against me. I could get no answer. The fire burned more vehemently. Then I thought, I no longer wanted to live. I wished that I had never been born, but I dared not die. For there was hell waiting for me when I was dead, and I dared not live, for life had become intolerable. Still the fire vehemently blazed until finally I made this resolution. If there is any salvation in Christ, I will have it. I have nothing of my own to trust in. I do this very hour, O God, renounce my sin and renounce my righteousness too. and the fire blazed again, and burned up all of my good works, yes, and all of my sins with them. And then I saw that all this burning was to bring me to Christ. And oh, the joy and gladness of my heart, when Jesus came and sprinkled water on the flame and said, I have bought you with my blood, put your trust in me, I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. I will take your sins away. I will clothe you with a spotless robe of righteousness. I will guide you throughout all of your journey and will ultimately lead you to heaven. Do you know anything about the spirit of burning? For if not, Again I say, I am not harsh, I am only speaking the truth. If you have never felt this, then you do not know the Holy Spirit. To proceed a little further, when the Spirit has awakened the soul and convinced it of sin, then He comes under another metaphor. He comes under the metaphor of oil. When the Holy Spirit has awakened the soul and convinced it of sin, then he comes under another metaphor. He comes under the metaphor of oil. The Holy Spirit is very frequently in scripture compared to oil. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Ah, brethren, Though the beginning of the Spirit is by fire, it does not end there. We may be first of all convinced and brought to Christ by misery, but when we get to Christ there is no misery in Him and our sorrow results from not getting close enough to Him. The Holy Spirit comes like the Good Samaritan and pours in the oil and the wine. And oh, what oil it is with which he anoints our head and with which he heals our wounds. How soft the ointment which he puts on our bruises. How blessed the eye salve with which he anoints our eyes. How heavenly the ointment with which he puts on our sores and wounds and bruises. And he makes us whole and sets our feet on a rock and establishes our goings.

The Holy Spirit, after he has convinced us of our sin, begins to comfort us. And you that have felt the comforting power of the Holy Spirit will bear witness that there is no comforter like the Holy Spirit.

Oh, bring the music here, the voice of song and the sound of harps. They are both like vinegar on an open wound to him that has a heavy heart. Bring to me the enchantments of the magic world and all the enjoyments of its pleasures. They only torment the soul and prick it with many thorns. But oh, the spirit of the living God, when you blow upon the heart, there is not a wave of that temptuous sea which does not sleep forever when you command it to be still. There is not one single breath of the proud hurricane and storm which does not cease to howl and which does not lie still when you say to it, peace be with you, your sins are forgiven.

Say, my friends, do you know the spirit under the metaphor of oil? Have you felt him at work in your spirits, comforting you, anointing your head, making you glad and causing you to rejoice. There are many people that never felt this. They hope they are Christians, but their religion never makes them happy. There are scores of people who profess to be Christians who have just enough religion to make them miserable. Let them be afraid that they have any religion at all, for true religion makes people happy. When it has full sway with man, it makes him glad. It may begin in agony, but it does not end there.

Say, have you ever felt your heart leaping for joy? Has your lips ever sung songs of rapturous praise? Does your eye ever flash the fire of joy? If these things are not true in your life, that I fear that you are still without God and without Christ. For where the Spirit comes, his fruits are. Joy in the Spirit and peace and love and confidence and assurance forever.

Bear with me once more. I have to show you one more figure of the Spirit. And by that you also will be able to determine whether you are under the influence of the Spirit. When the Spirit has acted as wind, as fire, and as oil, He then acts like water. When the Spirit has acted as wind, as fire, and as oil, He then acts like water.

We are told that we are born again of water and of the Spirit. Now I don't think that you are foolish enough to need me to say that no water, either by immersion or sprinkling, can in the least degree operate in the salvation of a soul. There may be a few poor creatures whose heads were put on their shoulders the wrong way, who still believe that a few drops of water from the hand of a priest can regenerate souls. There may be such a few. But I hope the race will soon die out.

We trust that the day will come when that group of people will no longer preach that false gospel in our churches, but that they will have completely gone over to Roman Catholicism. The sooner we get rid of that, the better. And whenever we hear of any of them going over to the Roman Catholic Church, let them go. I wish we could as easily get rid of the devil They may go together. We do not want either one of them in the Protestant Church.

But the Holy Spirit, when he comes in the heart, comes like water. That is to say, he comes to purify the soul. He that is today as foul a person as he was before his pretended conversion is a hypocrite and a liar. He that today loves sin and lives in it just as he used to, let him know that the truth is not in him, and he has only received the strong delusion to believe a lie. God's people are a holy people. God's Spirit works by love and purifies the soul. Once the Holy Spirit gets into our hearts, He will not rest until he has turned every sin out. God's Holy Spirit and man's sin cannot live together peaceably. They may both be in the same heart, but they cannot both reign there, nor can they both be quiet there.

For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They cannot rest. There will be a perpetual warring in the soul so that the Christian will have to cry out, what a wretched man that I am. Who will rescue me from this body of death? But in due time, the spirit will drive out all sin and will present us blameless before the throne of his majesty with great joy.

Now, my listener, Answer this question for yourself and not for another man. Have you received this spirit? Answer me, no matter what. If it be with a scoff, answer me. If you sneer and say, I know nothing of your passionate rhetoric, so be it, sir. Then say no. It may be that you do not care to reply at all. I beg you that you do not ignore my question. Yes or no? Have you received the Holy Spirit?

Did you just say, Sir, no man can find fault with my character. I believe I will enter heaven through my own virtues. That is not the question, sir. The question was, have you received the Holy Spirit? All that you say you may have done. But if you have left the other undone and have not received the Holy Spirit, then it will not go well with you in the end. Have you had a supernatural operation upon your own heart? Have you been made a new man in Christ Jesus? For if not, depend on it, as God's word is true, you are without Christ. and dying as you are, you will be shut out of heaven despite of anything that you do or don't do.

Thus, my friends, I have tried to help you to answer the first question, have we received the Holy Spirit? And this now brings me to the caution. He that has not received the Holy Spirit is said to be following mere natural instincts. He that has not received the Holy Spirit is said to be following mere natural instincts. Oh, what a great gulf there is between the least Christian and the most moral unbeliever alive. What a wide distinction there is between the greatest self-righteous person who is destitute of grace and the least of God's believers who has grace in his heart. As great a difference as there is between light and darkness, between life and death, and between heaven and hell, the same difference is there between a saint and a sinner.

For note, my text says, in not a very polite phrase, that if we don't have the Spirit then we are said to be following mere natural instincts. Mere natural instincts, says one. Well, I'm not a converted man. I don't pretend to be, but I am not just following mere natural instincts like an animal. Well, friend, understand that there is a great distinction between mere animals and men because man has a soul and the mere animal has none. There is another distinction between mere men and converted man. The converted man has the Spirit. The unconverted man has none. He is a natural man, not a spiritual man. He has got nothing more than mere nature and has no inheritance in the spiritual kingdom of grace.

Friend, you say you do not have the Spirit. Then you are nothing better, no matter what you are or whatever you may be, than the fall of Adam left you. That is to say, you are a fallen creature, having only capacities to live here in sin and to live forever in torment. But you do not have the capacity to live in heaven at all, for you have no spirit, and therefore you are unable to know or enjoy spiritual things.

And note this, a man may be in this state and be a natural man, And yet he may have all the virtues that could grace a Christian. But with all of these, if he does not have the Spirit, then he has not advanced even a fraction of an inch from where Adam's fall left him. That is, he is still condemned and under the curse.

Yes, and he may practice his religion with all of his might. He may take communion, he may be baptized, and he may be the most devout professor of Christianity, but if he does not have the Holy Spirit, then he hasn't moved one solitary inch from where he was, for he is still in the bonds of iniquity, a lost soul.

Further, he may pick up religious phrases till he may talk very fast about religion, He may read biographies till he seems to be a deep-taught child of God. He may be able to write an article upon the deep experience of a believer, but if this experience is not his own, if he has not received it by the Spirit of the Living God, he is then still nothing more than a carnal man, and heaven is to him a place to which there is no entrance.

Further, he might go so far as to become a minister of the gospel and a successful minister too. And God may bless the word that he preaches to the salvation of sinners. But unless he himself has received the Spirit, even if he is as eloquent as Apollos and as earnest as Paul, he is nothing more than a mere natural man without capacity for spiritual things.

No, to crown everything. He might even have the power of working miracles as Judas had. He might even be received into the church as a believer, as was Simon Magus. And after all that, though he had cast out devils, though he had healed the sick, though he had worked miracles, he might have the gates of heaven shut in his face if he had not received the Holy Spirit. For this is the essential thing, without which all others are in vain.

The reception of the Spirit of the living God is necessary. This is a searching truth, is it not, my friends? Do not run away from it. If I am preaching to you a lie, then reject it. But if this is a truth which I can substantiate by scripture, I beg you, Do not rest until you have answered this question. Do you have the Holy Spirit living, dwelling, and working within your heart?

This brings me in the third place to the suspicion.

How distinct is the separation between one who has the Spirit and the one who does not? How distinct is the separation between one who has the Spirit and one who does not?

Listen, I hear a gentle man saying, Oh, I like to hear you preach boldly and with conviction. I am persuaded, sir, there are a great many people in the church that ought not to be there. And so I, because there is such a corrupt mixture in the church, I have determined not to join any church at all. I do not think that a church of Christ nowadays is at all clean and pure enough to allow my joining with it. At least, sir, I did once join a church, but I made so much noise in it that they were very glad when I went away. And now I am just like David's men. I am one that is in debt and discontented. And I go around to hear all the new preachers that arise. I have heard you now these three months. I plan to go and hear someone else in a very little time if you do not say something to flatter me. But I am quite sure that I am one of God's special elect. I don't join any church because the church is not good enough for me. I don't become a member of any denomination because they are all wrong, every one of them. Listen friend, I have something to tell you that will not please you. You are one of the men spoken of in our text. Listen. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. I hope you enjoy the text. It certainly belongs to you, above every man in the world. These are the men who divide you. who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. When I read this over, I thought to myself, there are some who say, well, you yourself, Mr. Spurgeon, are a dissenter. How do you make this fact agree with the text? These are the men who divide you. You are separated from the Church of England. Ah, my friends, that a man may be, and all the better for it. But the separation that our text speaks of is a separation from the one universal Church of Jesus Christ. The Church of England was not known in Jude's day, so the Apostle did not allude to that. These are they who separate themselves, that is, from the Church of Jesus Christ, from the great universal body of the elect. Moreover, let us just say one thing. We did not separate ourselves. We were turned out by the Church of England. Dissenters did not separate themselves from the Church of England, from the Episcopal Church. But when the act of uniformity was passed, they were turned out of their pulpits. Our forefathers were as sound churchmen as any in the world. But they could not tolerate all the errors of the prayer book, and they were therefore hounded to their graves by the intolerance of the conforming professors. So they did not separate themselves. Moreover, we do not separate ourselves. There is not a Christian beneath the scope of God's heaven from whom I am separated. At the Lord's table, I will always invite all churches to come and sit down and commune with us. If any man were to tell me that I am separate from the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, or the Methodist, I would tell him that he did not know me. For I love them fervently with a pure heart, and I am not separate from them. I may hold different views from them, and in that point truly I may be said to be separate. But I am not separate in heart. I will work with them. I will work with them heartily. And if there is anything for which I can work with him to promote the glory of God, then I will unite with him with all my heart. I think this bears rather hard on our friends, the very strict Baptist. I would not like to say anything bad against them, for they are about the best people in the world. but they really do separate themselves from the great body of Christ's people. The Spirit of the Living God will not let them do this really, but they do it professedly. They separate themselves from the great universal church. They say they will not commune with it and if anyone comes to their table who has not been baptized they turn him away. They certainly do separate. I do not believe it is willful schism that makes them act this way, but at the same time I think the old man within has some hand in it.

Oh, how my heart loves the doctrine of the One Church. The nearer I get to my Master in prayer and communion, the closer I am knit to all His disciples. The more I see my own errors and failings, the more readily am I able to deal gently with them that I believe to be erring. The pulse of Christ's body is communion, and woe to the church that seeks to cure the ills of Christ's body by stopping its pulse.

I think it is sin to refuse to commune with anyone who is a member of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I desire this morning to preach the unity of Christ's Church I have sought to use the fan to blow away the chaff. I have said no man belongs to Christ's church unless he has the Spirit. But if he has the Spirit, woe be to the man that separates himself from Him.

Oh, I should think myself grossly at fault if at the foot of these stairs I should meet a truly converted child of God who called himself a Methodist, or a Wesleyan, or an Independent, and I would say to that person, No, sir, you do not agree with me on certain points. I believe you are a child of God, but I will have nothing to do with you. I would then think that this text would bear very hard on me. These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But would we do so, beloved? No, we would give them both our hands and say, God speed to you in your journey to heaven. So long as you have got the spirit, we are one family and we will not be separate from one another.

God grant the day may come when every wall of separation will be beaten down. See how to this day we are separate there. You will find a Baptist who could not say a good word to a non-Baptist if you were to give him the world. You find to this day Episcopalians who hate that ugly word dissent, and it is enough for them that a dissenter has done a certain thing. They will not do it then, no matter how good it was or is.

Ah, and furthermore, There are some to be found in the Church of England that will not only hate the sinners, but hate one another too. Men are to be found that cannot let brother ministers of their own church denomination preach in their parish. What an anachronism such men are. They would seem to have been sent into the world in our time purely by mistake. Their proper era would have been the time of the Dark Ages. what fine persecutors they would have made, what splendid fellows they would have been to have helped to burn people at the stake. But they are quite out of date in these times. And I look upon such a curious clergyman in the same way that I do upon a dodo bird, as an extraordinary animal whose race is almost, if not quite, extinct.

Well, you may look and look and wonder. The animal will soon be extinct. It will not be long, I trust. Before long, not only the Church of England will love itself, but when all who love the Lord Jesus will be ready to preach in each other's pulpits, preaching the same truth, holding the same faith, and mightily contending for it. Then will the world see how these Christians love one another. And then will it be known in heaven that Christ's kingdom has come, and that his will is about to be done on earth as it is in heaven. My friend, do you belong to the Church? For outside the Church there is no salvation. But mark you what the Church is. It is not the Episcopalian, the Baptist, or the Presbyterian. The Church is a company of men and women who have received the Holy Spirit. If you cannot say that you have the Holy Spirit, go your way and tremble. Go your way and think of your lost condition. And may Jesus, by his Spirit, so bless you, that you may be led to renounce your works and your ways with grief, and fly to him who died on the cross, and find a shelter there from the wrath of God. I may have said some rough things this morning, but I am not given much to cutting and trimming, and I don't suppose that I will begin to learn that now. If what I have said is untrue, it is in your power to reject it. If it is true, at your own peril, reject what God stamps with divine authority. May the blessing of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit rest upon the one Church of Israel's one Jehovah. Amen and Amen.