blessing of being baptized with the Holy Spirit is re-
The Baptism With the Holy Spirit 217
mony about Jesus Christ, that our sins were laid upon Him, and thus trusting God to forgive us and justify us. This then is the first step towards receiving the Holy
Spirit. But we must not only receive Jesus as Saviour, we must also receive Him as Lord. Of this we shall
speak further in connection with another passage in the
fourth step.
2. The second step in the path that leads into the
blessing of being baptized with the Holy Spirit is re-
nunciation of sin. Repentance as we have seen is a
change of mind about sin as well as a change of mind
about Christ ; a change of mind from that attitude of mind that loves sin and indulges sin to that attitude of mind that hates sin and renounces sin. This then is
the second step renunciation of sin. The Holy Spirit
is a Holy Spirit and we cannot have both Him and sin. We must make our choice between the Holy Spirit and
unholy sin. We cannot have both. ^He that will not
give up sin cannot have the Holy Spirit'^ ItTis not **""* <'''"' *"* " ' - ,',*.*.' *""- .*". *
, ttL ^ enough that we renounce one sin or two sins or three
sins or many sins, we must renounce all sin. If we
cling to one single known sin, it will shut us out of the
blessing. Here we find the cause of failure in many
people who are praying for the baptism with the Holy
Spirit, going to conventions and hearing about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, reading books about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, perhaps spending whole
nights in prayer for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and yet obtaining nothing. Why ? Because there is some sin to which they are clinging. People often say
to me, or write to me? u I have been praying for the
2i8 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit
baptism with the Holy Spirit for a year (five years, ten
years, one man said twenty years). Why do I not re-
ceive ? " In many such cases, I feel led to reply, " It
is sin, and if I could look down into your heart this moment as God looks into your heart, I could put my
finger on the specific sin." It may be what you are
pleased to call a small sin, but there are no small sins.
There are sins that concern small things, but every sin
is an act of rebellion against God and therefore no sin
is a small sin. A controversy with God about the
smallest thing is sufficient to shut one out of the bless-
ing. Mr. Finney tells of a woman who was greatly exercised about the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Every night after the meetings, she would go to her
rooms and pray way into the night and her friends were
afraid she would go insane, but no blessing came. One
night as she prayed, some little matter of head adorn-
ment, a matter that would probably not trouble many
Christians to-day, but a matter of controversy between
her and God, came up (as it had often come up before)
as she knelt in prayer. She put her hand to her head
and took the pins out of her hair and threw them across
! " and instantly the Holy Ghost fell upon her. It was not so much the matter
tc There go
the room and said,
of head adornment as the matter of controversy with God that had kept her out of the blessing.
If there is anything that always comes up when you
get nearest to God, that is the thing to deal with. Some years ago at a convention in a Southern state, the
presiding officer, a minister in the Baptist Church,
called my attention to 3man and said, "That man is
The Baptism With the Holy Spirit 219
the pope of our denomination in ; everything he says goes, but he is not at all with us in this matter, but I am glad to see him here." This minister kept
attending the meetings. At the close of the last meet-
ing where I had spoken upon the conditions of receiv-
ing the baptism with the Holy Spirit, I found this man
awaiting me in the vestibule. He said, " I did not
stand up on your invitation to-day." I replied, u I saw you did not." " I thought you said," he contin-
ued, a that you only wanted those to stand who could
say they had absolutely surrendered to God ? " " That
is what I did say," I replied. " Well, I could not say that." " Then you did perfectly right not to stand. I
did not want you to lie to God." u Say," he contin-
ued, " you hit me pretty hard to-day. You said if there was anything that always comes up when you get near-
est to God, that is the thing to deal with. Now there
is something that always comes up when I get nearest
to God. I am not going to tell you what it is. I
think you know." "Yes," I replied. (I could smell
it.) "Well, I simply wanted to say this to you." This was on Friday afternoon. I had occasion to go to another city, and returning through that city the fol-
lowing Tuesday morning, the minister who had presided at the meeting was at the station. " I wish you could have been in our Baptist ministers* meeting yes-
terday morning," he said ; " that man I pointed out to
you from the north part of the state was present. He
* Brethren, we have
got up in our meeting and said,
been all wrong about this matter,* and then he told
what he had done. He had settled his controversy