19 "Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit"

A. T. Jones  

FOR more than a year the Lord has been sending to His people the definite message, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Thus the attention of a whole people, all round the earth, has been directed to this one definite call of God,—to this one great blessing of receiving the Holy Spirit.

Has it occurred to you to inquire as to just what this means? If not, please read this scripture, and think: "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30).

As it is by the Holy Spirit that the people of God must be sealed, and as God is especially calling upon all His people to receive the Holy Spirit, then does not this plainly show that we are now, in the time of the sealing of God's people?

If this is not plain to you, why so? Since the object of the Holy Spirit is to seal; till the day of redemption, those who receive Him; and now, for more than a year, God is calling upon all His people to receive the Holy Spirit, do you expect this call to go on forever without the object of the Holy Spirit being accomplished,—the sealing of those who receive Him? Do you expect the call to receive the Holy Spirit to go on forever, and expect the Holy Spirit to abide forever with those who do receive Him, without that Spirit's accomplishing the very object for which He is given ?

If you do not expect this, then since it is only by the Holy Spirit that the sealing is done, and since God is now, and has been for more than a year, continuously calling to His people to receive the Holy Spirit, is, it not perfectly plain that we are now in the time of the sealing of God's people? And if it should be that this is not yet plain to you, then is it not because you are not looking straight in this direction? or else because you have not yet anointed your eyes with the "eye-salve, that thou mayest see"?

This will never do. No; God will not work forever, and do nothing. God will not send a message forever without accomplishing that whereunto the message is sent. And as He is now sending His message, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit;" and as the work of that Spirit is to seal the receivers thereof unto the day of redemption, it is certain that now is the time in which, by the Holy Spirit, God will seal His people unto the day of redemption, which, by all other signs also, is nigh at hand.

“Get ready, get ready, get ready." "Ask, and it shall be given you." "Receive the Holy Spirit." "Be filled with" the "holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed to the day of redemption.”

The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, November 22, 1898