Scripture: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."—JOHN xvii. 14, 16.
In the last night our Lord took pains to make clear to His disciples the impassable gulf between Him and the world, and between them and the world too (John xvi. 16-21). He had said of the Spirit: "The world cannot receive Him, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." "Because ye are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you."
One great mark of the disciples was thus to be that as little as Christ was of the world, so little were they to be of the world. Christ and they had become united in the cross and the resurrection ; they both belonged to another world, the Kingdom of heaven. This separation from the world is to be the mark of all disciples who long to be filled with the Spirit.
How is it that faith in the Holy Spirit is so little preached and practised in Christendom? The world rules too much in the life of Christians. Christians live too little the heavenly life to which they are called in Christ Jesus. The "love of the world" (1 John ii. 15, 16) ; "The lust of the flesh," pleasure in eating and drinking, in ease and comfort; "The lust of the eyes," delight in I all that the world offers of beauty and possession; the vain glory of life, the self-exaltation in what the wisdom and power of man has accomplished—all this robs the heart of its susceptibility and desire for that true self-denial that fits for receiving the Holy Spirit.
Let each one who would, take up the Pentecostal prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit examine himself whether the spirit of the world is not the secret of that lack of love of prayer which is absolutely necessary in all who would plead the promise of the Father. May the Lord write this deep in every heart, the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit! "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
