Beware that you resist not the Spirit of God!



THE CONVICTING FACTS

'Of sin, because they believe not on Me; Of righteousness,
because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; Of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged.'--JOHN xvi. 9-11.

Our Lord has just been telling His disciples how He will equip them,
as His champions, for their conflict with the world. A divine Spirit
is coming to them who will work in them and through them; and by
their simple and unlettered testimony will 'convict,' or convince,
the mass of ungodly men of error and crime in regard to these three
things--sin, righteousness, and judgment.

He now advances to tell them that this threefold conviction which
they, as counsel for the prosecution, will establish as against the
world at the bar, will be based upon three facts: first, a truth of
experience; second, a truth of history; third, a truth of revelation,
all three facts having reference to Jesus Christ and His relation to
men.

Now these three facts are--the world's unbelief; Christ's ascension
and session at the right hand of God; and the 'judgment of the prince
of this world.' If we remember that what our Lord is here speaking
about is the work of a divine Spirit through the ministration of
believing men, then Pentecost with its thousands 'pricked to the
heart,' and the Roman ruler who trembled, as the prisoner 'reasoned