The Filling Of The Holy Spirit

“See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” —Ephesians 5:15–21

We are now occupied with the walk of the believer. “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.” This is the seventh time that the word “walk” occurs in this epistle. I think it will be profitable to go back and notice the occurrences.

In chapter two verse two we have the past tense. If we were to include that, it would mean the eighth time. “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world.” This was how we used to live when we belonged to the world. But we who are saved are delivered from that and so we read in verse ten of the same chapter, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” We are not saved by good works but we are to walk in good works after we are saved. In chapter four, verse one, we read, “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” Having been called with a heavenly calling, we are now to walk, to behave ourselves as heavenly people. Following that in verse seventeen of the same chapter we read, “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind.” In our unconverted days, we walked in the pride and folly of the human mind at variance with God, but as believers, we are not to do this anymore, but we are to walk in lowliness and in obedience to the Word of God. Then in chapter five, verse two, we are told to, “Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.” In verse eight we read, “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light.” And now in verse fifteen, the apostle says, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise.”

Our English word, “circumspectly” means “looking all around like one who is walking in a very dangerous place. There are pitfalls on this side, quagmires on that side, traps and snares all about. And so this person as he walks is constantly observing where he should next place his feet.” That is a circumspect walk, a walk looking all around. Christian, you path leads you through a world of sin, a world of folly, a world where you are exposed to all kinds of temptations and unholy influences. Snares and traps abound for your unwary feet. Therefore, walk circumspectly, be careful where you put down your feet, be careful as to the company you keep, be careful as to your behavior in any company so that there be that which will bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Walk not as fools, not as simple ones, not as those who are still darkness, but walk as wise men—made wise by the wisdom of God.

“Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The apostle uses this expression in one of his other letters and in each instance it literally means, “Buying up the opportunities.” Just as people go out bargain hunting and say, “There if I buy that today, I can get it at a good price, much better than if I have to let it go until another time. It is worth my while to buy these bargains up at this rate.” Let the Christian be just as eager, just as earnest to obtain opportunities to witness for Christ, to serve the blessed Lord and to be a means of blessing to others with whom he comes in contact. Buying up the opportunities, seeking to use them to the glory of our Lord Jesus, realizing that the days are evil and the time for serving Christ is slipping fast away, and that opportunities once lost will never be found again. Therefore, the importance of buying them up while we have the chance.

“Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” And mark it, the only way that you and I can be delivered from our own natural foolishness, is by being divinely enlightened. We do not understand what the will of the Lord is excepting as we give ourselves to the careful, thoughtful study of His Word. Years ago, I used frequently to stop in the midst of a discourse and ask everyone in my audience who had read the Bible through once to raise his hand. The last time I did that, I was so ashamed that I made up my mind never to do it again. I had an audience of five hundred people, all of whom professed to be Christians, and when I put that question to them, only two raised their hands and I was ashamed to have the devil see it. I was so thankful that there were not a lot of sinners there to see it. They would certainly say, “Those Christians do not value their Bible very much.” I am reminded of something that occurred just recently in this city. There was an open religious forum downtown. Clarence Darrow was there to represent the atheists, another to represent Protestantism, another Roman Catholicism, and another, Judaism. The Catholic got up and told why he was a Catholic and Protestant got up and told why he was a Protestant; the Jew, why he was a Jew; and then Clarence Darrow, the atheist, got up to speak and he said, “Gentlemen, I have been very much interested in one thing. I notice neither Protestant, Catholic, nor Jew ever referred to the Bible. Evidently they no longer value that so called holy Book as they used to do.” And then he went on to declare that he was an atheist because he had no use for the Book that they never even mentioned. What a pitiable thing that professed Christians should attempt to tell why they were Catholic or Protestant and never once refer to the Bible. Oh that you and I might be genuine Bible Christians.

A friend of mine used to be designated as a walking Bible and I thought, what a splendid description. If anybody ever came and said, “Mr. So and So, what do you think about such a thing?” he would say, “Let us see what God says about it” and out would come his Bible. “Why,” the men would say, “I didn’t know it was answered in the Book that way.” I never knew this friend to say, “I think,” but always, “God’s Word says so and so.” If you and I would be wise with the wisdom that cometh from above, we need to search the Scriptures. I like that little chorus:

“In my heart, in my heart
Send a great revival;
Teach me how to watch and pray,
And to read my Bible.”

The pitiable thing is that the great majority of Christians, I dare say, are so busy with other things that they have very little time for their Bibles. Although engaged exclusively in Christian service now for forty-five years, I do not dare come into the pulpit, I do not dare undertake my day’s work without first going to the Word of God to gather fresh manna from day to day. If sometimes I am so hurried in the morning because of being out very late the night before and oversleeping a little, or an urgent call comes and I rush out thoughtlessly without going to the Book, I find myself saying, “What is the matter with me today? I feel so dried up and half starved spiritually. I am in no condition to try to minister to other people.” And then the answer comes, “Why, you didn’t have your spiritual breakfast this morning. You went off without a bit from God’s Word,” and I have to say, “Lord, forgive me for thinking that anything is more important than a little time spent with Thyself.”

If you are not in the habit of reading your Bible methodically, prayerfully, let me beg of you, let me plead with you, go into the presence of God and confess to Him the sin of thus neglecting His Holy Word. He says, “Search the Scriptures,” and if you disobey a command, it is sin. If you have been disobedient, go to Him and confess it, and say, “Lord, henceforth teach me to say with Thy servant, ‘Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.’” (see Job 23:12). Give God the first place in your life, give His Word the place it ought to have and then indeed you will understand what the will of the Lord is.

And now the apostle continues, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” You will notice he puts two things in opposition, the one to the other—drunkenness with wine and the filling of the Holy Spirit. Why does he contrast these two things, these two conditions? You see, the man who has been over-imbibing, the man who is drunk with wine is controlled by a spirit foreign to himself. Men, when they are under the influence of the spirit of alcohol, do and say thins that they never would do in their normal condition. They make fools of themselves, they descend to all kinds of ribaldry and nonsense, and people say, excusing them, “Oh well, you mustn’t hold it against him, he is drunk, he is not himself.” The apostle says that that condition should never be true of a Chrisitan but on the other hand, the Christian should be dominated and controlled by a Spirit other than himself. He should be controlled by the Holy Spirit of God, and in the power of the Holy Spirit one is enabled to say and to do what he could not say and do in his merely natural condition. And so the filling of the Holy Spirit ought to be the normal experience of every believer—“Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” The word here is not really in the past tense but in the present—“Be habitually filled with the Holy Spirit.”

What is the filling of the Holy Spirit? I think the thought that a great many people have is that it is some strange ecstatic emotional experience that comes to them at a given moment and then later passes away and has to be repeated again. But that that is not it. This is the normal experience of the Christian life. “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” (Acts 4:31). They were dominated, they were controlled by the blessed Holy Spirit of God and this does not necessarily result in any special emotional breakdown but rather preserves one in the path of orderliness and common sense. In the second epistle to Timothy, we read, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). I have been in some places where people talk a great deal about the fullness of the Spirit and where I have seen things that I never would have thought possible a few years ago outside of an insane asylum, people rolling upon the floor and raving like maniacs and yet calling that the fullness of the Spirit. That is not the Spirit of a sound mind. The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit does not go off into some wild fanatical state but walks thoughtfully and carefully with God and his testimony has power with men.

Turn to the epistle to the Colossians, chapter 3, verse sixteen, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” Notice the effect there of the Word of Christ dwelling richly in the soul. Then turn back to Ephesians and read these verses again. Do you observe that you get exactly the same results in Colossians when the Word of Christ dwells in you richly that you get in Ephesians when you are filled with the Spirit? What then is the inference? There is an old rule in mathematics that “things equal to the same thing are equal to one another.” If to be filled with the Word is equal in result to being filled with the Spirit, then it should be clear that the Word-filled Christian is the Spirit-filled Christian. As the Word of Christ dwells in us richly, controls all our ways, as we walk in obedience to the Word, the Spirit of God fills, dominates, and controls us to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, if you would be filled with the Spirit and you know of anything in your life which is contrary to the Word of God, if you are tolerating anything in your private life which is contrary to the Word of God, if there is anything in your outward associations, in your behavior before the world that is contrary to His Word, go into His presence, confess your sins, sins of omission, sins of commission, deal with it all before Him and when everything has been uncovered and faced in His presence, dare to believe that He means what He says when He declares, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). And now, seek grace from Him to walk in obedience to His truth, cry out from the depths of your heart as the psalmist did, “Order my steps in thy word” (Psalm 119:133), and as you walk on in obedience to the Word of God, you will be filled with the Spirit.

Do not get the idea that you must have some remarkable outward demonstration, some amazing sign that the Spirit of God has actually taken possession, but remember that He dwells in every believer and as you give Him room, He cleanses out of you everything that hinders. As you let Him take full possession, you are filed with the Spirit. What will be the evidence of it? One will be fulness of joy. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of gladness, the Spirit of joy. Now do not misunderstand me, there is a difference between holy joy and mere natural merriment. Take the life of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Even though He was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as we read the records in the four Gospels, we cannot help but be impressed with the fact that we are not reading the life of a sad man but of a glad man. “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee’” (Luke 10:21). That is characteristic of the blessed Lord. In spite of all the grief and sorrow that He bore, He was joyful. But having said that, let me remind you that in these records you do not see depicted what the world calls a jolly man. His was no mere worldly jollity, no mere worldly merriment, but a deep rooted gladness that was based upon unbroken communion with the Father, and that is the joy that you and I should possess. The one who is filled with the Spirit will be a glad, joyous believer.

“Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” In might be translated, “Speaking to one another.” The world considers that a man who talks to himself is a bit queer, but that is not always the case. It is well sometimes for us to sit down and talk to ourselves about things in our lives. What the apostle is saying here is really, “speaking to one another, to the entire company.” How? “In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” As we meet with one another, greeting each other in a glad, happy way, the praises of the Lord bubble up in our souls. Psalms were the vehicle of expression in the congregation of God in olden times. The book of Psalms was the hymn book of the congregation of the Lord in ancient times and there are wonderful expressions there that suit every mood of the human heart. While we do not rise to the height of the Christian’s privilege in the book of Psalms yet we can find something to express every state and condition in our souls as we come into the presence of God. A hymn is an ascription of praise addressed directly to the Deity.

“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,
Early in the morning our songs shall rise to Thee.”

How the Christian heart naturally goes out to God in hymns of worship and adoration. No more worldly songs for the Christian. The day is gone, or should be, when he can sing the worldly songs. I always think a Christian has dropped from the high level on which he belongs when I hear him singing worldly songs, because he has something better, he has spiritual songs, songs that tell of the love of Christ, of what grace hath wrought, that tell of redemption by the precious blood of Jesus. Who would sing the old songs when we have learned the new?

“We will sing of the Shepherd
That died for the sake of the flock,
His love to the utmost was tried,
But firmly endured as a rock;
We will sing of such subjects alone,
None others our tongues shall employ,
Till fully His love becomes known,
In yonder bright regions of joy.”

One reason that the spirituality of the church is at such a low ebb today is because people are so careless about matters of this kind, so ready to drop down from the high and holy state that should characterize those that are filled with the Spirit of God.

“Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” We cannot all make melody on an instrument. Some of us would never be able to produce any melody if dependent upon an instrument, but every believer’s heart is like a harp and as the Spirit of God breathes over the heart-strings, real melody goes up to the ear of God.

And now, the Spirit-filled believer will be a thankful believer. “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Oh but,” you say, “there are some things I cannot give thanks for, there are some things so hard, so difficult to bear, there are some things that lacerate my very soul.” Wait a moment. Have you ever undergone a serious physical operation as a result of which you have been delivered from something that was just wearing out your very life? When you had to undergo it, it seemed very hard, but as you look back upon it, can you not give thanks for the surgeon’s knife, can you not give thanks for the very sufferings you had to endure because of the blessed after result? Very well, Christian, someday, “When we stand with Christ in glory, looking o’er life’s finished story,” we shall see as we cannot now just why all the hard things were permitted and how God our Father was seeking to set us free from hindrances and from encumbrances by pruning the branches from which He wished to get fruit for Himself. In that day, we will thank Him for all the sorrow as well as for all the joy. In faith, let us do it now.

Nothing can come to me but what His love allows, “All things work together for good,” and so a Spirit-filled believer will be loyal and submissive, not the kind who tosses his head and says, “I am not going to have anybody dominate me, I will do what I think and what I like.” That is the old walk of our unconverted days, that is the old nature, not the new.

“Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ,” as the better version reads. He was God manifested in Christ. The Spirit-filled believer, then, is characterized by these three things: joyfulness, thankfulness, lowliness. May God give to each one of us to be filled with the Spirit.