When the Comforter Came: Thirty-One Daily Devotionals on the Holy Spirit

“I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” John 14:1.

A FEW years ago a striking Christmas card was published, with the title ‘Tf He had not come.” It was founded upon our Saviour’s own words 'Tf I had not come.” The card represented a clergyman falling into a short sleep in his study on Christmas morning and dreaming of a world into which Jesus had never come. In his dream he found himself looking through his home but there were no little stockings in the chimney corner, no Christmas bells or wreaths of holly, and no Christ to comfort, gladden and save. He walked out on the public street but there was no church with its spire pointing to heaven. He came back and sat down in his library but every book about the Saviour and the Gospel had disappeared. A ring came to the door bell and a messenger asked him to visit a poor dying mother. He hastened with her weeping child and as he reached the home he sat down and said, “I have something here that I am sure will comfort you.” He opened his Bible to look for a familiar promise but it ended at Malachi and there was no Gospel and no promise of hope and salvation, and he could only bow his head and weep with her in bitter despair. Two days afterwards he stood beside her coffin and conducted the funeral service, but there was no message of consolation, no word of a glorious resurrection, no open heaven, but only “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and one long eternal farewell. He realized at length that “He had not come” and burst into tears and bitter weeping in his sorrowful dream. Suddenly he awoke with a start and a great shout of joy and praise burst from his lips as he heard his choir singing in the church close

“Oh! come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
In Bethlehem’s manger lies the King of Angels.
Oh! come let us adore Him Christ the Lord.”

This striking illustration suggests to us something of what we would have missed if the Holy Spirit had not come. There could have been no Comforter and no comfort. The work which our Lord accomplished at so much cost could never have been completed. There could have been no conviction of sin, no repentance, no faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, no sense of forgiven sin, no balm of peace for the troubled conscience, no “Spirit of adoption crying, Abba Father,” no revelation of Jesus Christ to the heart, no sanctification from the power of sin, no Spirit of intercession to help us and teach us to pray, no power to anoint us for our Christian work, no supernatural presence in our Christian life and in the life and work of the Church of God. All this would have been lacking if the Spirit had not come and our hearts would be orphaned indeed.