hrist, all that was appointed unto Christ to do must be completed ere
the Spirit can commence His ministry.

The work of the Spirit on the world is through the Church, and is
described by our Lord as threefold. By His revelation of Christ He
creates three convictions. Each of these is necessary to the
regeneration of man. There must be the sense of sin, or he will not
seek the Saviour. There must be a belief that righteousness is
possible, or the convicted sinner will die of despair. There must be
the assurance that sin is doomed, and shall be finally vanquished, or
the baffled warrior will give up the long conflict as hopeless.

I. THE CONVICTION OF SIN.--We are constantly meeting people who are
perfectly indifferent to Christianity, because they say they do not
feel their need of it. Why should they trouble about it, when they
suppose themselves able to do perfectly well without it?

In dealing with these, it is a great mistake to entice them toward the
gospel by describing the moral grandeur of Christ's character and
teaching. We should at once seek to arouse them to a sense of their
great sinfulness. When a man realizes that his life is being eaten out
by some insidious disease, he will need no further urging to go to a
physician. This is the weakness of modern preaching--that we expatiate
on the value of the remedy to men who have never realized their dire
necessity.

But what is the truth most appropriate for producing the conviction of
sin in the human breast? "Preach the Ten Commandments in all their
stern and uncompromising 'shalts' and 'shalt-nots,'" cries one. "Read
out the descriptions given in Scripture of the evil things that lurk in
the heart of man as filthy things in darksome caves," says another.
"Show men the results of sin, take them to the edge of the bottomless
pit," insists a third. But not one of these is the chosen weapon of
the Holy Spirit. He convicts men of the sin of refusing to believe in
Jesus Christ.

There stands the Cross, the evidence and symbol of God's love; and
there stands the risen Christ, offering Himself to men. There is
nothing which more certainly proves the innate evil of the human heart
than its refusal of that mystery of grace. Disbelief is the creature,
not of the intellect, but of the will. It is not the result of
inability to understand, but of stubborn obstinacy and stiffneckedness.
Here is the supreme manifestation of moral beauty, but man has no