That which most stands in the way of people's living the Christian life, next to an unyielding will, is the difficulty they find in conceiving of spiritual things as real. This difficulty is not necessary, but is a result of the false ideas diffused among the people by religious teachers who devoted themselves far more to theology than to the Bible.
That spiritual things are almost universally considered as intangible and unreal, is shown by the fact that even most people who argue strenuously for the personality of the Holy Spirit, will yet make a distinction between the literal and the spiritual. Thus they will speak of the literal and the spiritual meaning of the Bible, and of the difference between the literal and the spiritual seed of Abraham, and will talk about "literal Israel" and "spiritual Israel" as though they were two different peoples.
Now it is evident that just to the extent that spiritual things are considered as unreal, will they fail to have any effect upon one's practical life. When one considers his literal, everyday, practical life as something apart from the spiritual life, then it is plain that his everyday life will not be spiritual, or, in other words, it will not be a Christian life.
But when one realizes that spiritual things are even more real than the things that we see everyday, and he lives as in the invisible world, the spiritual life will be his ordinary, everyday life. The secret of the strength of Moses was that "he endured as seeing the invisible." (Hebrews 11:27)
In previous numbers we have spoken of the water of life, which Jesus said was the Holy Spirit.--See "The River of Life," in The Everlasting Gospel series, and "The Water of Life," in Related Articles. The Word of the Lord is Spirit, (John 6:8) and the Spirit and the water and the blood agree in one, (1 John 5:8) and all are life. The river of living water flowing from the throne of God, from which we are now invited to take freely, (Revelation 22:1,17) is the Spirit of God. The reality of this river is made known to us in: "You visit the earth, and water it: You greatly enrich it with the river of God, which is full of water: You prepare them corn, when You have so provided for it. You water the ridges thereof abundantly: You settle the furrows thereof: You make it soft with showers: You bless the springing thereof." (Psalm 65:9-10)
Here we read that the earth is watered and made ready for the harvest by showers from the river of God, which is full of water. Thus every shower makes known to us the fullness and the freedom of the Holy Spirit. With every refreshing draught of the drink which God provides us, we may and should consciously receive the Holy Ghost; and so also with every breath of heaven's air that we breathe.
There is nothing with which we are well acquainted that more nearly represents the Holy Spirit than the air we breathe. Indeed, the Lord used the wind in its unseen motion as an illustration of the spiritual birth. (John 3:8) "Who makes His angels spirits," (Psalm 104:4) is rendered in the Revised Version, "Who makes winds His messengers."
Indeed, the same Hebrew word is rendered in different places "Spirit," "breath," and "wind," as for instance in Genesis 1:2; 6:3; 7:15; 8:1. Scores of other instances might be cited.
Air is invisible, yet it is real. For a long time scientists and philosophers thought that the air was immaterial, and had no weight, although thousands of years ago Job wrote of the weight of the wind; (Job 28:28) and everyone who has seen the trees bend and break in a storm, or has seen things floating in the air as in water, might have known that it had weight.
But now that scientists have discovered that the air has weight, and are all agreed upon it, we may believe the Word of God and the evidence of our senses without fear of being called old-fogyish.
But now a new thing has been discovered, which makes the invisible actually visible. This is the fact that the air under certain conditions becomes liquid, like water, and can be seen and handled just the same as the latter substance. We have already noted this interesting fact; but the following further description of liquefied air, by William Henry Hail, Ph.D., comes in very aptly in this connection:
Liquid air is a clear, colorless liquid, when filtered, resembling water. It is intensely cold, the temperature being three hundred and twelve degrees below zero. It is constantly boiling, as it absorbs heat from the surrounding objects, and thus it gradually resumes the gaseous condition. If enclosed in vessels thickly surrounded with a non-conductor, however, it boils very slowly, and may be kept thus in an open vessel for many hours, and may be transported from place to place.
I visited Mr. Tripler's laboratory, March 24, He had just sent off a quantity of liquid air to John Hopkins University, a distance of one hundred and ninety miles, to be used by Prof. George F. Barker in a lecture there.
At the time of my visit to the laboratory, Mr. Tripler was entertaining a party of friends by exhibiting the properties of liquid air. When poured upon any surface, it breaks into drops, which immediately volatilize. So rapidly does it absorb heat from all surrounding substances, that when poured into a glass tube standing in water or whiskey, the liquid surrounding the tube is soon frozen. As the liquid air boils away, the nitrogen first evaporates, because the boiling-point of nitrogen is lower than that of oxygen. After a while nearly pure liquid oxygen remains. A cup of ice was removed from the outside of one of these tubes. Inside it liquid oxygen was poured; then steel was burned in the oxygen.
In another experiment a blowpipe was extemporized by putting liquid air into a vessel to which a tube was attached; and the vaporization of the air forced air through the tube so as to blow to red heat an ignited hard carbon, which was then plunged into liquid oxygen, and burned intensely in the middle of the surrounding cold liquid. The characteristic odor of ozone was noticeable.
The air, as it vaporizes, does so in a white cloud, like the vapor of water. Some liquid air was enclosed in a bottle in which a tube was fitted; and the pressure of the boiling air caused a fountain of vaporized air to issue from the tube.
A bung [plug] pounded into a bottle containing liquid air, was blown to the ceiling with a loud pop.
Liquid oxygen is somewhat heavier than water. Liquid air was poured upon water. After the nitrogen had boiled off, the oxygen would sink into the water in little globes, which descended till they reached a depth of water where the ebullition of the descending globe became so violent as to raise it again to the surface.
The cold of the liquid air is so intense that india-rubber, immersed in it, became brittle, and broke like glass, as did also a tin cup containing liquid air.
An exhaust pump was attached to a glass tube containing liquid air, and the vaporized air was drawn off, causing violent ebullition in the tube. So great a degree of cold was thus produced as to cause a liquefaction of the air of the room outside of the tube, and even some crystals of frozen air were formed, the temperature requisite to freeze air being about four hundred degrees below zero. (To be exact: -215.2 °C; -355.3 °F)
Such is the avidity of liquid oxygen for some hydrocarbons, that violent explosions are caused by burning such substances as alcohol or cotton waste in the oxygen. An iron pipe, open at both ends, and a copper pipe, open at one end, were shown at the laboratory, both of which had been shattered by explosions thus caused, the energy of chemical combination being so enormous that the resulting gases broke their way through the tube, instead of escaping through the open end, only a few inches distant.
Although men stumble upon these discoveries, it is not an accident that they are allowed to come to light. God will make it plain to the most obtuse that the unseen is real, and that when the proper conditions are obtained, that which is now invisible may be seen. In the world to come, nothing will be invisible to the saints of God. "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight." (Hebrews 4:13-14) "When that which is perfect is come, ... we also shall know even as we are known." (1 Corinthians 13:10,12)
Then will the Spirit of God be seen proceeding from the Father as a stream of living water. Happy are those who now learn to know the reality of the spiritual, and to endure as seeing the invisible. In that world they shall dwell in the presence of Him "whom no man has seen, neither can see," (1 Timothy 6:16) "And they shall see His face." (Revelation 22:4)--Present Truth, September 1, 1898.