The word of God

The promise of the Holy Spirit is not limited to any age or to any race. Christ declared that the divine influence of His Spirit was to be with His followers unto the end. From the Day of Pentecost to the present time, the Comforter has been sent to all who have yielded themselves fully to the Lord and to His service. To all who have accepted Christ as a personal Saviour, the Holy Spirit has come as a counselor, sanctifier, guide, and witness. The more closely believers have walked with God, the more clearly and powerfully they have testified of their Redeemer’s love and of His saving grace. The men and women who through the long centuries of persecution and trial enjoyed a large measure of the presence of the Spirit in their lives, have stood as signs and wonders in the world. Before angels and men they have revealed the transforming power of redeeming love. AG 204.2 Those who at Pentecost were endued with power from on high, were not thereby freed from further temptation and trial. As they witnessed for truth and righteousness, they were repeatedly assailed by the enemy of all truth, who sought to rob them of their Christian experience. They were compelled to strive with all their God-given powers to reach the measure of the stature of grace, that they might reach higher and still higher toward perfection. Under the Holy Spirit’s working, even the weakest, by experiencing faith in God, learned to improve their entrusted powers and to become sanctified, refined, and ennobled. As in humility they submitted to the moulding influence of the Holy Spirit, they received of the fullness of the Godhead and were fashioned in the likeness of the divine.... AG 204.3 The Holy Spirit withdraws the affections from the things of this earth and fills the soul with a desire for holiness.... If men are willing to be moulded, there will be brought about a sanctification of the hold being.