Preface

For more than a century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon's sermons have been 
consistently recognized, and their usefulness and impact have continued to 
the present day, even in the outdated English of the author's own day.  
 
Why then should expositions already so successful and of such stature and 
proven usefulness require adaptation, revision, rewrite or even editing?  
The answer is obvious.  To increase its usefulness to today's reader, the 
language in which it was originally written needs updating.

Though his sermons have served other generations well, just as they came 
from the pen of the author in the nineteenth century, they still could be 
lost to present and future generations, simply because, to them, the 
language is neither readily nor fully understandable.

My goal, however, has not been to reduce the original writing to the 
vernacular of our day.  It is designed primarily for you who desire to read 
and study comfortably and at ease in the language of our time.  Only 
obviously archaic terminology and passages obscured by expressions not 
totally familiar in our day have been revised.  However, neither Spurgeon's 
meaning nor intent have been tampered with.
                                                       Tony Capoccia


All Scripture references are taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL 
VERSION (C) 1978 by the New York Bible Society, used by permission of 
Zondervan Bible Publishers.  


                     THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT RESTRAINED
                                    by
                    Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)

   "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."  
                               Matthew 19:26


Have faith in God, and never let your discovery of your own weakness 
shake your firm conviction that with God all things are possible.  It seems 
to me to be a fountain of comfort, a storehouse of strength.  Do not limit 
the Holy One of Israel, nor conceive of the Holy Spirit as restrained and 
restricted by the difficulties which crop up in fallen human nature.  No 
case which you bring to Him with tender tears and with an earnest faith in 
Jesus will ever be dismissed as incurable.  No man can despair because the 
Lord of the Heaven is with us.  Sometimes we are troubled because of the 
"hardness of men's hearts."  You who work for the Lord know this well.  If 
anybody thinks that he can change a heart by his own power, let him try 
with anyone that he pleases, and he will soon be bewildered and at his wits 
end.  The old sin nature of Adam is too strong for us: our trembling arm 
cannot roll away the stone of natural depravity.  Well, what should we do 
then?  Remember that the Holy Spirit is not restrained!  

I heard you cry out, "I have tried to redeem a drunkard, and he has gone 
back to his degradation!"  Yes, he has beaten you, but is the Holy Spirit 
restrained?  You cried, "But he promised to follow Jesus, and yet he broke 
his promise!"  Very likely your faith in a man's promise is broken; but is 
the Holy Spirit restrained?  Can't He renew the heart, and cast out the 
love of sin?  When the Spirit of God works along with your proclamation of 
the Truth then your convert will keep his pledge.  Another cries, "I hoped 
I had rescued a fallen woman, but she has returned to her immorality."  
None of these laments are unusual for those who are trying to win the lost; 
but is the Holy Spirit restrained?  Can't He save the woman that was a 
sinner?  Can't He create a surpassing love to Jesus in her forgiven spirit?  
They are baffled, but the Spirit is not.  What narrow and shallow vessels 
of Truth we are!  How soon we are empty!  We wake up on Sunday morning and 
wonder where we will find strength for the day.  You sigh, "I cannot lead 
my Sunday-school class today with any hope of teaching with power; I am 
so dreadfully dull and heavy; I feel stupid and devoid of thought and 
feeling."  In such a case say to yourself, "Is the Holy Spirit restrained?"  
He will help you.  You plan to speak to someone about his soul, and you 
fear that the right words will not come.  You forget that the Holy Spirit 
has promised to give you what you will speak.  "Is the Holy Spirit 
restrained?"  Can't He prepare your heart and tongue?  No, the Holy Spirit 
is not restrained.  Still is that promise our delight: "My grace is 
sufficient for you."  It is a joy to become weak that we may say with the 
apostle, "When I am weak then I am strong."  Behold, the strength of the 
Lord is gloriously revealed, revealed to perfection in our weakness.  

Come, you feeble workers, you fainting laborers, come and rejoice in the 
unrestrained Spirit.  Come you that seem to plow the rock and till the 
sand, come and lay hold of this fact, that the Holy Spirit is omnipotent.  
No rock will remain unbroken when He wields the hammer, no metal will be 
unmelted when He is the fire.  Our Lord has put His Spirit within us and 
will strengthen us with His power, according to His promise, "Your 
strength will equal your days" (Deuteronomy 33:25).

But some have said, "Yes, but then, see how few the conversions are 
nowadays!  We have many churches with low attendance, we have others 
where there are scarcely any conversions from the beginning of the year to 
the end of it."  This is all accepted, and accepted with great regret; but 
"is the Holy Spirit restrained: is He responsible for this situation?"  
Can't we find some other reason closer to the truth?  If there are no 
conversions we cannot blame the Holy Spirit.  Has Christ been preached?  
Has faith been exercised?  The preacher must take his share of blame; the 
church with which he is connected must also inquire whether there has been 
that measure of prayer for a blessing on the Word that there ought to have 
been.  Christians must begin to look into their own hearts to find the 
reason for defeat.  If the work of God is hindered in our midst, is it 
possible that there is some secret sin within us which hinders the 
operation of the Holy Spirit of God?  Maybe He is compelled by the very 
holiness of His character to refuse to work with an unholy or an 
unbelieving people.  Have you never read, "He did not do many miracles 
there because of their lack of faith?"  Is it possible that unbelief is 
turning a fruitful land into barren place?  The Holy Spirit Himself is not 
restrained in His power; but our sin has made Him hide Himself from us.  
The lack of conversions is not His doing: we have not gone forward in His 
strength.  We abhor the very thought that we should lay any blame to the 
Holy Spirit of the Most High God.  We bear the full responsibility of shame 
and confusion in the matter of the lack of conversions.

But it is also said that there is a lack of power largely manifested by 
individual saints.  Now where are the men who can go up to the top of 
Mount Carmel and cover the heavens with clouds?  Where are the apostolic 
men who converted nations?  Where are the heroes and martyr spirits of the 
better days?  Have we not fallen upon an age of little men, who dare little 
and do little?  It may be true; but this is no fault of the great Holy 
Spirit.  Our degeneracy is not His fault.  We have destroyed ourselves, and 
only in Him is our help found.  Instead of crying today, "Awake, awake! O 
arm of the LORD," we ought to listen to the cry from heaven which says, 
"Awake, awake, O Zion, clothe yourself with strength.  Put on your garments 
of splendor."  Many of us might have experienced great success if we had 
only given our hearts completely to the task.  The weakest of us might have 
rivaled David, and the strongest among us might have been as angels of God.  
We are restrained in ourselves; we have not reached out to the 
possibilities of strength which lies within our grasp.  Let us not wickedly 
insinuate a charge against God the Holy Spirit; but let us in truthful 
humility blame ourselves.  If we have not lived in the light, can we wonder 
then that we are seeing so much darkness?  If we have not fed upon the 
bread of heaven, can we wonder that we are weak?  Let us return unto the 
Lord.  Let us seek again to be baptized into the Holy Spirit and into fire, 
and we will yet again behold the wonderful works of the Lord.  He sets 
before us an open door, and if we don't enter, we have only ourselves to 
blame.  He gives liberally and does not blame us, and if we are still 
impoverished, we don't have because we don't ask, or because we ask with 
wrong motives.

"Look at the condition of the world.  After the gospel has been in it 
nearly two thousand years, see how small a part of it is enlightened, how 
many cling to their idols, how much wickedness, and error, and poverty, and 
misery, are to be found in the world!"  We know all these sad facts; but 
are these His doings?  Tell me, when has the Holy Spirit created darkness 
or sin?  Where has He been the author of wickedness or oppression?  
Where do wars and fighting come from?  Do they come from Him?  Do 
they come from our own lusts?  Whose fault is it that the world is still 
filthy and greatly needing cleansing; has the Holy Spirit in any degree or 
sense caused it to be this way?  Where the gospel has been fully preached, 
have not the words of the Lord done good to them that walk uprightly?  
Havn't cannibals, even during the last few years, been reclaimed and 
civilized?  Havn't the slave trade, and other atrocities, been ended by the 
power of Christian influence?  How, then, can the Spirit of Christ, the 
Spirit of the gospel, be blamed?  Will you attribute the darkness to the 
sun?  Will you blame the filthiness of swine on the crystal clear stream?  
In the same way we are foolish to blame that which is pure with making 
something impure.  No, we admit the existence of darkness and the sin and 
the misery of men.  Oh, that our head were full of water and our eyes a 
fountain of tears, that we might weep day and night concerning these 
things!  But these are not the work of the Holy Spirit of God.  These come 
from the spirit beneath.  He that is from above would heal them.  He is not 
restrained.  These are not His doings.  Where His gospel has been preached, 
and men have believed it and lived according to it, they have been 
enlightened, and sanctified, and blessed.  Life and love, light and 
liberty, and all other good things, come from the Holy Spirit.

                   "Blessings abound wherever He reigns;
              The prisoner leaps to freedom from his chains,
                       The weary find eternal rest, 
                And all the sons of the needy are blessed."



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