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That Day: Time specified; any period of time distinguished from other time; age; time with reference to the existence of a person or thing. The Word is often equivalent to life, or earthly existence. He won the day, that is, he gained the victory. Time of commemorating an event; anniversary; the same day of the month, in any future year. We celebrate the day of our Savior’s birth.
The Lord was referring here to the time when He was leaving the earth and was giving to the believer a helper or comforter to be with them and guide them through each day and endeavor of your day. Notice that I am attempting to get you to see the importance of a daily routine whereby you get everything you need daily. Just like your physical provision [food, water, clothing, shelter]. We live in a great nation and there should never be a day that goes by that an individual in this Godly nation does not have these basic substances.
In my first year at college in 1968, I worked in the skid row area of Des Plaines Street, Chicago where we did our best to minister to the down and out, men who had lost their way. The stench was awful and I never in my 18 years of life had seen anything quite that devastating. Men were on small skateboards with no limbs, had their pants down and doing the obvious, urinating in the streets, had not had a bath for months maybe years, scantily dressed for the snowy depressed winter and liquor bottles abounding. It was a scene of total hopelessness.
When I would minister to them, I noticed their skin was so encrusted with dirt and filth, that it had become a part of them. The odor permeating from their body and breath was horrific. It was much like the homelessness of our day, but the hopelessness was unexplainable. There was no Holy Spirit involved in their lives. Just a bleak feeling of desperation and emptiness in their eyes. They were ‘gone’, so to speak with no hope or direction other than what these folks at Chicago United Mission were attempting to do for them.
If they would very simply walk through the doors and set to listen to a message about Christ, they could get a warm meal, clothes and a bed to sleep in that night. Just one simple day at a time and one place where there was some real hope. Yet despite the attempts to get them engaged with the outreach, many of the men would stay outside and there was only room for a few hundred guys and would fill up fast
Our project was to meet at the Mission twice a week and help as needed. This is where I preached my first sermon. I will never forget the look in the eyes of these men. It still abides with me to this day; it causes me to weep.
Well, my friend this is the life of all who do not have the Holy Spirit living and dwelling on the inside of them. You can have the fanciest clothes, be a Hollywood Star, go to the grandest restaurants, live in a mansion on a hilltop. But inside, you are as desperate as these ‘skid row bum’s who have no hope in this world. You can be the richest and live in the finest but without the indwelling Holy Spirit, you are HOPELESS and a stench in the nostrils of God!
I meet often with wealthy or well-known folks that do not know Jesus and I look in their eyes and I see these skid row fellows and the plight that they are experiencing in their day to day living. Their only hope is that someway somehow the money they make will fill that empty void that is deep down on the inside. That something will come along and make that hurt go away.
This is the purpose of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was going to leave with us and be in us. A peace that passes all understanding and can bring Hope to a soul who is begging for some relief and some joy and direction for life. This is the comforter, helper, advocate, and friend. Enjoy His presence and give Him your day. It will bring you everything important.
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