04.07. How to Be Filled With the Holy Spirit

Now I come to the last point, and that is this: how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I want to give two or three preliminary things before I tell you how. In the first place, I want to remind you again that this is commanded. This is not to be left up to your judgment. Anyone who is not filled with the Holy Spirit just is not in the will of God. Anyone who is not filled with the Holy Spirit is living a life of disobedience, a life more or less of fruitlesshess. The reason you are not winning souls is that you are disobedient, is that you are not seeking and not having upon you the fullness of the Spirit of God.

I remember back in World War I when I was acting corporal, we were out on the parade ground. The squads broke up and I had my squad out there with the close order drill. "Forward, march! One, two, three, four"; and, "Squad, right! March!" We marched back and forth. I would drill my little squad. After awhile the captain, the commanding officer, came up. I was embarrassed, and so I said, "Halt!" My squad halted awkwardly, shifted around, tried to line up and come to right attention. The captain looked them over and said to one fellow, "Button that button on your blouse." To another he said, "Hold your chin up." Then he told me a thing or two. When he got ready to go, he said, "Say, what was that command you gave as I came up ?" I said, "Sir, I said ’Halt!’" "Was that correct?" he asked. I replied, "No, Sir, it was not." "What should you have said?" "I should have said it in two counts, ’Squad, halt!’" "Why didn’t you?" "Sir, I was scared." "Well," he said, "the next time do it right." As he started to leave, I saluted and said, "Thank you, Sir!"

He turned to me sternly, looked me through, then said, "Don’t thank me. I’m not giving advice; I’m giving orders!" So in this matter I am not just giving you good advice: "It would be nice to be filled with the Holy Spirit." I mean to say the shame of God’s people is that you are living in sinful disobedience as long as you do not have the power of God on you. I mean the shame, the sin that is damning your hundreds of thousands, your nearly 600,000 in the greater Seattle area, is that you have churches that are filled with everything else but the Holy Ghost. That is the trouble. Your children are going to Hell because you are not filled with the Holy Ghost. You talk to people; it does not do any good. Why? Because you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. Year in and year out Sunday School teachers have unsaved children in their classes but never get them saved. Why? Because they are not filled with the Holy Ghost. Your own children grow up to the years of accountability, and year in and year out you never win them. Why? Because you are not filled with the Holy Ghost. We preachers, God forgive us preachers -- I am for the preachers; I do not mean to be critical of them -- do you know what is wrong with us preachers? We have nearly everything in the world; we have good training; we have degrees; we have good organization; we have good literature; we have good equipment; we have everything except the important thing, that is, the power of God, the power of God!

"Well," you say, "I wish I were filled--" Wait a minute. Do you really want to be filled with the Spirit? I warn you now, it will cost you something. Do not say that unless you mean you are willing to die. Do not say that unless you are willing to be scorned, hated, thought a fanatic and a fool. Do not say that unless you mean to pay a price for it.

Remember in Isa 44:3 the Lord says, "For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring." Once I was reading a book by D. L. Moody. Moody didn’t do what I do in my books: he didn’t give the Scripture references. In one of his books he said, "God says, ’I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.’ "I said, "Oh, my! That is sweet to my heart! I wonder where that is." I got my concordance and looked until I found over in Isa 44:3 , "For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring." Are you really thirsty? Oh, unless you are thirsty, unless your heart cries out, you are not going to be filled with the Holy Spirit. If you do not mean business you will not pay the price. You will not pray long enough. You will not be content to give up the favor of man to have the power of God. You do not mean it unless your heart thirsts for God and thirsts for His power with a deep desire for souls. Do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? If you really want to, two conditions must be met. One of them is obedience. I do not mean just to set out to go through a certain rigmarole. I mean obedience such as Jesus showed when He came to die, when He was baptized, when He prayed in the garden. The two things are in there. Peter said in Acts 5:32 , "And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him." Obey Him? "You mean as the apostles did?" you ask. Yes. They were slain one way or another. Peter was crucified head downward, we are told. And another, I think, was boiled in oil. And another was dragged behind a horse and killed. John, an old, old man, past ninety, was exiled on the Isle of Patmos for his faith. "Do you mean like that? Do you mean follow Jesus if it kills you? Do you mean give up your own plans and dreams and count self dead, and live a new life?" That is exactly what God means. Are you ready to lay self on the altar, count self dead, crucified? And when self is crucified, will you come and follow Jesus, do what He says about soul winning? That is the kind of obedience the Bible is talking about. If you are not setting out to win souls with a holy passion, you do not mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You may want some ecstasy, but you do not want what God wants to give you. You are not going to have it unless you are after what God is after, and that is the conversion of sinners and the power of God to witness to them. The thing that God said He wanted you to have He will give to you if you will use it for what He wants you to do. He commanded you to go and preach the gospel, to go carry the gospel to sinners, to get people saved. "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me." If you do not plan to witness for Jesus with the power, if that is not your point, if you do not mean it, if you are not obedient, then you will not have it. You do not have the first requirement. Obedience even to death; even a self-crucifixion. Are you ready for that? That is why it takes so long sometimes. Why did it take ten days of waiting before Pentecost? It is an over-simplification merely to say that the day of Pentecost had not come. Jesus had not promised that the power would come on the day of Pentecost. No, the real truth is that they needed plenty of time to confess their sins and judge their hearts and make things right with one another, and to wait on God.

And. what is the second requirement? To ask God, to keep on waiting on God. That is what Jesus meant in Luk 11:13 , "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" If you will give yourself wholly to the Lord and wait on Him, you may have His power. "Ye have not, because ye ask not." We have not the power of God because we ask not. We have not a Pentecost because we do not seek it, because we do not believe it, because we do not want it, because we do not pay the price for it. We can have it. "Ask?" you say. Yes. "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." That is the way they got Pentecostal power. That is the way they got the baptism or the fullness of the Spirit. That is the way they had the enduement from Heaven. That is the way they received the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, or the gift of the Holy Ghost. They waited with pleading, burden, confession, begging God, prayer, supplication, and in due time the power of God came. Are you filled with the Holy Ghost? I wonder how many here are contented with the life you are now living. Are you contented to go through life and never win a soul? God have pity on these seat-warming church members, these good-paying church members, these choir-singing church members, these official-board church members, these Sunday-School-teaching church members! Is that all there is to being a Christian? Why, no! What God wants is for you to be a Spirit-filled soul winner with the power of God on you. What does it matter, all the "do," "do," "do," "do"? Why, that is an abomination to God; just machinery within machinery, and wheels and wheels; just clanking, sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. What does God care about that? God does not care how much machinery you have in your church, how many ladies’ meetings, how large a Sunday School, how much money you raise. That is not of interest to Him. If it does not result in one main thing, that you really have the power of God on you and get people converted, God is not concerned about it. You say, "I gave some money to missions." Yes, I know. But do you think God is broke? Do you really think that the God who made the universe wants a little silver or some paper with the United States stamp on it? Do you think that is what God wants from you? That ought to be given as a type, as a token, as a picture, as a reminder of your love, certainly. You need to give of your means. But God does not need to receive your money. That is not what He wants. Primarily God wants your life, your hands, your feet. God wants your heart. God wants self on the altar. He wants self made over and anointed and endued so that you can be a soul winner.