01.02F. More Help Concerning the Filling of the Holy Spirit
F. More Help Concerning the Filling of the Holy Spirit
Ruben Archer Torrey (1856-1928), who worked closely with D. L. Moody and was the first superintendent of Moody Bible Institute, sets forth seven steps leading to Spirit filling which are stated or implied in Acts 2:38 : “Repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
1. Repent. “Change your mind about Christ. Change from a Christ-hating and Christ-crucifying attitude of mind to a Christ-accepting attitude of mind. Accept Jesus as Savior, Christ and Lord…Have you taken this step? Have you accepted Jesus as your Savior? Are you relying wholly upon His atoning work for pardon? Relying solely upon the fact that He bore your sins, for acceptance before God (1 Peter 2:24 [‘And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed’]…
2. “The second step: renounce sin, all sin, every sin. Here we come upon one of the commonest obstacles to receiving the Holy Spirit-sin. Something is held on to that in our inmost hearts we more or less definitely feel to be not pleasing to God. If we are to receive the Holy Spirit, there must be very honest and very thorough heart searching. We cannot do satisfactory heart searching ourselves; God must do it. If we wish to receive the Holy Spirit, we should go alone with God and ask Him to search us thoroughly and bring to light anything that displeases Him (Psalms 139:23-24 [‘Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there by any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way’])…
3. “The third step is found in this same verse [Acts 2:38]: ‘Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins’…So we must humble ourselves to make open confession of our sin and renunciation of it and acceptance of Jesus Christ, in God’s appointed way, by baptism. The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is not for the one who secretly takes his place as a sinner and believer in Christ, but for the one who does so openly.”
4. Obedience. “The fourth step is…brought out more explicitly in Acts 5:32; ‘The Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him’…What does obedience mean? It does not mean merely doing some of the things, or many of the things, that God bids us do. It means total surrender to the will of God. Obedience is an attitude of the will lying back of specific acts of obedience. It means that I come to God and say: ‘Heavenly Father here I am and all I have. Thou hast bought me with a price and I acknowledge Thine absolute ownership. Take me and all I have, and do with me whatever Thou wilt.
Send me where Thou wilt, use me as Thou wilt. I surrender myself and all I possess absolutely, unconditionally, forever, to Thy control and use.’” At Pentecost Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, said, “Even upon My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:18). “Bondslaves,” those upon whom God promises to pour His Spirit, means “those who are subject to God, owned by Him body and soul” and “who are unconditionally obligated to serve.”30 This is full surrender and full surrender leads inevitably to being a bondslave to God. Dr. Torrey continues, “It was when the burnt offering, whole, no part held back, was laid upon the altar ‘there came forth fire from before the Lord’ and accepted the gift (Leviticus 9:24); and it is when we bring ourselves a whole burnt offering to the Lord, and lay ourselves thus upon the altar, that the fire comes and God thus accept the gift [‘I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship,’ Romans 12:1]…There are many who hold back from this total surrender because they fear God’s will. They are afraid God’s will may be something dreadful. Remember who God is. He is our Father. Never an earthly father had so loving and tender a will regarding his children as He has toward us. ‘No good thing does He withhold from them who walk uprightly’ (Psalms 84:11)…”
5. The fifth step is an intense desire for the Holy Spirit’s infilling. “Now on the last day, the great day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, ‘if any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being shall flow rivers of living waters.” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believe in Him were to receive’” (John 7:37-39). Matthew 5:6 also speaks of this thirst: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.”
“What does it mean to thirst? When one thirsts there is but one cry: ‘Water! Water! Water!’ Every pore in the body seems to have a voice and cry out ‘Water!’ So when our hearts have one cry: ‘The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit,’ then it is that God pours floods upon the dry ground, pours the Spirit upon us…There are many ministers who are missing the fullness of power God has for them, simply because they are not willing to admit the lack there has been all these years in their ministry. It is indeed a humbling thing to confess, but that humiliating confession would be the precursor of a marvelous blessing…But there are others whom God in His grace brought to see that there was a something their ministry lacked, and this something nothing less than that all essential baptism with the Holy Spirit, without which one is utterly unqualified for acceptable and effective service. [Dr. Torrey’s use of the term ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ is essentially equivalent to Dr. Lin’s ‘filled with the Holy Spirit.’] They have humbly and frankly confessed their lack. Sometimes they have been led to the God taught resolution that they would not go on in their work until this lack was supplied.
They have waited in eager longing upon God the Father for the fulfillment of His promise and the result has been a transformed ministry for which many have risen to bless God…One of the subtlest and most dangerous snares into which Satan leads us, is that where we are seeking the Holy Spirit, this most solemn of all gifts, for our own ends. The desire for the Holy Spirit must not be in order to make that sublime and divine Person the servant of our low ends, but for the glory of God. It must arise from a recognition that God and Christ are being dishonored by my powerless ministry and by the sin of the people about me, against which I now have no power, and that He will be honored, if I have the Baptism with the Spirit of God…”
6. The sixth step is to ask in accordance with God’s Word in Luke 11:13 : “If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.” When Christ has been accepted as Savior and Master, and confessed as such; when sin has been put away; when there has been the definite, total surrender of the will; when there is real and holy desire; them come the simple act of asking God for this definite blessing. It is given in answer to earnest, definite, specific, believing prayer…Those whom I have met who give most evidence of the Spirit’s presence and power in their life and work believe in praying for the Holy Spirit. It has been the author’s unspeakable privilege to pray with many ministers and Christian workers for this great blessing, and afterwards to learn from them or from others of the new power that has come into their service, none other than the power of the Holy Spirit.”
7. The seventh step is found in Mark 11:23-24 : “Truly I say unto you, whoever says to this mountain ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him. Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask believe that you have received them, and they shall be granted you.”
“Here then we discover the cause of failure, in many cases, to enter into the blessing of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. The failure is because the last step is not taken-the simple step of faith. They do not believe, they do not confidently expect, and we have another instance of men ‘Entered not in because of unbelief’ (Hebrews 4:1-16, Hebrews 5:1-14, Hebrews 6:1-20). There are many, very many, who are kept out of this land of milk and honey just by this unbelief. It should be added that there is a faith that goes beyond expectation, a faith that just puts out it hand and takes what it asks…When I ask anything of God the first thing to find out is: is this petition according to His will? [‘And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him,’ 1 John 5:14-15]. When that is settled, when I find it is according to His will, when for example, the thing asked is definitely promised in His Word-then I know the prayer is heard, and I know further, ‘I have the petition which I have asked of Him.’ I know it because He plainly says so, and what I have thus appropriated on simple, childlike faith in His naked Word ‘I shall have’ in actual experience…
“Any reader of this book may at this point lay it down, and, if Christ has been accepted as Savior and Lord, and openly confessed as such in God’s way, and if sin has been searched out and put away, and if there has been total surrender of the will and of self to God, and if there is a true desire for God’s glory, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit-if these conditions have been met, you may get down just now before God, and ask Him to baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and you can then say, when the prayer has gone up: ‘That prayer was heard, I have what I have asked, I have the baptism with the Holy Spirit,’ and you have a right to get up and go out to your work, assured that in that work you will have the Spirit’s power.”31 As previously stated, Dr. Wilbur Chapman (chosen by Mr. Moody to be the vice president of the Moody Bible Institute) had the experience of being immediately filled with the Holy Spirit the first time he went before God and dedicated himself for Spirit filling. Dr. Chapman prayed, “My Father, I now claim from you the infilling of the Holy Ghost.” He testified later, “From that moment to this, He has been a living reality.”32 In another book Dr. Chapman explains how we also may receive the Holy Spirit’s infilling.
“First. One of the most important steps with which I am familiar is this: do not seek to know Him, first of all, that you might teach and preach with power. This is not the way to blessing. Again, do not seek to know Him that you may have the peace of which others have spoken who have known Him in all His fullness. This is not the first step. But rather, bid Him abide in you, that first of all, He May Have Power Over Yourself…
“Second. Surrender Fully. To give up ninety-nine parts of the nature and withhold the hundredth is to put a hindrance in the way of the blessing…I reached it [full surrender] by the path marked out by Mr. Meyer when he said: ‘If you are not ready to surrender everything to God, are you ready to say, “I am willing to be made willing about everything”?’ Then He made the way easy. He brought before me my ambition, then my personal ease, then my home, then other things came to me, and I simply said, ‘I will give them up.’ And last of all my ‘will’ was surrendered about everything. Then without any emotion, for, as Mr. Meyer said, it was ‘faith without emotion,’ I said, ‘My Father, I now claim from Thee the infilling of the Holy Ghost.’ From that moment to this He has been a living reality…I never knew what it was to love my family before [the Spirit’s infilling]…I never knew what it was to study the Bible before [the Spirit’s infilling]…I never knew what it was to preach before [the Spirit’s infilling]… “Third. The third step is found in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he says: ‘That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.’ (Galatians 3:14). You will notice that it does not say, ‘that we might receive the Spirit through faith.’ It is often so quoted. This would be unscriptural, for we have the Spirit. He is with us to abide forever. It is just to believe His Word; and the third step is one of Faith. We say to the man seeking Christ, and yet who hesitates because he is without feeling-we say to him, ‘It is faith first, and then feeling after’; and so we say to all who seek the infilling of the Holy Ghost, ‘receive the promise by faith.’”33 Full surrender, as viewed by Dr. Torrey and Dr. Chapman, is movingly expressed in the hymn by Judson W. VanDeVenter:
All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His presence daily live.
All to Jesus I surrender, Humbly at His feet I bow, Worldly pleasures all forsaken, Take me, Jesus, take me now.
All to Jesus I surrender, Make me Savior, wholly Thine; May Thy Holy Spirit fill me, May I know Thy power divine.
All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power, Let Thy blessing fall on me.
Refrain: I surrender all; I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.34
Author and Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, John Piper describes a series of five steps he follows in seeking to preach with the Holy Spirit’s power and not in his own strength: Admit, Pray, Trust, Act, and Thank, which he remembers by the acronym APTAT.
1. Admits his utter helplessness to preach without the Holy Spirit’s power. He confesses that “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) applies to his voice, eyes, mind, love for the people, and awe of God.
2. Prays for the divine Helper to give him the “insight, power, humility, love, memory, and freedom [he] need[s] to preach this message for the glory of God’s name, the gladness of His people, and the ingathering of His elect.”
3. Trusts in a “particular Word of God utterly essential to fight off the assault of Satan in these moments. Recently I strengthened myself with Psalms 40:17, ‘As for me, I am poor and needy; but the LORD takes thought for me. Thou art my help and my deliverer; do not tarry, O my God.’”
4. Acts “in the confidence that God will fulfill His Word,” much as did Elisha. After having been assured that he would receive a double portion of the prophet’s spirit, if only he saw Elijah taken into heaven, “Elisha saw it…and he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and struck the waters and said, ‘Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?’ And when he had also struck the waters, they were divided here and there; and Elisha crossed over” (2 Kings 2:12; 2 Kings 2:14), 41
5. Thanks God “that He has sustained me and that the truth of His Word and the purchase of His cross have been preached in some measure in the power of His Spirit to the glory of His name.”35
Evangelist Luis Palau movingly describes how a dramatic turning point in his spiritual life occurred the day he learned in chapel services to “let God be God and let Luis Palau be dependent upon Him”:
During my first semester at Multnomah School of the Bible, Major Ian Thomas, founder and director of Torchbearers, the group that runs Capernwray Bible School in England, spoke at our chapel service.
Ian Thomas talked about Moses and how it took this great man 40 years in the wilderness to learn that he was nothing. Then one day Moses was confronted with a burning bush-likely a dry bunch of ugly little sticks-yet Moses had to take off his shoes. Why? Because he was on holy ground, and God was in the bush!
Here was Major Thomas’ point: God was telling Moses, “I don’t need a pretty bush or an educated bush or an eloquent bush. Any old bush will do as long as I am in the bush. If I am going to use you, it will not be you doing something for Me, but Me doing something through you.”
I was that kind of bush: a worthless, useless bunch of dried-up sticks. I could do nothing for God. All my reading and studying, asking questions, and trying to model myself after others was worthless. Everything in my ministry was worthless unless God was in the bush. Only He could make something happen.
Thomas closed his message by reading Galatians 2:20 : “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” My biggest spiritual struggle was finally over! I would let God be God and let Luis Palau be dependent upon Him.
I ran back to my room and in tears prayed in my native Spanish. “The whole thing is ‘not I, but Christ in me.’ It’s not what I’m going to do for You, but rather what You’re going to do through me.” That day marked the turning point in my spiritual life. The practical working out of that discovery would be lengthy and painful, but at last the realization had come. We have everything we need when we have Jesus Christ living in us. It’s His power that controls our dispositions, enables us to serve, and corrects and directs us ([“For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure”] Php 2:13). I could relax and rest in Him. He was going to do the work through me.{36}
Jesus expressed the same truth when He said, “The words I say to your are not just My own. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work” (John 14:10 NIV). Writing of twenty lives transformed through the Spirit’s filling and fullness, V. Raymond Edman said of them: 42 The details of their experience are usually quite different; yet as we listen to their stories and watch their lives, either in our reading or in our contact with them, we begin to see a pattern which reveals their secret. Out of discouragement and defeat they have come into victory. Out of weakness and weariness they have been made strong. Out of ineffectiveness and apparent uselessness they have become efficient and enthusiastic. The pattern seems to be: self-centeredness, self-effort, increasing inner dissatisfaction and outer discouragement, a temptation to give it all up because there is no better way; and then finding the Spirit of God to be their strength, their guide, their confidence and companion-in a word, their life. As believers we must not treat lightly the reality and necessity of being filled with the Holy Spirit. We should diligently obey the Lord’s command and appropriate and experience over and over again the mighty power of God working in and through us.
Then God can work in our lives exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. In light of the surpassing greatness of the spiritual life and power readily available to those who trust, pray, and obey, it is fitting to conclude this discussion of the application of Holy-Spirit-filling with the initial and last stanza of Adelaide A. Pollard’s touching hymn of dedication: Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou are the Potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me after Thy will, While I am waiting, yielded and still. Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see Christ only, always, living in me!
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