Subsequent Experiences with And Comments about the Holy Spirit that might surprise/encourage you – Part II
Our Lord Jesus oft spoke to His disciples of the coming gift of the person of the Holy Spirit as He sought to prepare them for what was to come (see esp. John 14-16). The over reacting to abuses and extremes in some sectors of the body of Christ surrounding the gifts of the Holy Spirit has cost us deeply in terms of our own relationship with the Holy Spirit and our ability to receive all that He wants to give us.
You cannot separate the power and person of the Holy Spirit with revival and awakening. One of the greatest fruits or results of revival is that men finally learn to give up any reliance upon the flesh – seeking only to rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to see God’s kingdom come and His will be done.
So I offer these further testimonies and comments from people God has used mightily (and a prayer at the end) to help us all get over whatever our issues are (including apathy, passivity and lukewarmness) and thus be able to receive freely and fully and frequently from the wonderful third person of the Godhead – Holy Spirit.
E.M.Bounds: I want to start off with some thoughts about E.M. Bounds for several reasons. First his book “Power Through Prayer” has probably influenced me more than any other book other than the Bible since I first read it when I was around 20 years old. Second I’m reading his biography right now and while I already knew he was a great intercessor and champion for revival, I now see it in technicolor. Third, though he was not one of the great revivalists or primary instruments used in the first or second great awakening, he was greatly influenced by the 1857-1858 revival – referred to by some as the Third Great Awakening – and he himself influenced more localized revivals. It was this “Third Great Awakening” that caused him to quit his law business and enter into the ministry.
His primary biographer, Lyle W. Dorsett, who at the time of publishing (1991) was a Professor of Ministries and Evangelism and Director of Urban Ministries for the Institute of Evangelism at Wheaton College (Illinois), says of his experience with the Holy Spirit subsequent to his conversion, “In 1859 something dramatic evidently happened to this decent, God-fearing, young lawyer. The details are lost to history, but apparently sometime near the tenth anniversary of his father’s death, Bounds felt overwhelmed by God’s grace in a new and profound way. He surrendered his will to Christ and experienced a keen sense of the Holy Spirit’s presence. In the wake of this second blessing he experienced power to tell others about Christ’s love for all people, and he knew that God was calling him to a full-time preaching and evangelism ministry. Within a few months of this heart-warming encounter with God, Bounds took down his shingle, closed his law office, and began a serious study of the Scriptures and theology. He voraciously read the Bible and devoured John Wesley’s sermons. Now twenty-four years old, he read widely in the field of Christian autobiography and biography, finding Jonathan Edwards’ work on David Brainerd and a life of John fletcher to be particularly helpful.” I leave you with one of my favorite quotes of his, “"What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men, men of prayer." Later in the book the author speaks of him as having been baptized by the Holy Spirit subsequent to his conversion.
D.Martyn Lloyd Jones: Born on December 20, 1899, in Cardiff, Wales. Died March 1, 1981. He was Trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He earned his medical doctorate (London MD) at age 23 and became chief clinical assistant to Sir Thomas Horder, the royal physician to King George V. He left a brilliant medical trajectory in 1927, believing that humanity's core problem was spiritual rather than physical.
He was ordained in 1927, he ministered to a working-class church in Port Talbot (Aberavon), South Wales, during the industrial depression.
Moved to London in 1938 to co-pastor alongside G. Campbell Morgan at Westminster Chapel.
Served as the sole minister there through World War II—preaching through bombings by candlelight—until his retirement in March 1968.
Highly influenced by the Revivals in Wales and the best of the Puritans.
He is a bit wordy, so I tried to keep his thoughts below a little more concise.
“What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Now there are some, …..who say that it is simply a reference to regeneration and nothing else. It is what happens to people when they are regenerated and incorporated into Christ as Paul teaches in I Cor. 12:13, “By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body…”….. But for myself, I simply cannot accept that explanation…because if I were to believe that, I should have to believe that the disciples and apostles were not regenerate until the Day of Pentecost - - a supposition which seems to me to be quite untenable…..This is an experience, as I understand the teaching, which is the birthright of every Christian. For the promise…..says the apostle Peter, “is unto you..and not only unto you but ..to your children, and to all that are afar off….it is promised to all Christian people.” (Acts 2:39). ….The baptism of the Holy Spirit, then is the difference between believing these things, accepting the teaching…and having a consciousness and experience of these truths in a striking and signal manner…..It is this remarkable and unusual experience which is described so frequently in the book of Acts…”
John Piper:
John Stephen Piper (born January 11, 1946) is an American Reformed Baptist theologian, author, and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary who is widely known for founding the Desiring God ministry.
“I think when he says you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, he means you will receive extraordinary power for Christ-exalting ministry. That’s what I think he means. You will receive extraordinary power for Christ-exalting ministry.
Now, that experience may come in an unusual, decisive experience after conversion — a day, a week, a year, or a minute — followed by subsequent outpourings or fillings or baptisms of the Spirit periodically throughout life. Or that experience may come at the very moment of conversion followed by lifelong subsequent experiences of empowering in the Holy Spirit. It may come in various ways and fillings and blessings throughout a lifetime that are just unpredictable and various.” John Piper (Desiring God website – June 2019)
David Wilkerson:
David Wilkerson (1931–2011) was an American Christian pastor, evangelist, and author best known for writing The Cross and the Switchblade and founding the Times Square Church in New York City.
“From the beginning of Christianity, then, this baptism of the Holy Ghost has had a special significance because it marks the difference between the mission of a mere man, no matter how bold and effective, and the mission of Christ: Jesus would baptize His followers with the Holy Ghost… David Wilkerson
It was foretold by John [the Baptist], promised by the Father and experienced at Pentecost. I’m sure you’ve noticed the vast change that took place in the apostles after this experience. Before, they had been timid and powerless men. Afterwards, they did receive that power that Christ spoke about. They healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead. The same men who had hidden themselves at the crucifixion went on after this experience to stand up to the hostile world with their message.” David Wilkerson
But to be a good soldier in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ, it’s not enough just to be saved. There is much more for you! You need to be baptized with the Holy Ghost!” David Wilkerson
Francis Chan:
Francis Chan (born in Hong Kong Aug. 31, 1967) is an author, teacher, and preacher best known for founding Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California, and writing the bestselling book Crazy Love along with Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit (2009), Erasing Hell (2011), & Multiply: Disciples Making Disciples (2012).
“There is a big gap between what we read in Scripture about the Holy Spirit and how most believers and churches operate today.” Francis Chan
A.W. Tozer : A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) was an influential pastor (31 yrs. in Chicago & then Toronto, Canada) and author whose books (e.g. The Pursuit of God) still speak today about the need for a deeper life in God. He was born again at age 17, but for a couple of years had never heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That all changed when he met an older godly woman named Kate. This is an excerpt from Tozer in his book, “Alive in the Spirit”:
“One day Kate took me aside and had a very serious talk with me. It was concerning being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Methodist church I was going to never mentioned this at all. In fact, the Holy Spirit was rarely referred to.
I did not quite understand what she meant by being filled with the Holy Spirit. Who is this Holy Spirit? But she encouraged me and prayed with me, and then one day she said, “Young man, you must get down on your knees and die to yourself before the Holy Spirit will fill you.” And she explained in great detail what this meant, as much as I could understand….
Then it happened. I was nineteen years old when I was baptized with a mighty infusion of the Holy Spirit. Even now, it is hard to explain what happened. I have had years to think about it, study it, and meditate on it, and yet when the Holy Spirit does something in you, it is usually beyond your ability to totally comprehend it, let alone explain it.
I know what God did for me and within me at that time. Nothing on the outside from then on had equal importance for me. In faith, I took a leap away from everything that was unimportant to that which was most important, which was to be possessed by the Spirit of the living God.
Looking back over my life, my testimony is simply that any work God has ever done through me and my ministry dates back to that moment when I was filled with the Holy Spirit. All the credits goes to the Holy Spirit. That is when I truly became alive.”
George Whitefield: “Was filled with the Holy Ghost. Oh, that all who deny the promise of the Father might thus receive it themselves! Oh, that all were partakers of my joy!. God’s presence so filled my soul that I could scarce stand under it.” George Whitefield, Nov. 22, 1740
John Wesley: “The grand reason why the miraculous gifts were soon withdrawn was not only that faith and holiness were well nigh lost, but that dry, formal, orthodox men began to ridicule gifts they had not themselves and to decry them all as evil madness or impostors. The cause of their decline was not as has been vulgarly supposed because there is no need for them. The real cause was “the love of many” – almost all Christians ‘waxed cold’. This was the real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were no longer to be found in the Christian church because the Christians were turned heathen again and had only a dead form left.” John Wesley (Randy’s note – John seems a little raw in these statements, but if you study the historical context of the church world he and George Whitefield sought to minister to, and if you knew of all the persecution they endured, perhaps it is not so raw after all).
Watchman Nee:
Watchman Nee (1903–1972) was a prominent 20th-century Chinese Christian minister, author, and church planter who deeply influenced global evangelicalism through his teachings on the deeper spiritual life and local church autonomy. Arrested in 1952, he spent the final 20 years of his life in prison and labor camps for his faith. He established hundreds of independent local congregations across China that focused on biblical simplicity rather than Western denominational structures.
“The spiritualizing away of divine things is the desperate expedient of people who do not possess reality.” Watchman Nee
Jack Hayford:
1934–2023) was an influential American Pentecostal pastor, author, and songwriter who led The Church On The Way in Van Nuys, California, for over three decades. Was a favorite speaker at Promise Keeper rallies and a man of prayer.
A prayer for fullness: “Dear Lord Jesus, I thank you and praise you for Your great love and faithfulness to me. My heart is filled with joy whenever I think of the great gift of salvation You have so freely given to me. And I humbly glorify You, Lord Jesus, for You have forgiven me all my sins and brought me to the Father. Now I come in obedience to your call. I want to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I do not come because I am worthy myself, but because You have invited me to come. Because You have washed me from my sins, I thank You that You have made the vessel of my life a worthy one to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God. I want to be overflowed with Your life, Your love and Your power, Lord Jesus. I want to show forth Your grace, Your Words, Your goodness, and Your gifts to everyone I can. And so with simple, childlike faith, I ask, Lord, Fill me with the Holy Spirit. I open all of myself to You, to receive all of Yourself in me. I love You, Lord and I lift my voice in praise to You. I welcome Your might and Your miracles to be manifested in me for Your glory and unto Your praise.” Jack W. Hayford
Thanks again Randy, I've been listening to the weekly podcast of the Bible Project, and they are on the 11th Episode on Spirit of God. They trace through the usages of the word - OT and NT. and include difficult passages (like Saul/Evil spirit from God). I find this weekly postcast to stilumate my depth in the Word (and i hope the Spirit).