Subsequent Experiences with the Holy Spirit that might surprise you/encourage you

My intention with this post, which I intend to add to as time goes on (did a part II instead), is to show you the impact subsequent experiences with/fillings of the Holy Spirit had on some of the more well known non charismatic/non Pentecostal ministers that have impacted my life and probably yours - - so that you and I will never get complacent or self sufficient in our pursuit of and need of more fullness of the Holy Spirit.

D.L.Moody - Moody believed that the Holy Spirit established a permanent relationship with the believer at the moment of regeneration. Nevertheless, he believed that something more was needed for effective Christian work. That “something more” was the “Holy Spirit upon us for service.” He had such an experience himself in 1871, and on those rare occasions when he referred to it, he spoke of it as a filling, a baptism, an anointing, an empowerment for service. However Moody disavowed that such an experience led to entire sanctification, eradication of the sin nature, or perfection. (From Christian history institute website).

“I remember two holy women who used to come to my meetings. It was delightful to see them in the congregation. When I began to preach, I could tell by the expression on their faces that they were praying for me. At the close of the Sunday evening service they would say to me, ‘We have been praying for you.’ “I said, ‘Why don’t you pray for the people?” “They answered, ‘You need power. ” ‘I need power’? I said to myself. “Why, I thought I had power.‘

I had a large Sunday school and the largest congregation in Chicago. There were some conversions at the time. I was, in a sense, satisfied. But right along, these two godly women kept praying for me, and their earnest talk about being anointed for special service set me thinking.”I asked them to come and talk with me, and we got down on our knees. They poured out their hearts that I might receive the anointing from the Holy Spirit, and there came a great hunger into my soul. I did not know what it was. I began to pray as I never did before.

I really felt that I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service. The hunger increased. I was praying all the time that God would fill me with His Holy Spirit.

“Well, one day in the city of New York – oh, what a day! I cannot describe it. I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke of which for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I asked Him to stay His hand.“I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different, I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted.

I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you gave me all Glasgow – it would be as the small dust of the balance."

D. L. Moody was one of the greatest evangelists America has ever produced. He was very impacted by the layman’s prayer revival. Born Feb. 5, 1837. Died Dec. 22, 1899. For a more complete bio see the website devoted to he and his ministry at: https://www.moodybible.org/about/d-l-moody/

Billy Graham – The following is from the website: https://www.tikkunglobal.org/

Several years ago I was preparing a message called “A History of the Holy Spirit.” I came across this story about Billy Graham from a book called, A Personal Look at Billy Graham, the World’s Best-loved Evangelist by Sherwood Eliot Wurt. It is one of the most powerful Billy Graham stories I have read. In 1946, he had an experience with the Holy Spirit that changed his life and ministry.

Here is an excerpt from that book:

During his visit to Britain in October 1946, a meeting was arranged at Hildenborough Hall in Kent where Billy was to be introduced to Christian leaders before his evangelistic tour of cities in England, Ireland, and Wales. He arrived in time for the closing service of a youth conference, at which the speaker was Stephen Olford.

Olford, born of missionary parents in Angola, had planned to be an engineer, but a motorcycle accident in England brought him face to face with God while he was recovering in a hospital. He attended St. Luke’s College and served as World War II chaplain to His Majesty’s Forces, who were leaving for the Dunkirk action. Later he became an itinerant evangelist.

At Hildenborough Hall Olford preached a fervent message on the text: “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the spirit.” When he had finished, he seated himself and rested his head in his hands. He became aware of someone nearby and looked up to see Billy Graham standing over him.

“Mr. Olford,” said Billy, “I just want to ask one question: Why didn’t you give an invitation? I would have been the first one to come forward. You’ve spoken of something that I don’t have. I want the fullness of the Holy Spirit in my life too.”

Billy told his biographer John Pollock, “I was seeking for more of God in my life, and I felt that here was a man who could help me. He had a dynamic, a thrill, an exhilaration about him I wanted to capture.”

They arranged to meet in Wales where Billy was scheduled to preach in a town named Pontypridd, eleven miles from the home of Olford’s parents. In a room in a stone hotel in Pontypridd, Stephen and Billy spent two days together. Billy told Stephen. “This is serious business. I have to learn what this is that the Lord has been teaching you.”

The first day was spent, according to Stephen, “on the Word and on what it really means to expose oneself to the Word in the quiet time.” They spent the hours turning the pages of the Bible, studying passages and verses. Billy prayed, “Lord, I don’t want to go on without knowing this anointing You’ve given my brother.”

That night Billy preached to a small crowd. The sermon was “ordinary,” according to Stephen, and “not the Welsh kind of preaching.” Billy gave an invitation, but the response was sparse.

The next day they met again, and Stephen began concentrating on the work of the Holy Spirit by declaring, “There is no Pentecost without Calvary,” and that we “must be broken” like the apostle Paul, who declared himself “crucified with Christ.” He then told Billy how God completely turned his life inside out. It was, he said, “an experience of the Holy Spirit in His fullness and anointing.” He explained that “where the Spirit is truly Lord over the life, there is liberty, there is release — the sublime freedom of complete submission of oneself in a continuous state of surrender to the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit.”

According to Stephen, Billy cried, “Stephen, I see it. That’s what I want.” His eyes filled with tears — something rare with Billy. It seems he had no appetite that day, only taking a sip of water occasionally. Stephen continued to expound on the meaning of the filling of the Spirit in the life of a believer. He said it meant “bowing daily and hourly to the sovereignty of Christ and to the authority of the Word.”

From talking and discussing, the two men went to their knees praying and praising. It was about midafternoon on the second day that Billy began pouring out his heart “in a prayer of total dedication to the Lord.” According to Stephen, “all heaven broke loose in that dreary little room. It was like Jacob laying hold of God and crying, ‘Lord, I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.’”

They came to a time of rest from prayer. Billy exclaimed, “My heart is so flooded with the Holy Spirit!” They alternately wept and laughed, and Billy began walking back and forth across the room, saying, “I have it! I’m filled. I’m filled. This is the turning point of my life. This will revolutionize my ministry.”

Said Olford, “That night Billy was to speak at a large Baptist church nearby. When he rose to preach, he was a man absolutely anointed.” Billy’s Welsh audience seemed to sense it. They came forward to pray even before the invitation was given. Later when it was given, Olford said, “The Welsh listeners jammed the aisles. There was chaos. Practically the entire audience came rushing forward.”

Stephen drove back to his parents' home that night, deeply moved by Billy’s new authority and strength. “When I came in the door,” he said later, “my father looked at my face and asked, ‘What on earth has happened?’

“I sat down at the kitchen table and said, ‘Dad, something has happened to Billy Graham. The world is going to hear from his man. He is going to make his mark in history.’ ” The heavenly reservoir had overflowed.

A close colleague of Billy’s before Pontypridd, Chuck Templeton, heard the young preacher after that experience. Astonished, Templeton remarked that Billy’s preaching had taken on “a certain magnificence of effect…fascinating…really impressive.”

Originally published on Feb. 24, 2018

Stephen Olford – (Now Randy speaking) Some of you may not be familiar with Stephen Olford. I want to first tell you of an experience I had yesterday and then I will tell you more about his life and ministry. Yesterday morning my chapter in the gospels was John 7, wherein Jesus cries out on the last day of the Feast this wonderful invitation/exhortation: “…If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive….” Vs. 37-39.   After Anne and I returned home last night from a dinner date together, we sat upstairs and began to read and pray some. I wasn’t significantly stimulated by my readings and was a bit restless. I began to think about something that happened to me when I was 18 or 19. I was sitting at home with my Dad and younger brother watching the Super Bowl, and the whole time I was sitting there I was thinking about how restless and unfulfilled I was watching that game knowing that there was a special speaker at First Baptist Church that probably my friend Lynn Mirts told me about. His name was Stephen Olford. I knew nothing of him. But couldn’t shake the thought that I was supposed to be there. So I finally jumped in my car and drove the 20 minute drive to 1^st Baptist Church. Didn’t solve all of my issues, which were legion, but obviously was an evening that I still remember as to its impact on me.

Some years later Dr. Olford was invited to be the main speaker at the yearly Bible conference week at Dallas Theo. Seminary, where I was a student. Was a powerful week of meetings with him. Towards the end of the week Anne and I were walking away from the latest meeting, and we saw him walking back to his hotel room across the street from the Seminary. He was a short, older, white haired man and he had to cross a busy street. As he was crossing the street a big pick up truck raced towards him as if it intended to mow him down. He picked up his pace noting the truck seemed to be speeding up and not slowing down, the truck kept increasing its pace, and he literally had to run for his life to get to the other side safely. We knew the enemy was not pleased with the impact he had/was having at DTS. The devil hates revival and those who pursue it, but in Christ we are immortal until our appointed time comes.

So back to last night, I told Anne what I was thinking about. By then I had found a website devoted to his life and ministry by his son I believe. Anne said, “let’s see if there are any sermons by him on youtube”. There of course are many as he was such a powerful and wonderful Christ centered preacher. So Anne chose one and as we listened we discovered his primary passage was John 7:37-39 (the same passage I had pondered that morning in my quiet time) – speaking at a conference in PA over 20 years ago about Revival. Needless to say the importance of being thirsty for more and coming to Jesus for more of the Holy Spirit’s power and anointing is a now word….

Bio of Stephen Olford from www.baptistpress.com: His was no ordinary life. In fact the extraordinary happenings that seemed to characterize his life and ministry began when he was still in his mother's womb. Stephen Olford was born to missionary parents, Fredrick and Bessie Olford, on March 29, 1918. Fredrick Olford's basic knowledge of medicine and the experience he had gained on the mission field caused him to anticipate that the birth of their first baby might be accompanied by complications. Rather than take a chance, he and Bessie made up their minds to make the thousand-mile trek from Angola to the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. Fred walked every step of the way while Bessie was carried in a hammock by A-Chokwe men.

The first seventeen years of his life were spent in the heart of Africa where he witnessed the marvelous power of God working through the lives of his godly parents. His experiences in Africa flavored his preaching. I can remember when I first heard Stephen Olford's voice on the old reel to reel tape player in 1969; I was a senior in high school. His accounts of miracles from God among the A-Chokwe people captured my youthful imagination. I learned later how those experiences forged his character.

Stephen Olford left the home he had known and loved in Angola to live in England where he would pursue a career in engineering. In college his thesis project was carburetion. He developed a special carburetion system and took up motorcycle racing to demonstrate the efficiency of his invention. On his way home from a race on a cold rainy night he crashed his motorcycle and lay injured on the road in the rain for several hours. Pneumonia quickly set in. Doctors announced, "Two weeks to live."

Laying on his death bed, Stephen Olford received a letter from his father in Africa. Fredrick Olford knew nothing of his son's condition. It took three months for a letter to travel from Africa to England. But in God's sovereignty the letter contained words that would forever change the life of Stephen F. Olford. His father wrote, Only one Life, 'Twill soon be past, Only what is done for Christ will last. Stephen Olford fell under deep conviction. He slipped out of bed, dropped to his knees, and cried out to God. He prayed, Lord, You have won and I own You as King of Kings and Lord of lords…and Lord if you will heal my body, I will serve You anywhere, anytime, and at any cost. God answered his prayer and from that day until August 29, 2004, when he went to be with the Lord, Stephen Olford's life was ablaze to the glory of God.

In 1959 Stephen Olford came to the United States to pastor the Calvary Baptist Church in New York City. He embarked upon this new chapter in his life with wife Heather and sons Jonathan and David at his side. It was from the famed Calvary pulpit that Dr. Olford's anointed expository preaching began to impact people around the world. His days at Calvary made the world his parish.

R.A. Torrey - Dr. R.A. Torrey was renowned as a fervent prayer warrior, a personal soul winner, and a powerful revivalist. In a very real sense, as the mantle of Elijah fell upon Elisha, so Dr. Torrey was the successor of D.L. Moody. Torrey headed the new Bible Institute founded by Moody through its formative years; pastored the church Moody founded; and followed Moody in the field of world evangelism.

Torrey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on January 28, 1856. He grew up in a wealthy home, attended Yale University and Divinity School, where he received the A.B. and B.D. degrees, and studied abroad, at Leipzig and Erlangen, Germany.

During his early student days at Yale, young Torrey became an agnostic, and a heavy drinker. Even during the days of his “wild life,” he was strangely aware of a conviction that some day he was to preach the Gospel. At the end of his senior year in college, he was saved.

While at Yale Divinity School, he came under the influence of D.L. Moody. During his New Haven campaign, Moody noticed the young theological student attending the meetings, and told him, dramatically, “Young man, you’d better get to work for God!” In the inquiry room at that campaign, Torrey got his first taste of leading souls to Christ. Little did Moody know the mighty forces he was setting in motion in thus stirring R.A. Torrey to service!

It is remarkable that during his early Christian experience, Torrey held definitely liberal views. “In fact, I think I may say that I was the leader of the new theology and destructive criticism wing of the seminary,” he wrote later. “The professors in Yale Seminary at that time were all orthodox, but I was not.” During his studies abroad, he became convinced of the falseness of his views, swung back to the conservative position, and ever afterward was a stalwart defender of the faith once delivered to the saints.

Ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1878, Dr. Torrey served pastorates at Garrettsville, Ohio, and later Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he was also superintendent of city missions. His ministry everywhere was characterized by revival, in the midst of which he was called to Moody bible Institute (then known as the Chicago Evangelization Society). With his wonderful gift of discernment, Moody, who never finished grammar school, called the young college and seminary graduate to head the work of his Institute almost from its founding (1886).

Torrey came to the Institute as superintendent in 1889, and continued in that capacity until 1908 (although he was on leave after 1901). He did much to lay the groundwork for the curriculum of the infant Bible school, model of more than 200 similar institutions since, and he is especially noted for the strong emphasis on practical Christian work, such as street meetings, jail and hospital visitation.

Along with his responsibilities at the Institute, he was pastor of The Moody Church from 1894 to 1906 (known as the Chicago Avenue Church prior to 1901). After 1901, however, he entered upon his world evangelistic tours, including four of the six continents. Between 1902 and 1905, he conducted meetings in many cities across this country and abroad, including a five-month campaign in Royal Albert Hall, London. He also ministered in other principal cities of England and Scotland, as well as points in other European countries, India, Australia, China, and Japan.

Later he served as the first dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (1912–1924), and the first pastor of the Church of the Open Door (1915–1924), returning to Moody Bible Institute as a special lecturer in 1927.

Dr. Torrey, who possessed the rare combination of gifts as scholar, teacher, and evangelist, was author of more than 40 books, including the Sunday school commentary Gist of the Lesson. Published annually for 30 years, it enjoyed a wide circulation. Torrey also wrote a number of articles and tracts, and his works have been translated into numerous languages.

Dr. Torrey died on October 26, 1928, at Asheville, North Carolina, and was buried at Montrose, Pennsylvania, site of the famous Bible conference which he founded in 1908. (This bio from: https://www.moodymedia.org/articles/a-biographical-sketch-of-dr-reuben-archer-torrey/

Now an address from him wherein he shares a bit of his testimony with the Holy Spirit:

"The address of this afternoon, and the addresses of the days immediately to follow, are the outcome of an experience, and that experience was the outcome of a study of the Word of God. After I had been a Christian for some years, and after I had been in the ministry for some years, my attention was strongly attracted to certain phrases found in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, such as "baptized with the Holy Spirit", "filled wih the Spirit", "the Holy Spirit fell on them", "the gift of the Holy Spirit", "endued with power from on high", and other closely allied phrases. As I studied these various phrases in their context, it became clear to me that they all stood for essentially the same expereince; and it also became clear to me that God has provided for each child of His in this present dispensation that they should be thus "baptized with the Spirit," or, "filled with the Spirit."

As I studied the subject stil further, I became convinced that they described an experience which I did not possess, and I went to work to secure for myself the experince thus described. I sought earnestly that I might "be baptized with the Holy Spirit." I went at it very ignorantly. I have often wondered if anyone ever went at it any more ignorantly that I did. But while I was ignorant, I was thouroughly sincere and in earnest, and God met me, as He always meets the sincere and earnest soul, no matter how ignorant he may be; and God gave me what I sought, I was "baptized with the Holy Spirit."

Charles G. Finney - Perhaps one of the more controversial of the great revivalists. His theology was more practical and less Calvinistic/more Arminian. (Please note while theology and doctrine are important, no man or woman used greatly to bring about revival and awakening had perfect theology and doctrine). Some say he relied to much on his methodology. From all that I've read, his reliance upon the power of the Holy Spirit through personal, family, small group and corporate/congregational prayer and his pursuit of personal godliness and holiness had much more to do with the fruit he bore than his methodology. Because of his training as a lawyer, he had very strong reasoning skills, that served him well as an evangelist. Estimates are that up to 500,000 people were converted by his ministry. Historical research seems to confirm that up to 85% of those converted continued to follow after Jesus in later years. He was a man of prayer and a man who relied upon the power of the Holy Spirit to convict people of sin, which happened often in great power resulting in true repentance. He was bold and straight to the point whether face to face with an individual or couple in their home, or in front of large crowds. He was a forerunner in some ways re: empowering women in ministry. His ministry had other societal tranformation effects such as helping with the growing anti slavery movement, etc. He was born in 1792, and died in 1875.

Here is some of his testimony of the Holy Spirit in his life and ministry:

"I was powerfully converted on the morning of the month of October 1822. In the evening of the same day I received overwhelming baptisms of the Holy Ghost, that went through me, as it seemed to me, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer. Multitudes can attest to this. Oftentimes a word dropped without my remembering it would fasten conviction, and often result in almost immediate conversion. Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray, with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power had departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself, and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life."

(To be continued)