The Blessedness Of Being Filled With The Holy Spirit
By Andrew Murray
I wish to try and put before you what the blessedness is of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. I spoke two nights ago about the way in which the disciples were led to receive the blessing; but let us tonight look at the blessedness of being filled with the Spirit. It may please God to make our desire so strong, and to make us see so clearly, This is just what I need, I cannot live longer without it, that He may bring us to receive, this very night, more than we ever expected. He is a God who is willing and able to do above what we can ask or think. I do not think I can put the blessedness of being filled with the Spirit more clearly before you than by just pointing to the wonderful change which Pentecost made in the lives of the disciples. I think that is one of the most wonderful object-lessons in the whole of Scripture those twelve men under Christ’s training for three years, and yet remaining, apparently; at such a distance from the life they ought to live; and then all at once, by the blessed incoming of the Holy Spirit, being made just what God wanted them to be.
Look first at the change that Pentecost wrought in their relationship to Jesus. During His life on earth with them they could not have Him within them. There He was outside, separated from them, very near, very loving; and yet, if I may say so with deep reverence, what a failure Christ’s teaching of them was until the Holy Spirit came! Christ taught them humility, time after time. He said, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart”. He said, time after time, “He that humbled himself shall be exalted.” Yet at the Holy Communion table there they were, still contending which of them should be chief. Christ did not conquer their pride. This was not for the want of divine teaching. Why was it, then? It was because of one thing: Christ was still outside of them, and He could not get into their heart to dwell there. It was impossible; the time had not come, and there they had the divine, almighty, blessed Redeemer along with them, but still outside. And how different they were from Him! To teach us that no outward instruction, even from Christ Himself, or His words in Holy Scripture, can bring us the true and full blessing, till the Holy Spirit works it in us. But what a change took place on the day of Pentecost! “At that day ye shall know that I am in you”. What does that mean? Christ in us, just the same as we are in this tent? No, we are in the tent, but we can go out of it again, and we do not suffer anything by it. I live in a house, but I can leave that house and go elsewhere. The tent and the house and I are not vitally, organically connected. But the Lord Jesus came to be I say it with reverence, part of those disciples, to fill their heart and thought and affection; and what Peter and James and John had, when they had Christ alongside of them, you and I have in a much larger measure, if we have the living Christ within us.
And how did that change come? By the Holy Spirit. “At that day” when the Spirit come “ye shall know that I am in you”; for the Father will love you, and I will love you, and we will come and make our abode in you. Oh! Does not your heart long for it? I have thought and thought of Jesus in Bethlehem, and of Jesus on Calvary, and of Jesus upon the throne, and I have worshiped and loved and rejoiced exceedingly in Him; but all the time I wanted something better and something deeper and something nearer. Is not what you want this to have the loving Jesus within yourselves? And that is what the Holy Spirit will give you, and that is why we want to plead with you tonight. Will you not give up yourselves for this blessing to be filled with the Spirit, that the blessed Jesus may be able to take possession of you? Is not that what your heart longs for? Jesus within the very Jesus, who is the Almighty One, who died on the Cross and sits upon the throne, condescending to be our life?
And that is what the Spirit comes for. Jesus said, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and show it unto you”. And what is the glory of Jesus? His love and His power. And the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ in us, so that the wonderful love of Christ shall be a possession and a reality in its divine nearness, and that power of Christ shall have the mastery within us. You know that wonderful prayer in Ephesians 3, that the Father might strengthen them with might by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in their heart. The mighty power of the Holy Spirit can do it. The Holy Spirit makes Jesus present with us.
And then, the second thought in connection with the change wrought in the disciples: not only was Jesus outside of them, but Jesus was not always with them. They could not every moment be with Him.
You remember how, at one time, He sent them across the sea, and He stayed on the mountain to pray. You remember how, at another time, He took three of them with Him up into the mountain, and the others stayed down below; and there they had to Meet the Pharisees, and they could not cast out the evil spirit. There came times of separation, and at last there came that terrible death, that awful separation from them in this world. Yes, Christ was their life sometimes with Christ, and sometimes not with Him; sometimes near Him, and sometimes the crowd pressing around Him, and they could not get to Him. But, friends, the presence of Jesus by the Holy Ghost is meant to be unbroken, continual, and forever. Is not that what your heart longs for? Do not you know what it is sometimes to live a week or a month in a joy that makes your heart sing all the day. And the change comes, and the cloud and the darkness come and you do not know why it is sometimes with bodily sickness or depression, sometimes with the cares and the difficulties of this life, sometime with the consciousness of your own failure. Oh, child of God, would that I could tell it you and see it myself aright! Jesus does love you; He does not wish to be separated from you one minute; He cannot bear it. We want to believe in that love of Jesus. No mother ever so delighted in the baby she has in her arms as does the Christ of God in you. He wants to be most intimate with you, and to have most unceasing fellowship with you. Take that in, beloved believer, and say tonight: If that be possible, God helping me, I must have Jesus always dwelling in my heart.
Another thought. Look at the change it made in their own inner life. It was, up to Pentecost, a life of failure and of weakness. I have spoken of their pride. Christ had to reprove them for their pride, time after time. You know how they longed to be faithful to Him, and yet their pride and their self confidence was the cause of continual failure. Peter said to Him, “Lord, I will never deny Thee”, and all the others said the same; and yet within a few hours they did it, just as the result of pride and self confidence. They did not know the evil of their own nature. Jesus had done everything to teach them humility, but He had failed, and hence their weakness. Peter had said “I will go with Thee to prison and to death”, but at the word of a maid-servant he began to swear and to declare that he never knew the Man. What utter weakness! But what a change when Pentecost came! I will not say they had victory over sin, for I do not think it came in the way of direct fighting. But when the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God became their life, they were filled with the might and the power of the living Jesus, the Savior from sin.
You know, dear friends, that the great work of Jesus is to take away sin. And how does He take it away? Many Christians just look upon Him as taking it away on the Cross. Others get a step beyond that, and say : He takes it away from heaven; He cleanses and keeps me. But the true taking away of sin is this: if the light comes in, the darkness is expelled. It is the presence of Jesus, indwelling by the Holy Spirit, that can make us holy. And the disciples what a change came over them! See now how boldly, time after time, they can speak in the presence of those who threaten them with death. “We must obey God rather than men,” they said. They go to prison, and there they can sing praises to God at midnight. Oh the wonderful change in their life that the Holy Spirit wrought!
And what does that teach us? We very often speak about the self-life, and the life of the Holy Spirit. Have you said to God perhaps you have said it often “Lord , how can I be rid of this self-life?” Well. Has it been discovered to you? Has God’s finger reached the deep place of your heart , and have you been brought to say: O God, my failure is all my self-confidence, self-will, self-pleasing? There is that accursed self that will have its say in everything, and there is no power that can expel that but the power of the presence of Jesus.
You may get troubled about some theological definition, as to how it is all done, as to how much sin there remains, and how much there is cast out, but what we want you to believe is this : that though you cannot explain and expound all, believe that the Spirit of holiness which will be given is the holiness of Jesus in your heart, and be content with that. Filled with the Spirit, you have within you the power of the holiness of God to do the blessed work of sanctification.
And then, the third thought in regard to this wonderful blessedness of being filled with the Spirit. Look at the love that united them into one body. I spoke a little while ago about their contention. There was selfishness among them, often want of love; but when the Holy Spirit came down do not look only at what He did for each one of them individually He molded them into one body, and they felt conscious that they were the members of one Lord Jesus, and they loved each other, so that they did things which were utterly unheard of at that time. Though perfect strangers of each other, most of them, they began to sell their goods and give away their property, and to say they had all things in common. This was the result of the Holy Spirit having come down, as the very love of God in heaven, to dwell in their hearts.
And do not you find that your greatest difficulty in life is your relation to your fellow-Christians? Is not that our first temptation to sin our intercourse with our fellow Christians? Very often, people who have to work together differ in temperament and character, and how easily friction comes in! There are people who differ in regard to some theological truth or practical way of doing Christ’s work, and how they speak or write against each other! Alas, what separations there are in Christ’s Church on earth! Even amongst those who are professing to love God, and professing holiness and entire consecration, what divisions unceasingly come! It is such a sad thing. How many earnest Christians there are who have so much to say one about another! They can point out where I am wrong, and I can point out where they are wrong; but how few there are of Christians, differing from each other distinctly, who can say, “Above all our differences there is a unity which we must express; we want continual fellowship in the presence of our one Father.”
Do you want to have a heart overflowing with love to every child of God, to all the children of God outside your own circle? Do you want a heart of love that can set others on fire? Do you want the very love of heaven to flow out from you? Do you want the self-sacrificing love of Jesus to take possession of you, so that you can bear and forbear, so that with the long suffering and tenderness and gentleness, and the very meekness of Christ, the Lamb of God, you are willing to be the helper and servant of everyone, however unlovable or unlovely? Then you need to be filled with the Spirit. Cry for that, claim that, accept that, rest not till you have it. The Spirit is the Spirit of God’s love, and is the Spirit of the crucified love of Jesus. If we receive the Holy Ghost, the love of God will be shed abroad in our hearts, and God will melt us into one as never before.
And then, just one more thought, and it is in regard to their work. See what a difference Pentecost made! And I suppose we all feel at least many of us fell that is one of the important things in connection with speaking about being filled with the Holy Spirit. I doubt not but there are many workers here who can thank God for the way He has led them on, but who still feel that they want something very different. Joy in speaking of Jesus, they say, I have not got that always, the consciousness that God is using me as one of His instruments. Yet that is what God wants every worker to have.
Do not you feel that it would be an unutterable joy always to work in that spirit of absolute humility and dependence and nothingness, and with it all, a childlike trust that God will use you? Oh, how am I to get that? Look at the apostles, look at the disciples. I read that the Lord Jesus send them out to do three things to preach the gospel, to heal the sick, and to cast out devils; but I do not hear them tell about conversions. I do not think their preaching of the gospel really helped very much. It had to be done, but I do not know that it produced much result.
But when the Day of Pentecost came, listen to their preaching of the gospel not only to Peter’s they were all proclaiming the mighty works of God. What a blessing came! And it went on and on. What boldness they had, and what largeness of heart!
How they went on to Samaria and to Cesarean, and then to Antioch, and there waited upon God; and how within a very few years the gospel had been brought into Europe! It was the power of the Holy Spirit that did it. And we want that power for our work, and spiritual light and wisdom to see the large fields of work that are before us, even in our immediate neighborhood.
I thank God for all the interest He is awakening in heathendom and foreign missions, but I am afraid there is something that is getting neglected. And what is that? I thank God for all the interest there is in Darkest England, in the poor neglected ones, in the drunkards and those who are in danger of becoming drunkards, and in the poor outcast. But your middle classes, your richer and higher classes is there power in your Christianity to take the gospel to them boldly? Are not many of you members of churches and congregations, where you sit Sunday by Sunday with multitudes around you, of whom you know that they are unconverted? Is there not a need of divine wisdom and power to fit us for this work? Do we not need divine light and inspiration? Do we not need power, with a new love and boldness to pray and wait and work, and to see that not only those who are in China, or in Africa, or in other parts of the world shall have the gospel, but that the gospel shall be brought to those with whom we are associated every day? We thank God that during the last thirty years He has aroused Christians to work as never before; but let us understand that it is but a beginning, and if Christians will hold counsel with God, and wait upon God in prayer, and say to God that they are ready for His work is not God able to do far more than He has wrought hitherto?
But one thing is needed. The Spirit did it all, on the day of Pentecost and afterwards. It was the Spirit who gave the boldness, the Spirit gave the wisdom, the Spirit gave the message, and the Spirit gave the converting power.
And now, I speak to all workers, especially to those who feel the need of power to work, and I say, My brother, my sister, is not your whole heart ready to say That is what I want. I see it. Jesus did not send me to the warfare on my own charges; He did not bid me go and preach and teach in my own strength; Jesus meant me to have the fullness of the Holy Ghost. Whether I have a little Sunday school class or a Bible class, or some larger work, the one thing I need is the power of the Holy Ghost, to be filled with the Spirit.
Let me conclude by asking, Are we all prepared now to receive this from our Jesus? He loves to give it. God delights in nothing so much as to honor His Son, and it is honor to Jesus when souls are filled with the Holy Ghost, because then He proves what He can do for them. Shall we not claim it?
Just let me give you four very little words as steps. Let now everyone who longs for this blessing say, first of all, I must be filled. Say it to God in the depth of your heart. God commands it; I cannot live my life as I should live without it.
Then, say as the second step: I may be filled. It is possible the promise is for me. Settle that, and let all doubt vanish. These apostles, once so full of pride and of self-life, were filled with the Holy Spirit because they clave unto Jesus. And with all your sinfulness, if you will but cling to Him you may be filled.
Then thirdly, say: I would be filled. To get the “pearl of great price” you must sell all, you must give up everything. You are willing, are you not? Everything, Lord, if I may only have that. Lord, I would have it from Thee tonight.
And them comes the last step: I shall be filled. God longs to give it; I shall have it. Never mind whether it do not come tonight, because God is preparing you for it tomorrow. But say, I shall be filled. If I entrust myself to Jesus He cannot disappoint me. It is His very nature, it is His work in heaven, it is His delight to give souls the Holy Spirit in full measure. Oh, claim it tonight; I shall. My God, it is so solemn, it is almost awful; it is too blessed and too true Lord, wilt Thou not do it? My trembling heart says, I shall be filled with the Holy Spirit. Oh, say to God, “Father, I shall, for the name of my Savior is Jesus, who saves from all sin, and who fills with the Holy Spirit. Glory to His name!”.
By Andrew Murray
I wish to try and put before you what the blessedness is of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. I spoke two nights ago about the way in which the disciples were led to receive the blessing; but let us tonight look at the blessedness of being filled with the Spirit. It may please God to make our desire so strong, and to make us see so clearly, This is just what I need, I cannot live longer without it, that He may bring us to receive, this very night, more than we ever expected. He is a God who is willing and able to do above what we can ask or think. I do not think I can put the blessedness of being filled with the Spirit more clearly before you than by just pointing to the wonderful change which Pentecost made in the lives of the disciples. I think that is one of the most wonderful object-lessons in the whole of Scripture those twelve men under Christ’s training for three years, and yet remaining, apparently; at such a distance from the life they ought to live; and then all at once, by the blessed incoming of the Holy Spirit, being made just what God wanted them to be.
Look first at the change that Pentecost wrought in their relationship to Jesus. During His life on earth with them they could not have Him within them. There He was outside, separated from them, very near, very loving; and yet, if I may say so with deep reverence, what a failure Christ’s teaching of them was until the Holy Spirit came! Christ taught them humility, time after time. He said, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart”. He said, time after time, “He that humbled himself shall be exalted.” Yet at the Holy Communion table there they were, still contending which of them should be chief. Christ did not conquer their pride. This was not for the want of divine teaching. Why was it, then? It was because of one thing: Christ was still outside of them, and He could not get into their heart to dwell there. It was impossible; the time had not come, and there they had the divine, almighty, blessed Redeemer along with them, but still outside. And how different they were from Him! To teach us that no outward instruction, even from Christ Himself, or His words in Holy Scripture, can bring us the true and full blessing, till the Holy Spirit works it in us. But what a change took place on the day of Pentecost! “At that day ye shall know that I am in you”. What does that mean? Christ in us, just the same as we are in this tent? No, we are in the tent, but we can go out of it again, and we do not suffer anything by it. I live in a house, but I can leave that house and go elsewhere. The tent and the house and I are not vitally, organically connected. But the Lord Jesus came to be I say it with reverence, part of those disciples, to fill their heart and thought and affection; and what Peter and James and John had, when they had Christ alongside of them, you and I have in a much larger measure, if we have the living Christ within us.
And how did that change come? By the Holy Spirit. “At that day” when the Spirit come “ye shall know that I am in you”; for the Father will love you, and I will love you, and we will come and make our abode in you. Oh! Does not your heart long for it? I have thought and thought of Jesus in Bethlehem, and of Jesus on Calvary, and of Jesus upon the throne, and I have worshiped and loved and rejoiced exceedingly in Him; but all the time I wanted something better and something deeper and something nearer. Is not what you want this to have the loving Jesus within yourselves? And that is what the Holy Spirit will give you, and that is why we want to plead with you tonight. Will you not give up yourselves for this blessing to be filled with the Spirit, that the blessed Jesus may be able to take possession of you? Is not that what your heart longs for? Jesus within the very Jesus, who is the Almighty One, who died on the Cross and sits upon the throne, condescending to be our life?
And that is what the Spirit comes for. Jesus said, “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and show it unto you”. And what is the glory of Jesus? His love and His power. And the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ in us, so that the wonderful love of Christ shall be a possession and a reality in its divine nearness, and that power of Christ shall have the mastery within us. You know that wonderful prayer in Ephesians 3, that the Father might strengthen them with might by the Spirit in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in their heart. The mighty power of the Holy Spirit can do it. The Holy Spirit makes Jesus present with us.
And then, the second thought in connection with the change wrought in the disciples: not only was Jesus outside of them, but Jesus was not always with them. They could not every moment be with Him.
You remember how, at one time, He sent them across the sea, and He stayed on the mountain to pray. You remember how, at another time, He took three of them with Him up into the mountain, and the others stayed down below; and there they had to Meet the Pharisees, and they could not cast out the evil spirit. There came times of separation, and at last there came that terrible death, that awful separation from them in this world. Yes, Christ was their life sometimes with Christ, and sometimes not with Him; sometimes near Him, and sometimes the crowd pressing around Him, and they could not get to Him. But, friends, the presence of Jesus by the Holy Ghost is meant to be unbroken, continual, and forever. Is not that what your heart longs for? Do not you know what it is sometimes to live a week or a month in a joy that makes your heart sing all the day. And the change comes, and the cloud and the darkness come and you do not know why it is sometimes with bodily sickness or depression, sometimes with the cares and the difficulties of this life, sometime with the consciousness of your own failure. Oh, child of God, would that I could tell it you and see it myself aright! Jesus does love you; He does not wish to be separated from you one minute; He cannot bear it. We want to believe in that love of Jesus. No mother ever so delighted in the baby she has in her arms as does the Christ of God in you. He wants to be most intimate with you, and to have most unceasing fellowship with you. Take that in, beloved believer, and say tonight: If that be possible, God helping me, I must have Jesus always dwelling in my heart.
Another thought. Look at the change it made in their own inner life. It was, up to Pentecost, a life of failure and of weakness. I have spoken of their pride. Christ had to reprove them for their pride, time after time. You know how they longed to be faithful to Him, and yet their pride and their self confidence was the cause of continual failure. Peter said to Him, “Lord, I will never deny Thee”, and all the others said the same; and yet within a few hours they did it, just as the result of pride and self confidence. They did not know the evil of their own nature. Jesus had done everything to teach them humility, but He had failed, and hence their weakness. Peter had said “I will go with Thee to prison and to death”, but at the word of a maid-servant he began to swear and to declare that he never knew the Man. What utter weakness! But what a change when Pentecost came! I will not say they had victory over sin, for I do not think it came in the way of direct fighting. But when the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God became their life, they were filled with the might and the power of the living Jesus, the Savior from sin.
You know, dear friends, that the great work of Jesus is to take away sin. And how does He take it away? Many Christians just look upon Him as taking it away on the Cross. Others get a step beyond that, and say : He takes it away from heaven; He cleanses and keeps me. But the true taking away of sin is this: if the light comes in, the darkness is expelled. It is the presence of Jesus, indwelling by the Holy Spirit, that can make us holy. And the disciples what a change came over them! See now how boldly, time after time, they can speak in the presence of those who threaten them with death. “We must obey God rather than men,” they said. They go to prison, and there they can sing praises to God at midnight. Oh the wonderful change in their life that the Holy Spirit wrought!
And what does that teach us? We very often speak about the self-life, and the life of the Holy Spirit. Have you said to God perhaps you have said it often “Lord , how can I be rid of this self-life?” Well. Has it been discovered to you? Has God’s finger reached the deep place of your heart , and have you been brought to say: O God, my failure is all my self-confidence, self-will, self-pleasing? There is that accursed self that will have its say in everything, and there is no power that can expel that but the power of the presence of Jesus.
You may get troubled about some theological definition, as to how it is all done, as to how much sin there remains, and how much there is cast out, but what we want you to believe is this : that though you cannot explain and expound all, believe that the Spirit of holiness which will be given is the holiness of Jesus in your heart, and be content with that. Filled with the Spirit, you have within you the power of the holiness of God to do the blessed work of sanctification.
And then, the third thought in regard to this wonderful blessedness of being filled with the Spirit. Look at the love that united them into one body. I spoke a little while ago about their contention. There was selfishness among them, often want of love; but when the Holy Spirit came down do not look only at what He did for each one of them individually He molded them into one body, and they felt conscious that they were the members of one Lord Jesus, and they loved each other, so that they did things which were utterly unheard of at that time. Though perfect strangers of each other, most of them, they began to sell their goods and give away their property, and to say they had all things in common. This was the result of the Holy Spirit having come down, as the very love of God in heaven, to dwell in their hearts.
And do not you find that your greatest difficulty in life is your relation to your fellow-Christians? Is not that our first temptation to sin our intercourse with our fellow Christians? Very often, people who have to work together differ in temperament and character, and how easily friction comes in! There are people who differ in regard to some theological truth or practical way of doing Christ’s work, and how they speak or write against each other! Alas, what separations there are in Christ’s Church on earth! Even amongst those who are professing to love God, and professing holiness and entire consecration, what divisions unceasingly come! It is such a sad thing. How many earnest Christians there are who have so much to say one about another! They can point out where I am wrong, and I can point out where they are wrong; but how few there are of Christians, differing from each other distinctly, who can say, “Above all our differences there is a unity which we must express; we want continual fellowship in the presence of our one Father.”
Do you want to have a heart overflowing with love to every child of God, to all the children of God outside your own circle? Do you want a heart of love that can set others on fire? Do you want the very love of heaven to flow out from you? Do you want the self-sacrificing love of Jesus to take possession of you, so that you can bear and forbear, so that with the long suffering and tenderness and gentleness, and the very meekness of Christ, the Lamb of God, you are willing to be the helper and servant of everyone, however unlovable or unlovely? Then you need to be filled with the Spirit. Cry for that, claim that, accept that, rest not till you have it. The Spirit is the Spirit of God’s love, and is the Spirit of the crucified love of Jesus. If we receive the Holy Ghost, the love of God will be shed abroad in our hearts, and God will melt us into one as never before.
And then, just one more thought, and it is in regard to their work. See what a difference Pentecost made! And I suppose we all feel at least many of us fell that is one of the important things in connection with speaking about being filled with the Holy Spirit. I doubt not but there are many workers here who can thank God for the way He has led them on, but who still feel that they want something very different. Joy in speaking of Jesus, they say, I have not got that always, the consciousness that God is using me as one of His instruments. Yet that is what God wants every worker to have.
Do not you feel that it would be an unutterable joy always to work in that spirit of absolute humility and dependence and nothingness, and with it all, a childlike trust that God will use you? Oh, how am I to get that? Look at the apostles, look at the disciples. I read that the Lord Jesus send them out to do three things to preach the gospel, to heal the sick, and to cast out devils; but I do not hear them tell about conversions. I do not think their preaching of the gospel really helped very much. It had to be done, but I do not know that it produced much result.
But when the Day of Pentecost came, listen to their preaching of the gospel not only to Peter’s they were all proclaiming the mighty works of God. What a blessing came! And it went on and on. What boldness they had, and what largeness of heart!
How they went on to Samaria and to Cesarean, and then to Antioch, and there waited upon God; and how within a very few years the gospel had been brought into Europe! It was the power of the Holy Spirit that did it. And we want that power for our work, and spiritual light and wisdom to see the large fields of work that are before us, even in our immediate neighborhood.
I thank God for all the interest He is awakening in heathendom and foreign missions, but I am afraid there is something that is getting neglected. And what is that? I thank God for all the interest there is in Darkest England, in the poor neglected ones, in the drunkards and those who are in danger of becoming drunkards, and in the poor outcast. But your middle classes, your richer and higher classes is there power in your Christianity to take the gospel to them boldly? Are not many of you members of churches and congregations, where you sit Sunday by Sunday with multitudes around you, of whom you know that they are unconverted? Is there not a need of divine wisdom and power to fit us for this work? Do we not need divine light and inspiration? Do we not need power, with a new love and boldness to pray and wait and work, and to see that not only those who are in China, or in Africa, or in other parts of the world shall have the gospel, but that the gospel shall be brought to those with whom we are associated every day? We thank God that during the last thirty years He has aroused Christians to work as never before; but let us understand that it is but a beginning, and if Christians will hold counsel with God, and wait upon God in prayer, and say to God that they are ready for His work is not God able to do far more than He has wrought hitherto?
But one thing is needed. The Spirit did it all, on the day of Pentecost and afterwards. It was the Spirit who gave the boldness, the Spirit gave the wisdom, the Spirit gave the message, and the Spirit gave the converting power.
And now, I speak to all workers, especially to those who feel the need of power to work, and I say, My brother, my sister, is not your whole heart ready to say That is what I want. I see it. Jesus did not send me to the warfare on my own charges; He did not bid me go and preach and teach in my own strength; Jesus meant me to have the fullness of the Holy Ghost. Whether I have a little Sunday school class or a Bible class, or some larger work, the one thing I need is the power of the Holy Ghost, to be filled with the Spirit.
Let me conclude by asking, Are we all prepared now to receive this from our Jesus? He loves to give it. God delights in nothing so much as to honor His Son, and it is honor to Jesus when souls are filled with the Holy Ghost, because then He proves what He can do for them. Shall we not claim it?
Just let me give you four very little words as steps. Let now everyone who longs for this blessing say, first of all, I must be filled. Say it to God in the depth of your heart. God commands it; I cannot live my life as I should live without it.
Then, say as the second step: I may be filled. It is possible the promise is for me. Settle that, and let all doubt vanish. These apostles, once so full of pride and of self-life, were filled with the Holy Spirit because they clave unto Jesus. And with all your sinfulness, if you will but cling to Him you may be filled.
Then thirdly, say: I would be filled. To get the “pearl of great price” you must sell all, you must give up everything. You are willing, are you not? Everything, Lord, if I may only have that. Lord, I would have it from Thee tonight.
And them comes the last step: I shall be filled. God longs to give it; I shall have it. Never mind whether it do not come tonight, because God is preparing you for it tomorrow. But say, I shall be filled. If I entrust myself to Jesus He cannot disappoint me. It is His very nature, it is His work in heaven, it is His delight to give souls the Holy Spirit in full measure. Oh, claim it tonight; I shall. My God, it is so solemn, it is almost awful; it is too blessed and too true Lord, wilt Thou not do it? My trembling heart says, I shall be filled with the Holy Spirit. Oh, say to God, “Father, I shall, for the name of my Savior is Jesus, who saves from all sin, and who fills with the Holy Spirit. Glory to His name!”.