One of the most deeply significant phrases used in connection with the
Holy Spirit in the Scriptures is “baptized with the Holy Ghost.” John the
Baptist was the first to use this phrase. In speaking of himself and the
coming One he said, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but
He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to
bear: _He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire_” (Matt.
iii. 11). The second “with” in this passage is in italics. It is not found
in the Greek. There are not two different baptisms spoken of, the one with
the Holy Ghost and one with fire, but one baptism with the Holy Wind and
Fire. Jesus afterwards used the same expression. In Acts i. 5, He says,
“For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be _baptized with the
Holy Ghost_ not many days hence.” When this promise of John the Baptist
and of our Lord was fulfilled in Acts ii. 3, 4, R. V., we read, “And there
appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and it sat
upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Here we have another expression “_filled with the Holy Spirit_” used
synonymously with “baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
We read again in Acts x. 44-46, “While Peter yet spake these words, _the
Holy Ghost fell on_ all them which heard the word. And they of the
circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter,
because that on the Gentiles also was _poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost_. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God.” Peter
himself afterwards describing this experience in Jerusalem tells the story
in this way, “And as I began to speak, _the Holy Ghost fell on them_, as
on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that
He said, John indeed baptized with water; but _ye shall be baptized with
the Holy Ghost_. Forasmuch then as _God gave them the like gift as He did
unto us_ who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could
withstand God?” (Acts xi. 15-17). Here Peter distinctly calls the
experience which came to Cornelius and his household, being _baptized with
the Holy Ghost_, so we see that the expression “the Holy Ghost fell” and
“the gift of the Holy Ghost” are practically synonymous expressions with
“baptized with the Holy Ghost.” Still other expressions are used to
describe this blessing, such as “receive the Holy Ghost” (Acts ii. 38;
xix. 2-6); “the Holy Ghost came on them” (Acts xix. 2-6); “gift of the
Holy Ghost” (Heb. ii. 4; 1 Cor. xii. 4, 11, 13); “I send the promise of My
Father upon you;” and “endued with power from on high” (Luke xxiv. 49).
_What is the baptism with the Holy Spirit?_
In the first place _the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite
experience of which one may and ought to know __ whether he has received
it or not_. This is evident from our Lord’s command to His disciples in
Luke xxiv. 49 and in Acts i. 4, that they should not depart from Jerusalem
to undertake the work which He had commissioned them to do until they had
received this promise of the Father. It is also evident from the eighth
chapter of Acts, fifteenth and sixteenth verses, where we are distinctly
told, “_the Holy Spirit had not as yet fallen upon any of them_.” It is
evident also from the nineteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, the
second verse, R. V., where Paul put to the little group of disciples at
Ephesus the definite question, “Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye
believed?” It is evident that the receiving of the Holy Ghost was an
experience so definite that one could answer yes or no to the question
whether they had received the Holy Spirit. In this case the disciples
definitely answered, “No,” that they did not so much as hear whether the
Holy Ghost was given. They did not say what our Authorized Version makes
them say, that they did not so much as hear whether there was any Holy
Ghost. They knew that there was a Holy Ghost; they knew furthermore that
there was a definite promise of the baptism with the Holy Ghost, but they
had not heard that that promise had been as yet fulfilled. Paul told them
that it had and took steps whereby they were definitely baptized with the
Holy Spirit before that meeting closed. It is equally evident from Gal.
iii. 2 that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of
which one may know whether he has received it or not. In this passage Paul
says to the believers in Galatia, “This only would I learn of you,
Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of
faith?” Their receiving the Spirit had been so definite as a matter of
personal consciousness, that Paul could appeal to it as a ground for his
argument. In our day there is much talk about the baptism with the Holy
Spirit and prayer for the baptism with the Spirit that is altogether vague
and indefinite. Men arise in meeting and pray that they may be baptized
with the Holy Spirit, and if you should go afterwards to the one who
offered the prayer and put to him the question, “Did you receive what you
asked? Were you baptized with the Holy Spirit?” it is quite likely that he
would hesitate and falter and say, “I hope so”; but there is none of this
indefiniteness in the Bible. The Bible is clear as day on this, as on
every other point. It sets forth an experience so definite and so real,
that one may know whether or not he has received the baptism with the Holy
Spirit, and can answer yes or no to the question, “Have you received the
Holy Ghost?”
In the second place it is evident that _the baptism with the Holy Spirit
is an operation of the Holy Spirit distinct from and additional to His
regenerating work_. This is evident from Acts i. 5, “For John truly
baptized with water; but ye _shall be_ baptized with the Holy Ghost _not
many days hence_.” It is clear then that the disciples had not as yet been
baptized with the Holy Ghost, that they were to be thus baptized not many
days hence. But the men to whom Jesus spoke these words were already
regenerate men. They had been so pronounced by our Lord Himself. He had
said to them in John xv. 3, “Now ye are _clean through the word_ which I
have spoken unto you.” But what does clean through the word mean? 1 Peter
i. 23 answers the question, “_Being born again_, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, _by the word of God_, which liveth and abideth
forever.” A little earlier on the same night Jesus had said to them in
John xiii. 10, R. V., “He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his
feet, but is clean every whit: and _ye are clean but not all_.” The Lord
Jesus had pronounced that apostolic company clean—_i. e._, regenerate
men—with the exception of the one who never was a regenerate man, Judas
Iscariot who should betray Him (see verse 11). The remaining eleven Jesus
Christ had pronounced regenerate men. Yet He tells these same men in Acts
i. 5, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit was an experience that they
had not as yet realized, that still lay in the future. So it is evident
that it is one thing to be born again by the Holy Spirit through the Word
and something distinct from this and additional to it to be baptized with
the Holy Spirit. The same thing is evident from Acts viii. 12, R. V.,
compared with the fifteenth and sixteenth verses of the same chapter. In
the twelfth verse we read that a large company of disciples had believed
the preaching of Philip concerning the kingdom of God _and the name of
Jesus Christ_, and “had been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus” (v.
16, R. V.). Certainly in this company of baptized believers there were at
least some regenerate persons. Whatever the true form of water baptism may
be, they undoubtedly had been baptized by the true form, for the baptizing
had been done by a Spirit-commissioned man, but in the fifteenth and
sixteenth verses we read, “When they (that is Peter and John) were come
down, they prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: for as
yet He was fallen upon none of them: only they had been baptized into the
name of the Lord Jesus.” Baptized believers they were; baptized into the
name of the Lord Jesus they had been; regenerate men some of them most
assuredly were, and yet not one of them as yet had received, or been
baptized with, the Holy Ghost. So again, it is evident that the baptism
with the Holy Spirit is an operation of the Holy Spirit distinct from and
additional to His regenerating work. A man may be regenerated by the Holy
Spirit and still not be baptized with the Holy Spirit. In regeneration,
there is the impartation of life by the Spirit’s power, and the one who
receives it is saved: in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there is the
impartation of power, and the one who receives it is fitted for service.
The baptism with the Holy Spirit, however, may take place at the moment of
regeneration. It did, for example, in the household of Cornelius. We read
in Acts x. 43, that while Peter was preaching, he came to the point where
he said concerning Jesus, “To Him bear all the prophets witness, that
through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of
sins,” and at that point Cornelius and his household believed and we read
immediately, “While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on
all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed
were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles
also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” The moment they believed
the testimony about Jesus, they were baptized with the Holy Ghost, even
before they were baptized with water. Regeneration and the baptism with
the Holy Spirit took place practically at the same moment, and so they do
in many an experience to-day. It would seem as if in a normal condition of
the church, this would be the usual experience. But the church is not in a
normal condition to-day. A very large part of the church is in the place
where the believers in Samaria were before Peter and John came down, and
where the disciples in Ephesus were before Paul came and told them of
their larger privilege—baptized believers, baptized into the name of the
Lord Jesus, baptized unto repentance and remission of sins, but not as yet
baptized with the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless _the baptism with the Holy
Spirit is the birthright of every believer_. It was purchased for us by
the atoning death of Christ, and when He ascended to the right hand of the
Father, He received the promise of the Father and shed Him forth upon the
church, and if any one to-day has not the baptism with the Holy Spirit as
a personal experience, it is because he has not claimed his birthright.
Potentially, every member of the body of Christ is baptized with the Holy
Spirit (1 Cor. xii. 13), “For in one Spirit, _we were all_ baptized into
one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” But there are many believers
with whom that which is potentially theirs has not become a matter of
real, actual, personal experience. All men are potentially justified in
the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross, that is justification is
provided for them and belongs to them (Rom. v. 18, R. V.), but what
potentially belongs to every man, each man must appropriate to himself by
faith in Christ; then justification is actually and experimentally his and
just so, while the baptism with the Holy Spirit is potentially the
possession of every believer, each individual believer must appropriate it
for himself before it is experimentally his. We may go still further than
this and say that it is only by the baptism with the Holy Spirit that one
becomes in the fullest sense a member of the body of Christ, because it is
only by the baptism with the Spirit that he receives power to perform
those functions for which God has appointed him as a part of the body.
As we have already seen every true believer has the Holy Spirit (Rom.
viii. 9), but not every believer has the baptism with the Holy Spirit
(though every believer may have as we have just seen). It is one thing to
have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, perhaps dwelling within us way
back in some hidden sanctuary of our being, back of definite
consciousness, and something far different, something vastly more, to have
the Holy Spirit taking complete possession of the one whom He inhabits.
There are those who press the fact that every believer potentially has the
baptism with the Spirit, to such an extent that they clearly teach that
every believer has the baptism with the Spirit as an actual experience.
But unless the baptism with the Spirit to-day is something radically
different from what the baptism with the Spirit was in the early church,
indeed unless it is something not at all real, then either a very large
proportion of those whom we ordinarily consider believers are not
believers, or else one may be a believer and a regenerate man without
having been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Certainly, this was the case in
the early church. It was the case with the Apostles before Pentecost; it
was the case with the church in Ephesus; it was the case with the church
in Samaria. And there are thousands to-day who can testify to having
received Christ and been born again, and then afterwards, sometimes long
afterwards, having been baptized with the Holy Ghost as a definite
experience. This is a matter of great practical importance, for there are
many who are not enjoying the fullness of privilege that they might enjoy
because by pushing individual verses in the Scriptures beyond what they
will bear and against the plain teaching of the Scriptures as a whole,
they are trying to persuade themselves that they have already been
baptized with the Holy Spirit when they have not. And if they would only
admit to themselves that they had not, they could then take the steps
whereby they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit as a matter of
definite, personal experience.
The next thing which is clear from the teaching of Scripture is that _the
baptism with the Holy Spirit is always connected with, and primarily for
the purpose of testimony and service_.
Our Lord in speaking of this baptism which they were so soon to receive in
Luke xxiv. 49 said, “And behold I send the promise of My Father upon you:
but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be _endued with power from
on high_.” And again He said in Acts i. 5, 8, “For John truly baptized
with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
hence.... But _ye shall receive power_ after that the Holy Ghost is come
upon you: and _ye shall be witnesses unto Me_, both in Jerusalem, and in
all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” In
the record of the fulfillment of this promise of our Lord in Acts ii. 4,
we read, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Then follows the
detailed account of what Peter said and of the result. The result was that
Peter and the other Apostles spoke with such power that three thousand
persons that day were convicted of sin, renounced their sin and confessed
their acceptance of Jesus Christ in baptism and continued steadfastly in
the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in
prayers ever afterwards. In the fourth chapter of Acts, the thirty-first
to the thirty-third verses, we read that when the Apostles on another
occasion were filled with the Holy Spirit, the result was that they
“_spake the word of God with boldness_” and that “_with great power gave
the Apostles their witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus_.” And in
the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we have a description of
Paul’s being baptized with the Holy Spirit. We read in the seventeenth to
the twentieth verses, “And Ananias went his way, and entered into the
house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even
Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me,
that thou mightest receive thy sight, and _be filled with the Holy Ghost_.
And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he
received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized. And when he had
received meat, he was strengthened.... And _straightway, he preached
Christ_ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God,” and in the
twenty-second verse we read that he “confounded the Jews which dwelt at
Damascus, proving that this is the Christ” (R. V.). In 1 Cor. xii. we have
the fullest discussion of the baptism with the Holy Spirit found in any
passage in the Bible. This is the classical passage on the whole subject.
And the results there recorded are gifts for service. The baptism with the
Holy Spirit is not primarily intended to make believers happy, but to make
them useful. It is not intended merely for the ecstasy of the individual
believer, it is intended primarily for his efficiency in service. I do not
say that the baptism with the Holy Spirit will not make the believer
happy; for as part of the fruit of the Spirit is “joy,” if one is baptized
with the Holy Spirit, joy must inevitably result. I have never known one
to be baptized with the Holy Spirit into whose life there did not come,
sooner or later, a new joy, a higher and purer and fuller joy than he had
ever known before. But this is not the prime purpose of the baptism nor
the most important and prominent result. Great emphasis needs to be laid
upon this point, for there are many Christians who in seeking the baptism
with the Spirit are seeking personal ecstasy and rapture. They go to
conventions and conferences for the deepening of the Christian life and
come back and tell what a wonderful blessing they have received, referring
to some new ecstasy that has come into their heart, but when you watch
them, it is difficult to see that they are any more useful to their
pastors or their churches than they were before, and one is compelled to
think that whatever they have received, they have not received the real
baptism with the Holy Spirit. Ecstasies and raptures are all right in
their places. When they come, thank God for them—the writer knows
something about them—but in a world such as we live in to-day where sin
and self-righteousness and unbelief are so triumphant, where there is such
an awful tide of men, women and young people sweeping on towards eternal
perdition, I would rather go through my whole life and never have one
touch of ecstasy but have power to witness for Christ and win others for
Christ and thus to save them, than to have raptures 365 days in the year
but no power to stem the awful tide of sin and bring men, women and
children to a saving knowledge of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
The purpose of the baptism with the Holy Spirit is not primarily to make
believers individually holy. I do not say that it is not the work of the
Holy Spirit to make believers holy, for as we have already seen, He is
“the Spirit of Holiness,” and the only way we shall ever attain unto
holiness is by His power. I do not even say that the baptism with the Holy
Spirit will not result in a great spiritual transformation and uplift and
cleansing, for the promise is, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit
_and fire_” (and the thought of fire as used in this connection is the
thought of searching, refining, cleansing, consuming). A wonderful
transformation took place in the Apostles at Pentecost, and a wonderful
transformation has taken place in thousands who have been baptized with
the Holy Spirit since Pentecost, _but the primary purpose of the baptism
with the Holy Spirit is efficiency in testimony and service_. It has to do
rather with gifts for service than with graces of character. It is the
impartation of spiritual power or gifts in service and sometimes one may
have rare gifts by the Spirit’s power and yet manifest few of the graces
of the Spirit. (See 1 Cor. xiii. 1-3; Matt. vii. 22, 23.) In every passage
in the Bible in which the baptism with the Holy Spirit is mentioned, it is
connected with testimony or service.
We shall perhaps get a clearer idea of just what the baptism with the Holy
Spirit is, if we stop to consider what are the results of the baptism with
the Holy Spirit.
WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF THE BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT?
1. _The specific manifestations of the baptism with the Holy Spirit are
not precisely the same in all persons._ This appears very clearly from 1
Cor. xii. 4-13, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there
are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in
all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another
the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same
Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the
working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of
spirits; to another divers kind of tongues; to another the interpretation
of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit,
dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and
hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are
one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into
one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” Here we see one baptism but
a great variety of manifestations of the power of that baptism. There are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. The gifts vary with the
different lines of service to which God calls different persons. The
church is a body, and different members of the body have different
functions and the Spirit imparts to the one who is baptized with the
Spirit those gifts which fit him for the service to which God has called
him. It is very important to bear this in mind. Through the failure to see
this, many have gone entirely astray on the whole subject. In my early
study of the subject, I noticed the fact that in many instances those who
were baptized with the Holy Spirit spake with tongues (_e. g._, Acts ii.
4; x. 46; xix. 6) and I wondered if every one who was baptized with the
Holy Spirit would not speak with tongues. I did not know of any one who
was speaking with tongues to-day and so I wondered still further whether
the baptism with the Holy Spirit were for the present age. But one day I
was studying 1 Cor. xii. and noticed how Paul said to the believers in
that wonderfully gifted church in Corinth, all of whom had been pronounced
in the thirteenth verse to be baptized with the Spirit, “And God hath set
some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly
teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments,
diversities of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all
teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gift of healing? _Do
all speak with tongues?_ Do all interpret?” So I saw it was clearly taught
in the Scriptures that one might be baptized with the Holy Spirit and
still not have the gift of tongues. I saw furthermore that the gift of
tongues, according to the Scripture, was the last and the least important
of all the gifts, and that we were urged to desire earnestly the greater
gifts (1 Cor. xiii. 31; 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 12, 14, 18, 19, 27, 28). A little
later I was tempted to fall into another error, more specious but in
reality just as unscriptural as this, namely, that if one were baptized
with the Holy Spirit, he would receive the gift of an evangelist. I had
read the story of D. L. Moody, of Charles G. Finney and of others who were
baptized with the Holy Spirit, and of the power that came to them as
evangelists, and the thought was suggested that if any one is baptized
with the Holy Spirit will not he also obtain power as an evangelist? But
this was also unscriptural. If God has called a man to be an evangelist
and he is baptized with the Holy Spirit, he will receive power as an
evangelist, but if God has called him to be something else, he will
receive power to become something else. Three great evils come from the
error of thinking that every one who is baptized with the Holy Spirit will
receive power as an evangelist.
(1) The evil of disappointment. There are many who seek the baptism with
the Holy Spirit expecting power as an evangelist, but God has not called
them to that work, and though they really meet the conditions of receiving
the baptism with the Spirit, and do receive the baptism with the Spirit,
power as an evangelist does not come. In many cases this results in bitter
disappointment and sometimes even in despair. The one who has expected the
power of an evangelist and has not received it sometimes even questions
whether he is a child of God. But if he had properly understood the
matter, he would have known that the fact that he had not received power
as an evangelist is no proof that he has not received the baptism with the
Spirit, and much less is it a proof that he is not a child of God.
(2) The second evil is graver still, namely, the evil of presumption. A
man whom God has not called to the work of an evangelist or a minister
oftentimes rushes into it because he has received, or imagines he has
received, the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He thinks all a man needs to
become a preacher is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. This is not true.
In order to succeed as a minister a man needs a call to that specific
work, and furthermore, he needs that knowledge of God’s Word that will
prepare him for the work. If a man is called to the ministry and studies
the Word until he has something to preach, if then he is baptized with the
Holy Spirit, he will have success as a preacher, but if he is not called
to that work, or if he has not the knowledge of the Word of God that is
necessary, he will not succeed in the work, even though he receives the
baptism with the Holy Spirit.
(3) The third evil is greater still, namely, the evil of indifference.
There are many who know that they are not called to the work of preaching.
If then they think that the baptism with the Holy Spirit simply imparts
power as an evangelist, or power to preach, the matter of the baptism with
the Holy Spirit is one of no personal concern to them. For example, here
is a mother with a large family of children. She knows perfectly well, or
at least it is hoped that she knows, that she is not called to do the work
of an evangelist. She knows that her duty lies with her children and her
home. If she reads or hears about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and
gets the impression that the baptism with the Holy Spirit simply imparts
power to do the work of an evangelist, or to preach, she will think “The
evangelist needs this blessing, my minister needs this blessing, but it is
not for me”; but if she understands the matter as it is taught in the
Bible, that while the baptism with the Spirit imparts power, the way in
which the power will be manifested depends entirely upon the line of work
to which God calls us, and that no efficient work can be done without it,
and sees still further that there is no function in the church of Jesus
Christ to-day more holy and sacred than that of sanctified motherhood, she
will say, “The evangelist may need this baptism, my minister may need this
baptism; but I must have it to bring up my children in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord.”
2. _While there are diversities of gifts and manifestations of the baptism
with the Holy Spirit, there will be some gift to every one thus baptized._
We read in 1 Cor. xii. 7, R. V., “But to _each one_ is given the
manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal.” Every most insignificant
member of the body of Christ has some function to perform in that body.
The body grows by that “which every joint supplieth” (Eph. iv. 16), and to
each least significant joint, the Holy Spirit imparts power to perform the
function that belongs to him.
3. _It is the Holy Spirit who decides how the baptism with the Spirit
shall manifest itself in any given case._ As we read in 1 Cor. xii. 11,
“But all these worketh the one and the selfsame Spirit dividing to each
one severally, _even as He will_.” The Holy Spirit is absolutely sovereign
in deciding how, that is, in what special gift, operation, or power, the
baptism with the Holy Spirit shall manifest itself. It is not for us to
pick out some field of service and then ask the Holy Spirit to qualify us
for that service. It is not for us to select some gift and then ask the
Holy Spirit to impart to us this self-chosen gift. It is for us to simply
put ourselves entirely at the disposal of the Holy Spirit to send us where
He will, to select for us what kind of service He will and to impart to us
what gift He will. He is absolute sovereign and our position is that of
unconditional surrender to Him. I am glad that this is so. I rejoice that
He, in His infinite wisdom and love, is to select the field of service and
the gifts, and that this is not to be left to me in my short-sightedness
and folly. It is because of the failure to recognize this absolute
sovereignty of the Spirit that many fail of the blessing and meet with
disappointment. They are trying to select their own gift and so get none.
I once knew an earnest child of God in Scotland, who hearing of the
baptism with the Holy Spirit and the power that resulted from it, gave up
at a great sacrifice his work as a ship plater, for which he was receiving
large wages. He heard that there was a great need of ministers in the
northwest in America. He came to the northwest. He met the conditions of
the baptism with the Holy Spirit and I believe was really baptized with
the Holy Spirit, but God had not chosen him for the work of an evangelist,
and the power as an evangelist did not come to him. No field seemed to
open, and he was in great despondency. He even questioned his acceptance
before God. One morning he came into our church in Minneapolis and heard
me speak upon the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and as I pointed out that
the baptism with the Holy Spirit manifested itself in many different ways,
and the fact that one had not power as an evangelist was no proof that he
had not received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, light came into his
heart. He put himself unreservedly into God’s hands for Him to choose the
field of labour and the gifts. An opening soon came to him as a
Sunday-school missionary, and then, when he had given up choosing for
himself and left it with the Holy Spirit to divide to him as He would, a
strange thing happened; he did receive power as an evangelist and went
through the country districts in one of our northwestern states with
mighty power as an evangelist.
4. _While the power may be of one kind in one person and of another kind
in another person, there will always be power, the very power of God, when
one is baptized with the Holy Spirit._ We read in Acts i. 5, 8, “For John
truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost
not many days hence.... But _ye shall receive power_, after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part
of the earth.” As truly as any one who reads these pages, who has not
already received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, seeks it in God’s way,
he will obtain it, and there will come into his service a power that was
never there before, power for the very work to which God has called him.
This is not only the teaching of Scripture; it is the teaching of
religious experience throughout the centuries. Religious biographies
abound in instances of men who have worked along as best they could, until
one day they were led to see that there was such an experience as the
baptism with the Holy Spirit and to seek it and obtain it and, from that
hour, there came into their service a new power that utterly transformed
its character. In this matter, one thinks first of such men as Finney, and
Moody, and Brainerd, but cases of this character are not confined to the
few exceptional men. They are common. The writer has personally met and
corresponded with hundreds and thousands of persons around the globe, who
could testify definitely to the new power that God has granted them
through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. These thousands of men and women
were in all branches of Christian service; some of them are ministers of
the Gospel, some evangelists, some mission workers, some Y. M. C. A.
secretaries, Sunday-school teachers, fathers, mothers, personal workers.
Nothing could possibly exceed the clearness and the confidence and the
joyfulness of many of these testimonies.
I shall not soon forget a minister whom I met some years ago at a State
Convention of the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavour at New
Britain, Conn. I was speaking upon the subject of personal work and as I
drew the address to a close, I said that in order to do effective personal
work, we must be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and in a very few
sentences explained what I meant by that. At the close of the address,
this minister came to me on the platform and said, “I have not this
blessing you have been speaking about, but I want it. Will you pray for
me?” I said, “Why not pray right now?” He said, “I will.” We put two
chairs side by side and turned our backs upon the crowd as they passed out
of the Armoury. He prayed and I prayed that he might be baptized with the
Holy Spirit. Then we separated. Some weeks after, one who had witnessed
the scene came to me at a convention in Washington and told me how this
minister had gone back to his church a transformed man, that now his
congregations filled the church, that it was largely composed of young
men, and that there were conversions at every service. Some years after,
this minister was called to another field of service. His most
spiritually-minded friends advised him not to go, as all the ruling
elements in the church to which he had been called were against aggressive
evangelistic work, but for some reason or other, he felt it was the call
of God and accepted it. In six months, there were sixty-nine conversions,
and thirty-eight of them were business men of the town.
After attending in Montreal some years ago an Inter-provincial Convention
of the Young Men’s Christian Association of the Provinces of Canada, I
received a letter from a young man. He wrote, “I was present at your last
meeting in Montreal. I heard you speak upon the Baptism with the Holy
Spirit. I went to my rooms and sought that baptism for myself and received
it. I am chairman of the Lookout Committee of the Christian Endeavour
Society of our church. I called together the other members of the
committee. I found that two of them had been at the meeting and had
already been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then we prayed for the other
members of the committee and they were baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now
we are going out into the church and the young people of the church are
being brought to Christ right along.”
A lady and gentleman once came to me at a convention and told me how,
though they had never seen me before, they had read the report of an
address on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit delivered in Boston at a
Christian Workers’ Convention and that they had sought this baptism and
had received it. The man then told me the blessing that had come into his
service as superintendent of the Sunday-school. When he had finished, his
wife broke in and said, “Yes, and the best part of it is, I have been able
to get into the hearts of my own children, which I was never able to do
before.” Here were three distinctly different lines of service, but there
was power in each case. The results of that power may not, however, be
manifest at once in conversions. Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit,
but as he witnessed in the power of the Holy Spirit for his risen Lord, he
saw no conversions at the time. All he saw was the gnashing of the teeth,
the angry looks and the merciless rocks, and so it may be with us. But
there was a conversion, even in that case, though it was a long time
before it was seen, and that conversion, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus,
was worth more than hundreds of ordinary conversions.
5. Another result of the baptism with the Holy Spirit will be _boldness in
testimony and service_. We read in Acts iv. 31, “And when they had prayed,
the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they _spake the word of God with
boldness_.” The baptism with the Holy Spirit imparts to those who receive
it new liberty and fearlessness in testimony for Christ. It converts
cowards into heroes. Peter upon the night of our Lord’s crucifixion proved
himself a craven coward. He denied with oaths and curses that he knew the
Lord. But after Pentecost, this same Peter was brought before the very
council that had condemned Jesus to death, and he himself was threatened,
but filled with the Holy Ghost, he said, “Ye rulers of the people, and
elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the
impotent man, by what means he is made whole; be it known unto you all,
and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, _whom ye crucified_, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him
doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set
at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither
is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 8-12). A little later
when the council commanded him and his companion, John, not to speak or
teach in the name of Jesus, they answered, “Whether it be right in the
sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we
cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts iv. 19,
20). On a still later occasion, when they were threatened and commanded
not to speak and when their lives were in jeopardy, Peter told the council
to their faces, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our
fathers raised up Jesus, _whom ye slew and hanged on a tree_. Him hath God
exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give
repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses of
these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them
that obey Him” (Acts v. 29-32). The natural timidity of many a man to-day
vanishes when he is filled with the Holy Spirit, and with great boldness
and liberty, with utter fearlessness of consequences, he gives his
testimony for Jesus Christ.
6. _The baptism with the Holy Spirit causes the one who receives it to be
occupied with God and Christ and spiritual things._ In the record of the
day of Pentecost, we read, “They were all filled with the Holy Ghost and
began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And
they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not
these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue,
wherein we were born? Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our
tongues _the wonderful works of God_” (Acts ii. 4, 7, 8, 11). Then follows
Peter’s sermon, a sermon that from start to finish is entirely taken up
with Jesus Christ and His glory. On a later day we read, “And when they
had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they _spake the word of God_
with boldness. And with great power gave the Apostles _witness of the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus_: and great grace was upon them all....
Then Peter, _filled with the Holy Ghost_, said unto them, Ye rulers of the
people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed
done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; be it known unto
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that _by the name of Jesus of
Nazareth_, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him
doth this man stand here before you whole” (Acts iv. 31, 33, 8-10). We
read of Saul of Tarsus, that when he had been filled with the Holy Spirit,
“Straightway in the synagogues _he proclaimed Jesus_” (Acts ix. 17, 20, R.
V.). We read of the household of Cornelius, “While Peter yet spake these
words, the Holy Ghost fell on them who heard the Word. And they of the
circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter,
because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy
Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and _magnify God_.” Here we
see the whole household of Cornelius as soon as they were filled with the
Holy Spirit magnifying God. In Eph. v. 18, 19, we are told that the result
of being _filled with the Spirit_ is that those who are thus filled will
speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and
making melody in their hearts _to the Lord_. Men who are filled with the
Holy Spirit will not be singing sentimental ballads, not comic ditties,
nor operatic airs while the power of the Holy Ghost is upon them. If the
Holy Ghost should come upon any one while listening to one of the most
innocent of the world’s songs, he would not enjoy it, he would long to
hear something about Christ. Men who are baptized with the Holy Spirit do
not talk much about self but much about God, and especially much about
Christ. This is necessarily so, as it is the Holy Spirit’s office to bear
witness to the glorified Christ (John xv. 26; xvi. 14).
To sum up everything that has been said about the results of the baptism
with the Holy Spirit; _the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
God coming upon the believer, filling his mind with a real apprehension of
truths, especially of Christ, taking possession of his faculties,
imparting to him gifts not otherwise his but which qualify him for the
service to which God has called him._
THE NECESSITY OF THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
The New Testament has much to say about the necessity for the baptism with
the Holy Spirit. When our Lord was about to leave His disciples to go to
be with the Father, He said, “And, behold, I send the promise of My Father
upon you: but _tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with
power from on high_” (Luke xxiv. 49). He had just commissioned them to be
His witnesses to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem (vs. 47, 48), but He
here tells them that before they undertake this witnessing, they must wait
until they receive the promise of the Father, and were thus endued with
power from on high for the work of witnessing which they were to
undertake. There is no doubt as to what Jesus meant by “the promise of My
Father,” for which they were to wait before beginning the ministry that He
had laid upon them; for in Acts i. 4, 5, we read, “And being assembled
together with them (He), commanded them that they should not depart from
Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye
have heard of Me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” It is evident then that
“the promise of the Father” through which the enduement of power was to
come was the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He went on to tell His
disciples “Ye shall receive power _after that_ the Holy Ghost shall come
upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts i.
8). Now who were the men to whom Jesus said this? The disciples whom He
Himself had trained for the work. For more than three years, they had
lived in the closest intimacy with Himself; they had been eye-witnesses of
His miracles, of His death, of His resurrection, and in a few moments were
to be eye-witnesses of His ascension as He was taken up right before their
eyes into heaven. And what were they to do? Simply to go and tell the
world what their own eyes had seen and what their own ears had heard from
the lips of the Son of God. Were they not equipped for the work? With our
modern ideas of preparation for Christian work, we should say that they
were thoroughly equipped. But Jesus said, “No, you are not equipped. There
is another preparation in addition to the preparation already received, so
absolutely necessary for effective work that you must not stir one step
until you receive it. This other preparation is the promise of the Father,
the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” If the Apostles with their altogether
exceptional fitting for the work which they were to undertake needed this
preparation for work, how much more do we? In the light of what Jesus
required of His disciples before undertaking the work, does it not seem
like the most daring presumption for any of us to undertake to witness and
work for Christ until we also have received the promise of the Father, the
baptism with the Holy Spirit? There was apparently imperative need that
something be done at once. The whole world was perishing and they alone
knew the saving truth, nevertheless Jesus strictly charged them “wait.”
Could there be a stronger testimony to the absolute necessity and
importance of the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a preparation for work
that should be acceptable to Christ?
But this is not all. In Acts x. 38 we read, “How _God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power_; who went about doing good, and
healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him.” To
what does this refer in the recorded life of Jesus Christ? If we will turn
to Luke iii. 21, 22, and Luke iv. 1, 4, 17, 18, we will get our answer. In
Luke iii. 21, 22, R. V., we read that after Jesus had been baptized and
was praying, “The heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a
bodily form, as a dove, upon Him, and a voice came out of heaven, Thou art
My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.” Then the next thing that we
read, with nothing intervening but the human genealogy of Jesus, is “And
Jesus, _full of the Holy Spirit_, returned from the Jordan, and was led by
the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke iv. 1). Then follows the story of His
temptation; then in the fourteenth verse we read, “And Jesus returned _in
the power of the Spirit_ into Galilee: and a fame went out concerning Him
through all the region round about.” And in the seventeenth and eighteenth
verses, “And there was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Isaiah.
And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The
Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because _He hath anointed Me to preach_,
etc.” Evidently then, it was at the Jordan in connection with His baptism
that Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit and power, and He did not
enter upon His public ministry until He was thus baptized with the Holy
Spirit. And who was Jesus? It is the common belief of Christendom that He
had been supernaturally conceived through the Holy Spirit’s power, that He
was the only begotten Son of God, that He was Divine, very God of very
God, and yet truly man. If such an One “leaving us an example that we
should follow His steps” did not venture upon His ministry, for which the
Father had sent Him, until thus definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit,
what is it for us to dare to do it? If in the light of these recorded
facts we dare to do it, does it not seem like the most unpardonable
presumption? Doubtless it has been done in ignorance by many of us, but
can we plead ignorance any longer? It is evident that the baptism with the
Holy Spirit is an absolutely necessary preparation for effective work for
Christ along every line of service. We may have a very clear call to
service, as clear it may be as the Apostles had, but the charge is laid
upon us as upon them, that before we begin that service we must tarry
until we are clothed with power from on high. This enduement of power is
through the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
But this is not all even yet. We read in Acts vii. 14-16, “Now when the
Apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word
of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down,
_prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost_ (for as yet He
was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the
Lord Jesus).” There was a great company of happy converts in Samaria, but
when Peter and John came down to inspect the work, they evidently felt
that there was something so essential that these young disciples had not
received that before they did anything else, they must see to it that they
received it. In a similar way we read in Acts xix. 1, 2, R. V., “And it
came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed
through the upper country came to Ephesus, and found certain disciples:
and he said unto them, Did ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed?”
When he found that they had not received the Holy Spirit, the first thing
that he saw to was that they should receive the Holy Spirit. He did not go
on with the work with the outsiders until that little group of twelve
disciples had been equipped for service. So we see that when the Apostles
found believers in Christ, the first thing that they always did was to
demand whether they had received the Holy Spirit as a definite experience
and if not, they saw to it at once that the steps were taken whereby they
should receive the Holy Spirit. It is evident then that _the baptism with
the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary in every Christian for the service
that Christ demands and expects of him_. There are certainly few greater
mistakes that we are making to-day in our various Christian enterprises
than that of setting men to teach Sunday-school classes and do personal
work and even to preach the Gospel, because they have been converted and
received a certain amount of education, including it may be a college and
seminary course, but have not as yet been baptized with the Holy Spirit.
We think that if a man is hopefully pious and has had a college and
seminary education and comes out of it reasonably orthodox, he is now
ready that we should lay our hands upon him and ordain him to preach the
Gospel. But Jesus Christ says, “No.” There is another preparation so all
essential that a man must not undertake this work until he has received
it. “Tarry ye (literally ‘sit ye down’) until ye be endued with power from
on high.” A distinguished theological professor has said that the question
ought to be put to every candidate for the ministry, “Have you met God?”
Yes, but we ought to go farther than this and be even more definite; to
every candidate for the ministry we should put the question, “Have you
been baptized with the Holy Spirit?” and if not, we should say to him as
Jesus said to the first preachers of the Gospel, “Sit down until you are
endued with power from on high.”
But not only is this true of ordained ministers, it is true of every
Christian, for all Christians are called to ministry of some kind. Any man
who is in Christian work, who has not received the baptism with the Holy
Spirit, ought to stop his work right where he is and not go on with it
until he has been “clothed with power from on high.” But what will our
work do while we are waiting? The question can be answered by asking
another, “What did the world do during these ten days while the early
disciples were waiting?” They knew the saving truth, they alone knew it;
yet in obedience to the Lord’s command they were silent. The world was no
loser. Beyond a doubt, when the power came, they accomplished more in one
day than they would have accomplished in years if they had gone on in
self-confident defiance and disobedience to Christ’s command. We too after
that we have received the baptism with the Spirit will accomplish more of
real work for our Lord in one day than we ever would in years without this
power. Even if it were necessary to spend days in waiting, they would be
well spent, but we shall see later that there is no need that we spend
days in waiting, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit may be received
to-day. Some one may say that the Apostles had gone on missionary tours
during Christ’s lifetime, even before they were baptized with the Holy
Spirit. This is true, but that was before the Holy Spirit was given, and
before the command was given, “Tarry ye until ye be clothed with power
from on high.” After that it would have been disobedience and folly and
presumption to have gone forth without this enduement, and we are living
to-day after the Holy Spirit has been given and after the charge has been
given to tarry until clothed.
WHO CAN BE BAPTIZED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT?
We come now to the question of first importance, namely, Who can be
baptized with the Holy Spirit? At a convention some years ago, a very
intelligent Christian woman, a well-known worker in educational as well as
Sunday-school work, sent me this question, “You have told us of the
necessity of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, but who can have this
baptism? The church to which I belong teaches that the baptism with the
Holy Spirit was confined to the apostolic age. Will you not tell us who
can have the baptism with the Holy Spirit?” Fortunately this question is
answered in the most explicit terms in the Bible. We read in Acts ii. 38,
39, R. V., “And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one
of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For to you is the promise, and
to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord
our God shall call unto Him.” What is the promise to which Peter refers in
the thirty-ninth verse? There are two interpretations of the passage; one
is that the promise of this verse is the promise of salvation; the other
is that the promise of this verse is the promise of the gift of the Holy
Spirit (or the baptism with the Holy Spirit; a comparison of Scripture
passages will show that the two expressions are synonymous). Which is the
correct interpretation? There are two laws of interpretation universally
recognized among Bible scholars. These two laws are the law of usage (or
“usus loquendi” as it is called) and the law of context. Many a verse in
the Bible standing alone might admit of two or three or even more
interpretations, but when these two laws of interpretation are applied, it
is settled to a certainty that only one of the various possible
interpretations is the true interpretation. The law of usage is this, that
when you find a word or phrase in any passage of Scripture and you wish to
know what it means, do not go to a dictionary but go to the Bible itself,
look up the various passages in which the word is used and especially how
the particular writer being studied uses it, and especially how it is used
in that particular book in which the passage is found. Thus you can
determine what the precise meaning of the word or phrase is in the passage
in question. The law of context is this; that when you study a passage,
you should not take it out of its connection but should look at what goes
before it and what comes after it; for while it might mean various things
if it stood alone, it can only mean one thing in the connection in which
it is found. Now let us apply these two laws to the passage in question.
First of all, let us apply the law of usage. We are trying to discover
what the expression “the promise” means in Acts ii. 39. Turning back to
Acts i. 4, 5, R. V., we read, “He charged them not to depart from
Jerusalem, but to wait for _the promise of the Father_, which, said He, ye
heard from Me: for John indeed baptized with water, but ye _shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence_.” It is evident then,
that here the promise of the Father means the baptism with the Holy
Spirit. Turn now to the second chapter and the thirty-third verse, R. V.,
“Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received _of
the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost_, He hath poured forth this,
which ye see and hear.” In this passage we are told in so many words that
the promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit. If this peculiar expression
means the baptism with the Holy Spirit in Acts i. 4, 5, and the same thing
in Acts ii. 33, by what same law of interpretation can it possibly mean
something entirely different six verses farther down in Acts ii. 39? So
the law of usage establishes it that the promise of Acts ii. 39 is the
promise of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Now let us apply the law of
context, and we shall find that, if possible, this is even more decisive.
Turn back to the thirty-eighth verse, “And Peter said unto them, Repent
ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the
remission of your sins; and _ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost;
for the promise_ is unto you, etc.” So it is evident here that the promise
is the promise of the gift or baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is settled
then by both laws that the promise of Acts ii. 39 is that of the gift of
the Holy Spirit, or baptism with the Holy Spirit. Let us then read the
verse in that way, substituting this synonymous expression for the
expression “the promise,” “For the baptism with the Spirit is unto you,
and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the
Lord our God shall call.” “_It is unto you_,” says Peter, that is to the
crowd assembled before him. There is nothing in that for us. We were not
there, and that crowd were all Jews and we are not Jews; but Peter did not
stop there, he goes further and says, “And _to your children_,” that is to
the next generation of Jews, or all future generations of Jews. Still
there is nothing in it for us, for we are not Jews; but Peter did not stop
even there, he went further and said, “And _to all them that are afar
off_.” That does take us in. We are the Gentiles who were once “afar off,”
but now “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph. ii. 13, 17). But lest
there be any mistake about it whatever, Peter adds “even as many as the
Lord our God shall call unto Him.” So on the very day of Pentecost, Peter
declares that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is for every child of God
in every coming age of the church’s history. Some years ago at a
ministerial conference in Chicago, a minister of the Gospel from the
Southwest came to me after a lecture on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit
and said, “The church to which I belong teaches that the baptism with the
Holy Spirit was for the apostolic age alone.” “I do not care,” I replied,
“what the church to which you belong teaches, or what the church to which
I belong teaches. The only question with me is, What does the Word of God
teach?” “That is right,” he said. I then handed him my Bible and asked him
to read Acts ii. 39, and he read, “For the promise is unto you, and unto
your children and to all them that are afar off even as many as the Lord
our God shall call unto Him” (R. V.). “Has He called you?” I asked. “Yes,
He certainly has.” “Is the promise for you then?” “Yes, it is.” He took it
and the result was a transformed ministry. Some years ago at a students’
conference, the gatherings were presided over by a prominent Episcopalian
minister, a man greatly honoured and loved. I spoke at this conference on
the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, and dwelt upon the significance of Acts
ii. 39. That night as we sat together after the meetings were over, this
servant of God said to me, “Brother Torrey, I was greatly interested in
what you had to say to-day on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. If your
interpretation of Acts ii. 39 is correct, you have your case, but I doubt
your interpretation of Acts ii. 39. Let us talk it over.” We did talk it
over. Several years later, in July, 1894, I was at the students’
conference at Northfield. As I entered the back door of Stone Hall that
day, this Episcopalian minister entered the front door. Seeing me he
hurried across the hall and held out his hand and said, “You were right
about Acts ii. 39 at Knoxville, and I believe I have a right to tell you
something better yet, that I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit.” I
am glad that I was right about Acts ii. 39, not that it is of any
importance that I should be right, but the truth thus established is of
immeasurable importance. Is it not glorious to be able to go literally
around the world and face audiences of believers all over the United
States, in the Sandwich Islands, in Australia and Tasmania and New
Zealand, in China and Japan and India, in England and Scotland, Ireland,
Germany, France and Switzerland and to be able to tell them, and to know
that you have God’s sure Word under your feet when you do tell them, “You
may all be baptized with the Holy Spirit”? But that unspeakably joyous and
glorious thought has its solemn side. If we may be baptized with the Holy
Spirit then we _must_ be. If we are baptized with the Holy Spirit then
souls will be saved through our instrumentality who will not be saved if
we are not thus baptized. If then we are not willing to pay the price of
this baptism and therefore are not thus baptized we shall be responsible
before God for every soul that might have been saved who was not saved
because we did not pay the price and therefore did not obtain the
blessing. I often tremble for myself and for my brethren in the ministry,
and not only for my brethren in the ministry but for my brethren in all
forms of Christian work, even the most humble and obscure. Why? Because we
are preaching error? No, alas, there are many in these dark days who are
doing that, and I do tremble for them; but that is not what I mean now. Do
I mean that I tremble because we are not preaching the truth? for it is
quite possible not to preach error and yet not preach the truth; many a
man has never preached a word of error in his life, but still is not
preaching the truth, and I do tremble for them; but that is not what I
mean now. I mean that I tremble for those of us who are preaching the
truth, the very truth as it is in Jesus, the truth as it is recorded in
the written Word of God, the truth in its simplicity, its purity and its
fullness, but who are preaching it in “persuasive words of man’s wisdom”
and not “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor. ii. 4, R.
V.). Preaching it in the energy of the flesh and not in the power of the
Holy Spirit. There is nothing more death dealing than the Gospel without
the Spirit’s power. “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” It
is awfully solemn business preaching the Gospel either from the pulpit or
in more quiet ways. It means death or life to those that hear, and whether
it means death or life depends very largely on whether we preach it with
or without the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
WE MUST BE BAPTISED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.
Even after one has been baptized with the Holy Spirit, no matter how
definite that baptism may be, he needs to be filled again and again with
the Spirit. This is the clear teaching of the New Testament. We read in
Acts ii. 4, “_They were all filled_ with the Holy Ghost and began to speak
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Now one of those
who was present on this occasion and who therefore was filled at this time
with the Holy Spirit was Peter. Indeed, he stands forth most prominently
in the chapter as a man baptized with the Holy Spirit. But we read in Acts
iv. 8, “Then Peter, _filled with the Holy Ghost_, said unto them, etc.”
Here we read again that Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost. Further down
in the chapter we read, in the thirty-first verse, that being assembled
together and praying, they were “_all filled with the Holy Ghost_, and
they spake the Word of God with boldness.” We are expressly told in the
context that two of those present were John and Peter. Here then was _a
third instance in which Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit_. It is not
enough that one be filled with the Holy Spirit once. We, need a new
filling for each new emergency of Christian service. The failure to
realize this need of constant refillings with the Holy Spirit has led to
many a man who at one time was greatly used of God, being utterly laid
aside. There are many to-day who once knew what it was to work in the
power of the Holy Spirit who have lost their unction and their power. I do
not say that the Holy Spirit has left them—I do not believe He has—but the
manifestation of His presence and power has gone. One of the saddest
sights among us to-day is that of the men and women who once toiled for
the Master in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit who are now practically
of no use, or even a hindrance to the work, because they are trying to go
in the power of the blessing received a year or five years or twenty years
ago. For each new service that is to be conducted, for each new soul that
is to be dealt with, for each new work for Christ that is to be performed,
for each new day and each new emergency of Christian life and service, we
should seek and obtain a new filling with the Holy Spirit. We must not
“neglect” the gift that is in us (1 Tim. iv. 14), but on the contrary
“kindle anew” or “stir into flame” this gift (1 Tim. i. 6, R. V., margin).
Repeated fillings with the Holy Spirit are necessary to continuance and
increase of power.
The question may arise, “Shall we call these new fillings with the Holy
Spirit ‘fresh baptisms’ with the Holy Spirit?” To this we would answer,
the expression “baptism” is never used in the Scriptures of a second
experience and there is something of an initiatory character in the very
thought of baptism, so if one wishes to be precisely Biblical, it would
seem to be better not to use the term “baptism” of a second experience but
to limit it to the first experience. On the other hand “_filled_ with the
Holy Spirit” is used in Acts ii. 4, to describe the experience promised in
Acts i. 5, where the words used are “Ye shall be _baptized with the Holy
Ghost_.” And it is evident from this and from other passages that the two
expressions are to a large extent practically synonymous. However, if we
confine the expression “baptism with the Holy Spirit” to our first
experience, we shall be more exactly Biblical and it would be well to
speak of one baptism but many fillings. But I would a great deal rather
that one should speak about new or fresh baptisms with the Holy Spirit,
standing for the all-important truth that we need repeated fillings with
the Holy Spirit, than that he should so insist on exact phraseology that
he would lose sight of the truth that repeated fillings are needed, _i.
e._, I would rather have the right experience by a wrong name, than the
wrong experience by the right name. This much is as clear as day, that we
need to be filled again and again and again with the Holy Spirit. I am
sometimes asked, “Have you received _the second blessing_?” Yes, and the
third and the fourth and the fifth and hundreds beside, and I am looking
for a new blessing to-day.
We come now to the question of first practical importance, namely, WHAT
MUST ONE DO IN ORDER TO OBTAIN THE BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT? This
question is answered in the plainest and most positive way in the Bible. A
plain path is laid down in the Bible consisting of a few simple steps that
any one can take, and it is absolutely certain that any one who takes
these steps will enter into the blessing. This is, of course, a very
positive statement, and we would not dare be so positive if the Bible were
not equally positive. But what right have we to be uncertain when the Word
of God is positive? There are seven steps in this path:
1. The first step is that we _accept Jesus Christ as our Saviour and
Lord_. We read in Acts ii. 38, R. V., “Repent ye, and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” Is not this statement as
positive as that which we made above? Peter says that if we do certain
things, the result will be, “Ye _shall receive_ the gift of the Holy
Ghost.” All seven steps are in this passage, but we shall refer later to
other passages as throwing light upon this. The first two steps are in the
word “repent.” “_Repent_ ye,” said Peter. What does it mean to repent? The
Greek word for repentance means “an afterthought” or “change of mind.” To
repent then means to change your mind. But change your mind about what?
About three things; about God, about Jesus Christ, about sin. What the
change of mind is about in any given instance must be determined by the
context. As determined by the context in the present case, the change of
mind is primarily about Jesus Christ. Peter had just said in the
thirty-sixth verse, R. V., “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.
When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart,” as well they
might be, “and said unto Peter and the rest of the Apostles, Brethren,
what shall we do?” Then it was that Peter said, “Repent ye,” “Change your
mind about Jesus, change your mind from that attitude of mind that
rejected Him and crucified Him to that attitude of mind that accepts Him
as Lord and King and Saviour.” This then is the first step towards
receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit; receive Jesus as Saviour and
Lord; first of all receive Him as your Saviour. Have you done that?
What does it mean to receive Jesus as Saviour? It means to accept Him as
the One who bore our sins in our place on the cross (Gal. iii. 13; 2 Cor.
v. 21) and to trust God to forgive us because Jesus Christ died in our
place. It means to rest all our hope of acceptance before God upon the
finished work of Christ upon the cross of Calvary. There are many who
profess to be Christians who have not done this. When you go to many who
call themselves Christians and ask them if they are saved, they reply,
“Yes.” Then if you put to them the question “Upon what are you resting as
the ground of your salvation?” they will reply something like this, “I go
to church; I say my prayers, I read my Bible, I have been baptized, I have
united with the church, I partake of the Lord’s supper, I attend
prayer-meeting, and I am trying to live as near right as I know how.” If
these things are what you are resting upon as the ground of your
acceptance before God, then you are not saved, for all these things are
your own works (all proper in their places but still your own works) and
we are distinctly told in Rom. iii. 20, R. V., that “By the works of the
law shall no flesh be justified in His sight.” But if you go to others and
ask them if they are saved, they will reply “Yes.” And then if you ask
them upon what they are resting as the ground of their acceptance before
God, they will reply something to this effect, “I am not resting upon
anything I ever did, or upon anything I am ever going to do; I am resting
upon what Jesus Christ did for me when He bore my sins in His own body on
the cross. I am resting in His finished work of atonement.” If this is
what you are really resting upon, then you are saved, you have accepted
Jesus Christ as your Saviour and you have taken the first step towards the
baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The same thought is taught elsewhere in the Bible, for example in Gal.
iii. 2. Here Paul asks of the believers in Galatia, “Received ye the Holy
Spirit by the works of the law, or _by the hearing of faith_?” Just what
did he mean? On one occasion when Paul was passing through Galatia, he was
detained there by some physical infirmity. We are not told what it was,
but at all events, he was not so ill but that he could preach to the
Galatians the Gospel, or glad tidings, that Jesus Christ had redeemed them
from the curse of the law by becoming a curse in their place, by dying on
the cross of Calvary. These Galatians believed this testimony; this was
the hearing of faith, and God set the stamp of His endorsement upon their
faith by giving them as a personal experience the Holy Spirit. But after
Paul had left Galatia, certain Judaizers came down from Jerusalem, men who
were substituting the law of Moses for the Gospel and taught them that it
was not enough that they simply believe on Jesus Christ but in addition to
this they must keep the law of Moses, especially the law of Moses
regarding circumcision, and that without circumcision they could not be
saved—_i. e._, they could not be saved by simple faith in Jesus (cf. Acts
xv. 1). These young converts in Galatia became all upset. They did not
know whether they were saved or not; they did not know what they ought to
do, and all was confusion. It was just as when modern Judaizers come
around and get after young converts and tell them that in addition to
believing in Jesus Christ, they must keep the Mosaic Seventh Day Sabbath,
or they cannot be saved. This is simply the old controversy breaking out
at a new point. When Paul heard what had happened in Galatia, he was very
indignant and wrote the Epistle to the Galatians simply for the purpose of
exposing the utter error of these Judaizers. He showed them how Abraham
himself was justified before he was circumcised by simply believing God
(Gal. iii. 6), and how he was circumcised after he was justified as a seal
of the faith which he already had while he was in uncircumcision. But in
addition to this proof of the error of the Judaizers, Paul appeals to
their own personal experience. He says to them, “You received the Holy
Spirit, did you not?” “Yes.” “How did you receive the Holy Spirit, by
keeping the law of Moses, or by the hearing of faith, the simple accepting
of God’s testimony about Jesus Christ that your sins were laid upon Him,
and that you are thus justified and saved?” The Galatians had had a very
definite experience of receiving the Holy Spirit and Paul appeals to it,
and recalls to their mind how it was by the simple hearing of faith that
they had received the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is God’s
seal upon the simple acceptance of God’s testimony about Jesus Christ,
that our sins were laid upon Him, and thus trusting God to forgive us and
justify us. This then is the first step towards receiving the Holy Spirit.
But we must not only receive Jesus as Saviour, we must also receive Him as
Lord. Of this we shall speak further in connection with another passage in
the fourth step.
2. The second step in the path that leads into the blessing of being
baptized with the Holy Spirit is _renunciation of sin_. Repentance as we
have seen is a change of mind about sin as well as a change of mind about
Christ; a change of mind from that attitude of mind that loves sin and
indulges sin to that attitude of mind that hates sin and renounces sin.
This then is the second step—renunciation of sin. The Holy Spirit is a
_Holy_ Spirit and we cannot have both Him and sin. We must make our choice
between the Holy Spirit and unholy sin. We cannot have both. He that will
not give up sin cannot have the Holy Spirit. It is not enough that we
renounce one sin or two sins or three sins or many sins, we must _renounce
all sin_. If we cling to one single known sin, it will shut us out of the
blessing. Here we find the cause of failure in many people who are praying
for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, going to conventions and hearing
about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, reading books about the baptism
with the Holy Spirit, perhaps spending whole nights in prayer for the
baptism with the Holy Spirit, and yet obtaining nothing. Why? Because
there is some sin to which they are clinging. People often say to me, or
write to me, “I have been praying for the baptism with the Holy Spirit for
a year (five years, ten years, one man said twenty years). Why do I not
receive?” In many such cases, I feel led to reply, “It is sin, and if I
could look down into your heart this moment as God looks into your heart,
I could put my finger on the specific sin.” It may be what you are pleased
to call a small sin, but there are no small sins. There are sins that
concern small things, but every sin is an act of rebellion against God and
therefore no sin is a small sin. A controversy with God about the smallest
thing is sufficient to shut one out of the blessing. Mr. Finney tells of a
woman who was greatly exercised about the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
Every night after the meetings, she would go to her rooms and pray way
into the night and her friends were afraid she would go insane, but no
blessing came. One night as she prayed, some little matter of head
adornment, a matter that would probably not trouble many Christians
to-day, but a matter of controversy between her and God, came up (as it
had often come up before) as she knelt in prayer. She put her hand to her
head and took the pins out of her hair and threw them across the room and
said, “There go!” and instantly the Holy Ghost fell upon her. It was not
so much the matter of head adornment as the matter of controversy with God
that had kept her out of the blessing.
If there is anything that always comes up when you get nearest to God,
that is the thing to deal with. Some years ago at a convention in a
Southern state, the presiding officer, a minister in the Baptist Church,
called my attention to a man and said, “That man is the pope of our
denomination in ——; everything he says goes, but he is not at all with us
in this matter, but I am glad to see him here.” This minister kept
attending the meetings. At the close of the last meeting where I had
spoken upon the conditions of receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit,
I found this man awaiting me in the vestibule. He said, “I did not stand
up on your invitation to-day.” I replied, “I saw you did not.” “I thought
you said,” he continued, “that you only wanted those to stand who could
say they had absolutely surrendered to God?” “That is what I did say,” I
replied. “Well, I could not say that.” “Then you did perfectly right not
to stand. I did not want you to lie to God.” “Say,” he continued, “you hit
me pretty hard to-day. You said if there was anything that always comes up
when you get nearest to God, that is the thing to deal with. Now there is
something that always comes up when I get nearest to God. I am not going
to tell you what it is. I think you know.” “Yes,” I replied. (I could
smell it.) “Well, I simply wanted to say this to you.” This was on Friday
afternoon. I had occasion to go to another city, and returning through
that city the following Tuesday morning, the minister who had presided at
the meeting was at the station. “I wish you could have been in our Baptist
ministers’ meeting yesterday morning,” he said; “that man I pointed out to
you from the north part of the state was present. He got up in our meeting
and said, ‘Brethren, we have been all wrong about this matter,’ and then
he told what he had done. He had settled his controversy with God, had
given up the thing which had always come up when he got nearest to God,
then he continued and said, ‘Brethren, I have received a more definite
experience than I had when I was converted.’ ” Just such an experience is
waiting many another, both minister and layman, just as soon as he will
judge his sin, just as soon as he will put away the thing that is a matter
of controversy between him and God, no matter how small the thing may
seem. If any one sincerely desires the baptism with the Holy Spirit, he
should go alone with God and ask God to search him and bring to light
anything in his heart or life that is displeasing to Him, and when He
brings it to light, he should put it away. If after sincerely waiting on
God, nothing is brought to light, then we may proceed to take the other
steps. But there is no use praying, no use going to conventions, no use in
reading books about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, no use in doing
anything else, until we judge our sins.
3. The third step is _an open confession of our renunciation of sin and
our acceptance of Jesus Christ_. After telling his hearers to repent in
Acts ii. 38, Peter continues and tells them to be “baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins.” Heart
repentance alone was not enough. There must be an open confession of that
repentance, and God’s appointed way of confession of repentance is
baptism. None of those to whom Peter spoke had ever been baptized, and, of
course, what Peter meant in that case was water baptism. But suppose one
has already been baptized, what then? Even in that case, there must be
that for which baptism stands, namely, an open confession of our
renunciation of sin and our acceptance of Jesus Christ. The baptism with
the Spirit is not for the secret disciple, but for the open confessed
disciple. There are many doubtless to-day who are trying to be Christians
in their hearts, many who really believe that they have accepted Jesus as
their Saviour and their Lord and have renounced sin, but they are not
willing to make an open confession of their renunciation of sin and their
acceptance of Christ. Such an one cannot have the baptism with the Holy
Spirit. Some one may ask, “Do not the Friends (‘Quakers’), who do not
believe in water baptism, give evidence of being baptized with the Holy
Spirit?” Doubtless many of them do, but this does not alter the teaching
of God’s Word. God doubtless condescends in many instances where people
are misled as to the teaching of His Word to their ignorance, if they are
sincere, but that fact does not alter His Word, and even with a member of
the congregation of Friends, who sincerely does not believe in water
baptism, there must be before the blessing is received that for which
baptism stands, namely, the open confession of our acceptance of Christ
and of our renunciation of sin.
4. The fourth step is _absolute surrender to God_. This comes out in what
has been already said, namely, that we _must accept Jesus as Lord_ as well
as Saviour. It is stated explicitly in Acts v. 32, “And we are His
witnesses of these things; and so is also _the Holy Ghost, whom God hath
given to them that obey Him_.” That is the fourth step, “obey Him,”
obedience. But what does obedience mean? Some one will say, doing as we
are told. Right, but doing how much that we are told? Not merely one thing
or two things or three things or four things, but all things. The heart of
obedience is in the will, the essence of obedience is the surrender of the
will to God. It is going to God our heavenly Father and saying, “Heavenly
Father, here I am. I am Thy property. Thou hast bought me with a price. I
acknowledge Thine ownership, and surrender myself and all that I am
absolutely to Thee. Send me where Thou wilt; do with me what Thou wilt;
use me as Thou wilt.” This is in most instances the decisive step in
receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament types it
was when the whole burnt offering was laid upon the altar, nothing kept
back within or without the sacrificial animal, that the fire came forth
from the Holy Place where God dwelt and accepted and consumed the gift
upon the altar. And so it is to-day, in the fulfillment of the type, when
we lay ourselves, a whole burnt offering, upon the altar, keeping nothing
within or without back, that the fire of God, the Holy Spirit, descends
from the real Holy Place, heaven (of which the Most Holy Place in the
tabernacle was simply a type), and accepts the gift upon the altar. When
we can truly say, “My _all_ is on the altar,” then we shall not have long
to wait for the fire. The lack of this absolute surrender is shutting many
out of the blessing to-day. People turn the keys of almost every closet in
their heart over to God, but there is some small closet of which they wish
to keep the key themselves, and the blessing does not come.
At a convention in Washington, D. C., on the last night, I had spoken on
How to Receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit Himself was
present in mighty power that night. The chaplain of one of the houses had
said to me at the close of the meeting, “It almost seemed as if I could
see the Holy Spirit in this place to-night.” There were many to be dealt
with. About two hours after the meeting closed, about eleven o’clock, a
worker came to me and said, “Do you see that young woman over to the right
with whom Miss W—— is speaking?” “Yes.” “Well, she has been dealing with
her for two hours and she is in awful agony. Won’t you come and see if you
can help?” I went into the seat back of this woman in distress and asked
her her trouble. “Oh,” she said, “I came from Baltimore to receive the
baptism with the Holy Spirit, and I cannot go back to Baltimore until I
have received Him.” “Is your will laid down?” I asked. “I am afraid not.”
“Will you lay it down now?” “I cannot.” “Are you willing that God should
lay it down for you?” “Yes.” “Ask Him to do it.” She bowed her head in
prayer and asked God to empty her of her will, to lay it down for her, to
bring it into conformity to His will, in absolute surrender to His own.
When the prayer was finished, I said, “Is it laid down?” She said, “It
must be. I have asked something according to His will. Yes, it is done.” I
said, “Ask Him for the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” She bowed her head
again in brief prayer and asked God to baptize her with the Holy Spirit
and in a few moments looked up with peace in her heart and in her face.
Why? Because she had surrendered her will. She had met the conditions and
God had given the blessing.
5. The fifth step is _an intense desire for the baptism with the Holy
Spirit_. Jesus says in John vii. 37-39, “If any man _thirst_, let him come
unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said,
out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of
the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive.” Here again we
have _belief on Jesus_ as the condition of receiving the Holy Spirit but
we have also this, “If any man thirst.” Doubtless when Jesus spake these
words He had in mind the Old Testament promise in Isa. xliv. 3, “For I
will pour water upon him that is _thirsty_, and floods upon the dry
ground: I will pour _My Spirit_ upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine
offspring.” In both these passages thirst is the condition of receiving
the Holy Spirit. What does it mean to thirst? When a man really thirsts,
it seems as if every pore in his body had just one cry, “Water! Water!
Water!” Apply this to the matter in question; when a man thirsts
spiritually, his whole being has but one cry, “The Holy Spirit! The Holy
Spirit! The Holy Spirit!” As long as one fancies he can get along somehow
without the baptism with the Holy Spirit, he is not going to receive that
baptism. As long as one is casting about for some new kind of church,
machinery, or new style of preaching, or anything else, by which he hopes
to accomplish what the Holy Spirit only can accomplish, he will not
receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. As long as one tries to find
some subtle system of exegesis to read out of the New Testament what God
has put into it, namely, the absolute necessity that each believer receive
the baptism with the Holy Spirit as a definite experience, he is not going
to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. As long as a man tries to
persuade himself that he has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit
when he really has not, he is not going to receive the baptism with the
Holy Spirit. But when one gets to the place where he sees the absolute
necessity that he be baptized with the Holy Spirit as a definite
experience and desires this blessing at any cost, he is far on the way
towards receiving it. At a state Young Men’s Christian Association
Convention, where I had spoken on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, two
ministers went out of the meeting side by side. One said to the other,
“That kind of teaching leads either to fanaticism or despair.” He did not
attempt to show that it was unscriptural. He felt condemned and was not
willing to admit his lack and seek to have it supplied, and so he tried to
avoid the condemnation that came from the Word by this bright remark,
“that kind of teaching leads either to fanaticism or despair.” Such a man
will not receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit until he is brought to
himself and acknowledges honestly his need and intensely desires to have
it supplied. How different another minister of the same denomination who
came to me one Sunday morning at Northfield. I was to speak that morning
on How to Receive the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. He said to me, “I have
come to Northfield from —— for just one purpose, to receive the baptism
with the Holy Spirit, and I would rather die than go back to my church
without receiving it.” I said, “My brother, you are going to receive it.”
The following morning he came very early to my house. He said, “I have to
go away on the early train but I came around to tell you before I went
that I have received the baptism with the Holy Spirit.”
6. The sixth step _is definite prayer for the baptism with the Holy
Spirit_. Jesus says in Luke xi. 13, “If ye then, being evil, know how to
give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly
Father give the Holy Spirit _to them that ask Him_.” This is very
explicit. Jesus teaches us that the Holy Spirit is given in answer to
definite prayer—just ask Him. There are many who tell us that we should
not pray for the Holy Spirit, and they reason it out very speciously. They
say that the Holy Spirit was given as an abiding gift to the church at
Pentecost, and why pray for what is already given? To this the late Rev.
Dr. A. J. Gordon well replied that Jesus Christ was given as an abiding
gift to the world at Calvary (John iii. 16), but what was given to the
world as a whole each individual in the world must appropriate to himself;
and just so the Holy Spirit was given to the church as an abiding gift at
Pentecost, but what was given to the church as a whole each individual in
the church must appropriate to himself, and God’s way of appropriation is
prayer. But those who say we should not pray for the Holy Spirit go
further still than this. They tell us that every believer already has the
Holy Spirit (which we have already seen is true in a sense), and why pray
for what we already have? To this the very simple answer is, that it is
one thing to have the Holy Spirit dwelling way back of consciousness in
some hidden sanctuary of the being and something quite different, and
vastly more, to have Him take possession of the whole house that He
inhabits. But against all these specious arguments we place the simple
word of Jesus Christ, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the
Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” It will not do to say, as has been
said, that “this promise was for the time of the earth life of our Lord,
and to go back to the promise of Luke xi. 13 is to forget Pentecost, and
to ignore the truth that now every believer has the indwelling Spirit;”
for we find that after Pentecost as well as before, the Holy Spirit was
given to believers in answer to definite prayer. For example, we read in
Acts iv. 31, R. V., “_When they had prayed_, the place was shaken wherein
they were gathered together, and _they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost_, and they spake the Word of God with boldness.” Again in Acts viii.
15, 16, we read that when Peter and John were come down and saw the
believers in Samaria they “_prayed for them that they might receive the
Holy Ghost_, for _as yet He was fallen upon none of them_, only they were
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Again in the Epistle of Paul to
the Ephesians, Paul tells the believers in Ephesus that he was praying for
them that they might be strengthened with power through His Spirit (Eph.
iii. 16). So right through the New Testament after Pentecost, as well as
before, by specific teaching and illustrative example, we are taught that
the Holy Spirit is given in answer to definite prayer. At a Christian
workers’ convention in Boston, a brother came to me and said, “I notice
that you are on the program to speak on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.”
“Yes.” “I think that is the most important subject on the program. Now be
sure and tell them not to pray for the Holy Spirit.” I replied, “My
brother, I will be sure and not tell them that: for Jesus says, ‘How much
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask
Him?’ ” “Yes, but that was before Pentecost.” “How about Acts iv. 31, R.
V., was that before Pentecost or after?” He said, “It was certainly
after.” “Well,” I said, “take it and read it.” “And when they had prayed,
the place where they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost and spake the Word of God with boldness.” “How
about Acts viii. 15, 16, was that before Pentecost or after?” “Certainly,
it was after.” “Take it and read it.” “Who when they were come down prayed
for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet He was fallen
on none of them, only they were baptized in the name of Jesus.” He had
nothing more to say. What was there more to say? But with me, it is not a
matter of mere exegesis, that the Holy Spirit is given in answer to
definite prayer. It is a matter of personal and indubitable experience. I
know just as well that God gives the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer as I
know that water quenches thirst and food satisfies hunger. In my first
experience of being baptized with the Holy Spirit, it was while I waited
upon God in prayer that I was thus baptized. Since then time and again as
I have waited on God in prayer, I have been definitely filled with the
Holy Spirit. Often as I have knelt in prayer with others, as we prayed the
Holy Spirit has fallen upon us just as perceptibly as the rain ever fell
upon and fructified the earth. I shall never forget one experience in our
church in Chicago. We were holding a noon prayer-meeting of the ministers
at the Y. M. C. A. Auditorium, preparatory to an expected visit to Chicago
of Mr. Moody. At one of these meetings a minister sprang to his feet and
said, “What we need in Chicago is an all-night meeting of the ministers.”
“Very well,” I said. “If you will come up to Chicago Avenue Church Friday
night at ten o’clock, we will have a prayer-meeting and if God keeps us
all night, we will stay all night.” At ten o’clock on Friday night four or
five hundred people gathered in the lecture-rooms of the Chicago Avenue
Church. They were not all ministers. They were not all men. Satan made a
mighty attempt to ruin the meeting. First of all three men got down by the
door and knelt down by chairs and pounded and shouted until some of our
heads seemed almost splitting, and some felt they must retire from the
meeting; and when a brother went to expostulate with them and urge them
that things be done decently and in order, they swore at the brother who
made the protest. Still later a man sprang up in the middle of the room
and announced that he was Elijah. The poor man was insane. But these
things were distracting, and there was more or less of confusion until
nearly midnight, and some thought they would go home. But it is a poor
meeting that the devil can spoil, and some of us were there for a blessing
and determined to remain until we received it. About midnight God gave us
complete victory over all the discordant elements. Then for two hours
there was such praying as I have rarely heard in my life. A little after
two o’clock in the morning a sudden hush fell upon the whole gathering; we
were all on our knees at the time. No one could speak; no one could pray,
no one could sing; all you could hear was the subdued sobbing of joy,
unspeakable and full of glory. The very air seemed tremulous with the
presence of the Spirit of God. It was now Saturday morning. The following
morning, one of my deacons came to me and said, with bated breath,
“Brother Torrey, I shall never forget yesterday morning until the latest
day of my life.” But it was not by any means all emotion. There was solid
reality that could be tested by practical tests. A man went out of that
meeting in the early morning hours, took a train for Missouri. When he had
transacted his business in the town that he visited, he asked the
proprietor of the hotel if there was any meeting going on in the town at
the time. He said, “Yes, there is a protracted meeting going on at the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church.” The man was himself a Cumberland
Presbyterian. He went to the church and when the meeting was opened he
arose in his place and asked the minister if he could speak. Permission
was granted, and with the power of the Holy Spirit upon him, he so spoke
that fifty-eight or fifty-nine persons professed to accept Christ on the
spot. A young man went out of the meeting in the early morning hours and
took a train for a city in Wisconsin, and I soon received word from that
city that thirty-eight young men and boys had been converted while he
spoke. Another young man, one of our students in the Institute, went to
another part of Wisconsin, and soon I began to receive letters from
ministers in that neighbourhood inquiring about him and telling how he had
gone into the school-houses and churches and Soldiers’ Home and how there
were conversions wherever he spoke. In the days that followed men and
women from that meeting went out over the earth and I doubt if there was
any country that I visited in my tour around the world, Japan, China,
Australia, New Zealand, India, etc., in which I did not find some one who
had gone out from that meeting with the power of God upon them. For me to
doubt that God fills men with the Holy Spirit in answer to prayer would be
thoroughly unscientific and irrational. I know He does. And in a matter
like this, I would rather have one ounce of believing experience than ten
tons of unbelieving exegesis.
7. The seventh and last step is _faith_. We read in Mark xi. 24,
“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,
_believe that ye receive them_ and ye shall have them.” No matter how
definite God’s promises are, we only realize these promises experimentally
when we believe. For example we read in James i. 5, R. V., “But if any of
you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” Now that promise is as
positive as a promise can be but we read in the following verses, “But let
him _ask in faith nothing doubting_: for he that doubteth is like the
surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that man think
that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a double-minded man, unstable
in all his ways.” The baptism with the Spirit, as we have already seen, is
for those believers in Christ, who have put away all sin and surrendered
absolutely to God, who ask for it, but even though we ask there will be no
receiving if we do not believe. There are many who have met the other
conditions of receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit and yet do not
receive, simply because they do not believe. They do not expect to receive
and they do not receive. But there is a faith that goes beyond
expectation, a faith that puts out its hand and takes what it asks on the
spot. This comes out in the Revised Version of Mark xi. 24, “Therefore I
say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, _believe that ye
have received them_ and ye _shall have_ them.” When we pray for the
baptism with the Holy Spirit we should believe that we have received (that
is that God has granted our prayer and therefore it is ours) and then we
shall have the actual experience of that which we have asked. When the
Revised Version came out, I was greatly puzzled about the rendering of
Mark xi. 24. I had begun at the beginning of the New Testament and gone
right through comparing the Authorized Version with the Revised and
comparing both with the best Greek text, but when I reached this passage,
I was greatly puzzled. I read the Authorized Version, “What things soever
ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have
them,” and that seemed plain enough. Then I turned to the Revised Version
and read, “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for believe that _ye have
received_ them and ye _shall have_ them.” And I said to myself, “What a
confusion of the tenses. Believe that ye have already received (past), and
ye shall have afterwards (future). What nonsense.” Then I turned to my
Greek Testament and I found whether sense or nonsense, the Revised Version
was the correct rendering of the Greek, but what it meant I did not know
for years. But one time I was studying and expounding to my church the
First Epistle of John. I came to the fifth chapter, the fourteenth and
fifteenth verses (R. V.) and I read, “And this is the boldness which we
have towards Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He
heareth us: and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know
that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him.” Then I understood
Mark xi. 24. Do you see it? If not, let me explain it a little further.
When we come to God in prayer, the first question to ask is, Is that which
I have asked of God according to His will? If it is promised in His Word,
of course, we know it is according to His will. Then we can say with 1
John v. 14, I have asked something according to His will and I know He
hears me. Then we can go further and say with the fifteenth verse, Because
I know He hears what I ask, I know I have the petition which I asked of
Him. I may not have it in actual possession but I know it is mine because
I have asked something according to His will and He has heard me and
granted that which I have asked, and what I thus believe I have received
because the Word of God says so, I shall afterwards have in actual
experience. Now apply this to the matter before us. When I ask for the
baptism with the Holy Spirit, I have asked something according to His
will, for Luke xi. 13 and Acts ii. 39 say so, therefore I know my prayer
is heard, and still further I know because the prayer is heard that I have
the petition which I have asked of Him, _i. e._, I know I have the baptism
with the Holy Spirit. I may not feel it yet but I have received, and what
I thus count mine resting upon the naked word of God, I shall afterwards
have in actual experience. Some years ago I went to the students’
conference at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, with Mr. F. B. Meyer, of London. Mr.
Meyer spoke that night on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. At the
conclusion of his address, he said, “If any of you wish to speak with Mr.
Torrey or myself after the meeting is over, we will stay and speak with
you.” A young man came to me who had just graduated from one of the
Illinois colleges. He said, “I heard of this blessing thirty days ago and
have been praying for it ever since but do not receive. What is the
trouble?” “Is your will laid down?” I asked. “No,” he said, “I am afraid
it is not.” “Then,” I said, “there is no use praying until your will is
laid down. Will you lay down your will?” He said, “I cannot.” “Are you
willing that God should lay it down for you?” “I am.” “Let us kneel and
ask Him to do it.” We knelt side by side and I placed my Bible open at 1
John v. 14, 15 on the chair before him. He asked God to lay down his will
for him and empty him of his self-will and to bring his will into
conformity with the will of God. When he had finished the prayer, I said,
“Is it done?” He said, “It must be. I have asked something according to
His will and I know He hears me and I know I have the petition I have
asked. Yes, my will is laid down.” “What is it you desire?” “The baptism
with the Holy Spirit.” “Ask for it.” Looking up to God he said, “Heavenly
Father, baptize me with the Holy Spirit now.” “Did you get what you
asked?” I asked. “I don’t feel it,” he replied. “That is not what I asked
you,” I said. “Read the verse before you,” and he read, “This is the
boldness which we have towards Him that if we ask anything according to
His will He heareth us.” “What do you know?” I asked. He said, “I know if
I ask anything according to His will He hears me.” “What did you ask?” “I
asked for the baptism with the Holy Spirit.” “Is that according to His
will?” “Yes, Acts ii. 39 says so.” “What do you know then?” “I know He has
heard me.” “Read on.” “And if we know that if He heareth us whatsoever we
ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him.” “What
do you know?” I asked. “I know I have the petition I asked of Him.” “What
was the petition you asked of Him?” “The baptism with the Holy Spirit.”
“What do you know?” “I know I have the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I
don’t feel it, but God says so.” We arose from our knees and after a short
conversation separated. I left Lake Geneva the next morning, but returned
in a few days. I met the young man and asked if he had really received the
baptism with the Holy Spirit. He did not need to answer. His face told the
story, but he did answer. He went into a theological seminary the
following autumn, was given a church his junior year in the seminary, had
conversions from the outset, and the next year on the Day of Prayer for
Colleges, largely through his influence there came a mighty outpouring of
the Spirit upon the seminary of which the president of the seminary wrote
to a denominational paper, that it was a veritable Pentecost, and it all
came through this young man who received the baptism with the Holy Spirit
through simple faith in the Word of God. Any one who will accept Jesus as
their Saviour and their Lord, put away all sin out of their life, publicly
confess their renunciation of sin and acceptance of Jesus Christ,
surrender absolutely to God, and ask God for the baptism with the Holy
Spirit, and take it by simple faith in the naked Word of God, can receive
the baptism with the Holy Spirit right now. There are some who so
emphasize the matter of absolute surrender that they ignore, or even deny,
the necessity of prayer. It is always unfortunate when one so emphasizes
one side of truth that he loses sight of another side which may be equally
important. In this way, many lose the blessing which God has provided for
them.
The seven steps given above lead with absolute certainty into the
blessing. But several questions arise:
1. _Must we not wait until we know we have received the baptism with the
Holy Spirit before we take up Christian work?_ Yes, but how shall we know?
There are two ways of knowing anything in the Christian life. First, by
the Word of God; second, by experience or feeling. God’s order is to know
things first of all by the Word of God. How one may know by the Word of
God that they have received the baptism with the Holy Spirit has just been
told. We have a right when we have met the conditions and have definitely
asked for the baptism with the Holy Spirit to say, “It is mine,” and to
get up and go on in our work leaving the matter of experience to God’s
time and place. We get assurance that we have received the baptism with
the Holy Spirit in precisely the same way that we get assurance of our
salvation. When an inquirer comes to you, whom you have reason to believe
really has received Jesus but who lacks assurance, what do you do with
him? Do you tell him to kneel down and pray until he gets assurance? Not
if you know how to deal with a soul. You know that true assurance comes
through the Word of God, that it is through what is “written” that we are
to know that we have eternal life (1 John v. 13). So you take the inquirer
to the written Word. For example, you take him to John iii. 36. You tell
him to read it. He reads, “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life.” You ask him, “Who has everlasting life?” He replies from the
passage before him, “He that believeth on the Son.” “How many who believe
on the Son have everlasting life?” “Every one that believes on the Son.”
“Do you know this to be true?” “Yes.” “Why?” “Because God says so.” “What
does God say?” “God says, ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting
life.’ ” “Do you believe on the Son?” “Yes.” “What have you then?” He
ought to say, “Everlasting life,” but quite likely he will not. He may
say, “I wish I had everlasting life.” You point him again to the verse and
by questions bring out what it says, and you hold him to it until he sees
that he has everlasting life; sees that he has everlasting life simply
because God says so. After he has assurance on the ground of the Word, he
will have assurance by personal experience, by the testimony of the Spirit
in his heart. Now you should deal with yourself in precisely the same way
about the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Hold yourself to the word found in
1 John v. 14, 15, and know that you have the baptism with the Spirit
simply because God says so in His Word, whether you feel it or not.
Afterwards you will know it by experience. God’s order is always: first,
His Word; second, belief in His Word; third, experience, or feeling. We
desire to change God’s order, and have first, His Word, then feeling, then
we will believe. But God demands that we believe on His naked Word.
“Abraham _believed God_ and it was accounted to him for righteousness”
(Gal. iii. 6; cf. Gen. xv. 6). Abraham had as yet no feeling in his body
of new life and power. He just believed God and feeling came afterwards.
God demands of us to-day, as He did Abraham of old, that we simply take
Him at His Word and count the thing ours which He has promised, simply
because He has promised it. Afterwards we get the feeling and the
realization of that which He has promised.
2. The second question that some will ask is, “_Will there be no
manifestation of the baptism with the Spirit which we receive?_ Will
everything be just as it was before, and if it will, where is the reality
and use of the baptism?” Yes, there will be manifestation, very definite
manifestation, but bear in mind _what the character_ of the manifestation
will be, _and when_ the manifestation is to be expected. When is the
manifestation to be expected? After we believe. After we have received on
simple faith in the naked Word of God. And what will be the character of
the manifestation? Here many go astray. They have read the wonderful
experiences of Charles G. Finney, John Wesley, D. L. Moody and others.
These men tell us that when they were baptized with the Holy Spirit they
had wonderful sensations. Finney, for example, describes it as like great
waves of electricity sweeping over him, so that he was compelled to ask
God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot. Mr. Moody, on rare
occasions, described a similar experience. That these men had such
experiences, I do not for a moment question. The word of such men as
Charles G. Finney, D. L. Moody and others is to be believed, and there is
another reason why I cannot question the reality of these experiences, but
while these men doubtless had these experiences, there is not a passage in
the Bible that describes such an experience. I am inclined to think the
Apostles had them, but if they had, they kept them to themselves and it is
well that they did, for if they had put them on record, that is what we
would be looking for to-day. But what are the manifestations that actually
occurred in the case of the Apostles and the early disciples? New power in
the Lord’s work. We read at Pentecost that they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost and _began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
utterance_ (Acts ii. 4). Similar accounts are given of what occurred in
the household of Cornelius and what occurred in Ephesus. All we read in
the case of the Apostle Paul is that Ananias came in and said, “Brother
Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou
camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled
with the Holy Ghost.” Then Ananias baptized him, and the next thing we
read is that Paul went straight down to the synagogue and preached Christ
so mightily in the power of the Spirit that he “confounded the Jews which
dwelt at Damascus, proving that this is very Christ” (Acts ix. 17-22). So
right _through the New Testament, the manifestation that we are taught to
expect, and the manifestation that actually occurred was new power in
Christian work_, and that is the manifestation that we may expect to-day
and we need not look too carefully for that. The thing for us to do is to
claim God’s promise and let God take care of the mode of manifestation.
3. The third question that will arise with some is, _May we not have to
wait for the baptism with the Holy __ Spirit?_ Did not the Apostles have
to wait ten days, and may we not have to wait ten days or even more? No,
there is no necessity that we wait. We are told distinctly in the Bible
why the Apostles had to wait ten days. In Acts ii. 1, we read, “And when
the day of Pentecost was fully come” (literally “When the day of Pentecost
was being fulfilled,” R. V., margin). Way back in the Old Testament types,
and back of that in the eternal counsels of God, the day of Pentecost was
set for the coming of the Holy Spirit and the gathering of the church, and
the Holy Spirit could not be given until the day of Pentecost was fully
come, therefore the Apostles had to wait until the day of Pentecost was
fulfilled, but there was no waiting after Pentecost. There was no waiting
for example in Acts iv. 31; scarcely had they finished the prayer when the
place where they were gathered together was shaken and “they were all
filled with the Holy Ghost.” There was no waiting in the household of
Cornelius. They were listening to their first Gospel sermon and Peter said
as the climax of his argument “to Him (that is Jesus) bear all the
prophets witness that through His name every one that believeth on Him
shall receive remission of sins” (R. V.), and no sooner had Peter spoken
these words than they believed and “the Holy Ghost fell on them which
heard the word.” There was no waiting in Samaria after Peter and John came
down and told them about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayed with
them. There was no waiting in Ephesus after Paul came and told them that
there was not only the baptism of John unto repentance, but the baptism of
Jesus in the Holy Spirit. It is true that they had been waiting some time
until then, but it was simply because they did not know that there was
such a baptism for them. And many may wait to-day because they do not know
that there is the baptism with the Spirit for them, or they may have to
wait because they are not resting in the finished work of Christ, or
because they have not put away sin, or because they have not surrendered
fully to God, or because they will not definitely ask and believe and
take; but the reason for the waiting is not in God, it is in ourselves.
Any one who will, can lay this book down at this point, take the steps
which have been stated and immediately receive the baptism with the Holy
Spirit. I would not say a word to dissuade men from spending much time in
waiting upon God in prayer for “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength” (Isa. xl. 31). There are few of us indeed in these days
who spend as many hours as we should in waiting upon God. The writer can
bear joyful testimony to the manifest outpourings of the Spirit that have
come time and again as he has waited upon God through the hours of the
night with believing brethren, but the point I would emphasize is that the
baptism with the Holy Spirit may be had at once. The Bible proves this;
experience proves it. There are many waiting for feeling who ought to be
claiming by faith. In these days we hear of many who say they are “waiting
for their Pentecost”; some have been waiting weeks, some have been waiting
months, some have been waiting years. This is not Scriptural and it is
dishonouring to God. These brethren have an unscriptural view of what
constitutes Pentecost. They have fixed it in their minds that certain
manifestations are to occur and as these particular manifestations, which
they themselves have prescribed, do not come, they think they have not
received the Holy Spirit. There are many who have been led into the error,
already confuted in this book, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit
always manifests itself in the gift of tongues. They have not received the
gift of tongues and therefore they conclude that they have not received
the baptism with the Holy Spirit. But as already seen, one may receive the
baptism with the Holy Spirit and not receive the gift of tongues. Others
still are waiting for some ecstatic feeling. We do not need to wait at
all. We may meet the conditions, we may claim the blessing at once on the
ground of God’s sure Word. There was a time in the writer’s ministry when
he was led to say that he would never enter his pulpit again until he had
been definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit and knew it, or until God in
some way told him to go. I shut myself up in my study and day by day
waited upon God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It was a time of
struggle. The thought would arise, “Suppose you do not receive the baptism
with the Holy Spirit before Sunday. How it will look for you to refuse to
go into your pulpit,” but I held fast to my resolution. I had a more or
less definite thought in my mind of what might happen when I was baptized
with the Holy Spirit, but it did not come that way at all. One morning as
I waited upon God, one of the quietest and calmest moments of my life, it
was just as if God said to me, “The blessing is yours. Now go and preach.”
If I had known my Bible then as I know it now, I might have heard that
voice the very first day speaking to me through the Word, but I did not
know it and God in His infinite condescension, looking upon my weakness,
spoke it directly to my heart. There was no particular ecstasy or emotion,
simply the calm assurance that the blessing was mine. I went into my work
and God manifested His power in that work. Some time passed, I do not
remember just how long, and I was sitting in that same study. I do not
remember that I was thinking about this subject at all, but suddenly it
was just as if I had been knocked out of my chair on to the floor, and I
lay upon my face crying, “Glory to God! Glory to God!” I could not stop.
Some power, not my own, had taken possession of my lips and my whole
person. The writer is not of an excitable, hysterical or even emotional
temperament, but I lost control of myself absolutely. I had never shouted
before in my life, but I could not stop. When after a while I got control
of myself, I went to my wife and told her what had happened. I tell this
experience, not to magnify it, but to say that the time when this
wonderful experience (which I cannot really fully describe) came was not
the moment when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. The moment when I was
baptized with the Holy Spirit was in that calm hour when God said, “It is
yours. Now go and preach.”
There is an afternoon that I shall never forget. It was the eighth day of
July, 1894. It was at the Northfield Students’ Convention. I had spoken
that morning in the church on How to Receive the Baptism with the Holy
Spirit. As I drew to a close, I took out my watch and noticed that it was
exactly twelve o’clock. Mr. Moody had invited us to go up on the mountain
that afternoon at three o’clock to wait upon God for the baptism with the
Holy Spirit. As I looked at my watch, I said, “Gentlemen, it is exactly
twelve o’clock. Mr. Moody has invited us to go up on the mountain at three
o’clock to wait upon God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is three
hours until three o’clock. Some of you cannot wait three hours, nor do you
need to wait. Go to your tent, go to your room in the hotel or in the
buildings, go out into the woods, go anywhere, where you can get alone
with God, meet the conditions of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and
claim it at once.” At three o’clock we gathered in front of Mr. Moody’s
mother’s house; four hundred and fifty-six of us in all, all men from the
eastern colleges. (I know the number because Mr. Paul Moody counted us as
we passed through the gates down into the lots.) We commenced to climb the
mountainside. After we had gone some distance, Mr. Moody said, “I do not
think we need to go further. Let us stop here.” We sat down and Mr. Moody
said, “Have any of you anything to say?” One after another, perhaps
seventy-five men, arose and said words to this effect, “I could not wait
until three o’clock. I have been alone with God and I have received the
baptism with the Holy Spirit.” Then Mr. Moody said, “I can see no reason
why we should not kneel right down here now and ask God that the Holy
Spirit may fall on us as definitely as He fell on the Apostles at
Pentecost. Let us pray.” We knelt down on the ground; some of us lay on
our faces on the pine-needles. As we had gone up the mountainside, a cloud
had been gathering over the mountain, and as we began to pray the cloud
broke and the rain-drops began to come down upon us through the
overhanging pine trees, but another cloud, big with mercy, had been
gathering over Northfield for ten days and our prayers seemed to pierce
that cloud and the Holy Ghost fell upon us. It was a wonderful hour. There
are many who will never forget it. But any one who reads this book may
have a similar hour alone by himself now. He can take the seven steps one
by one and the Holy Spirit will fall upon him.