I give you this follow up after my last post, here is a R. A. Torrey's responce to how we can obtain the Power of God in our lives.
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 Acts2. 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. 3. 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. 3. 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. 3. 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 15. 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. 3. 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 [pg 219] 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 2. 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 5. 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 John7. 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. 49. 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 11. 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 Luke11. 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 4. 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 8. 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. 3. 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 4. 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 8. 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 11. 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 1. 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 11. 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 11. 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 11. 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 5. 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 11. 13 and Acts 2. 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 5. 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 2. 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.
You can read more from R.A. Torrey on the R.A. Torrey Archive.
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