The-Person-and-Work-of-the-Holy-Spirit-by-R.A.-Torrey (continued)
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, ct 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 prayerfor 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 iiL 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 alrea'dy 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
The Baptism With the Holy Spirit
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 viiL 15, 16, we read that when Peter and John were come down and saw the believers in cc prayedfor them that they might receive the Samaria they
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
5 convention in Boston , prayer. At a Christian workers 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 l How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ?
Jesus says, "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, 1 6, 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 la ausw to |>rayer asj[ know that vter 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, 4C 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 meet-
ing 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 5 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