The-Person-and-Work-of-the-Holy-Spirit-by-R.A.-Torrey
i88 The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit is no function in the church of Jesus Christ to-day more holy and sacred than that of sanctified motherhood, she will say3 "The evangelist may need this baptism, my minister may need this baptism 5 but I must have it to bring up my children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
2. While there are diversities oflifts and manifestations of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, there will be some gift to every one thus baptized. We read in I 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 u 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. // is the Holy Spirit who decides how the baptism with the Spirit shall manifest itself in any given case. As we read in I Cor. xii. n, " 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, (ft 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
The Baptism With the Holy Spirit 189 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