Then The Spirit Came

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit... before the great and terrible day of the Lord come" (Joel 2:28, 31)

There is a great modern error which I want to mention: it is that the coming of the Spirit happened once for all, that the individual Christian is not affected by it. This error asserts that the coming of the Holy Spirit is an historic thing, an advance in the dispensational workings of God; but that it is all settled now and we need give no further thought to it. It is all here and we have it all, and if we believe in Christ that is it, and there isn't anything more.

Listen, brother! Our Lord Jesus Christ advertised that He was going away to the Father and He was going to send back for His people a wonderful gift.

Then the Spirit came. Was He equal to the advertising? Did they say, "Is this all He meant! Oh, it is disappointing!" No! The Scripture says they wondered. The word "wonder" is in their mouths and hearts. He gave so much more than He promised, because words were the promise and the Holy Spirit was the fulfillment.

The Holy Spirit is always within reach, if we are in condition to receive and absorb Him.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Before You Are Filled

"If a man love me ... my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23)

Before we deal with the question of how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, there are some matters which first have to be settled. As believers you have to get them out of the way, and right here is where the difficulty arises. I have been afraid that my readers might have gotten the idea somewhere that I had a how-to-be-filled-the-the-Spirit-in-five-easy-lessons-doctrine, which I could give you. If you have any such vague ideas as that I can only say, "I am sorry"; because it isn't true. I can't give you such a course.

There are some things, I say, that you have to get out of the way, settled. One of them is: Before you are filled with the Holy Spirit you must be sure that you can be filled.

So you have to be sure that it is for you. You must be sure that it is God's will for you; that is, that it is part of the total plan, that it (the gift of the Holy Spirit) is included and embraced within the work of Christ in redemption.

The Saviour in His sermon on the Mount said: "Blessed are the pure in heart" (Matthew 5:8). Can anyone believe that Christ would bless a class of people who do not or cannot exist?

~A. W. Tozer~