Brave, Ardent Will Power

By George D. Watson

    The Holy Spirit, while He works every step in grace for the Father and the Son, yet in His own personality, when manifest to us, affects mainly our will power. As the Father has the office of the heart in the Godhead, loving and giving, and as the Son occupies the office of Headship, speaking, revealing and judging, so the Holy Spirit has the office of divine power, the right hand of God, the unction, the zeal of the Trinity.

    Hence when the believer is baptized with the Holy Ghost, the most special way that the Spirit operates is by empowering, and energizing the soul, as if the whole man was turned into a gigantic will, a resistless engine of burning zeal. Those who know by experience what it is to receive the Holy Ghost in His blessed personality, will readily call to mind how His incoming seemed to turn everything in them into a brave, ardent will power.

    Great undertakings, that hitherto had seemed utterly impossible, were entered upon with a dauntless courage. The affections, the reason, the imagination, the words of testimonies, all took on a strange and unaccustomed energy. You may have a boiler full of cold water, and a furnace full of cold fuel, but when the fuel is set on fire, and the water boils, and steam is generated, something must move!

    The human soul is like water, and the truth of Scripture is a divine fuel, and when the Holy Ghost falls and sets the fuel of divine truth on fire in the soul, there will be produced a form of energy just as truly as steam in the engine.

    Jesus in His ministry and teaching furnished the Church with divine fuel, and when the Holy Ghost fell at Pentecost, He set the fuel on fire, and produced a species of celestial power that drove the Gospel engines to the uttermost parts of the earth. Thus the special way that we can tell the manifestation of the Person of the Holy Spirit, is by touches of energy, courage, zeal, unction, fire, and other effects of divine will power upon our souls.