We Need The Flow Of The Holy Spirit
By Paul H. Holsinger
Today the whole world is wired for Christianity! There are Christians scattered everywhere throughout the world. What if every believer, no matter where placed, should suddenly be awakened and revived, and turned to the Lord with renewed faith and brokenness and be filled and anointed with the Spirit of God? What would happen? It is conceivable that more would happen than at Pentecost!
If we as Christians and Christianity as a world religion are to hold our place under the sun, we positively must have such a spiritual upheaval. Subversive forces of evil are sweeping through the world. It is truly world revival or world ruin!
We have greater factors for spiritual blessings in our day than in any previous century. We have better printing presses. More so, we have more literacy today; and more people who are seeking the truth. We have the ultra factors, radio, telephone, television – as mediums for Gospel propagation. In one way we could say, "What are we waiting for?" Let’s get up and get going!
We Need the Power of God!
However, it is not human forces that we need. We need the mighty power of God! We need the flow of the Holy Spirit in the full measure of Pentecost! This is the divine help we need. As Peter, we need to preach the Gospel... “with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven” (1 Pet. 1:12). Look what one layman did! Philip went to the city of Samaria and preached the Gospel to them, and the whole city turned to God, and there was great rejoicing there! That is the kind of help we need!
This is the very kind of help the Holy Spirit came to give! This was the very purpose of His mission. It was also the plan of our risen and glorified Lord. We have the kind of power on our side that will take an awful blasphemer and persecutor like Saul and change him into the Apostle Paul, a docile and obedient disciple, willing to risk his all for the sake of Christ.
The Spirit of God has broken out like this a thousand times since Pentecost. Thousands of men have been filled, anointed and baptized with His power to preach the Gospel. If we could gather into one book all the accounts of their exploits, and the sum total of their experiences, we would positively be amazed at this record!
One trouble with Christians today is they measure what God can do with the record of their own failures and weakness. Faith never takes counsel with unbelief, and obstacles, and problems. Faith ever looks to the power of God and cries, “It can be done!” Faith enters in courageously – with the promises of God – and proves God to do the impossible!
Another difficulty of Christians is that they measure God by the great obstacles in the way. To the man of faith, these are but stepping stones to victory! Gideon’s army had to be reduced from 32,000 to 300 men! In the final analysis, with God it is not a matter of many or with few. It is a question of God’s omnipotent power! “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power” (Psa. 110:3).
“To This Man Will I Look”
God has not changed His mind regarding the conditions needed to receive blessing from Him: “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word” (Isa. 66:2). “A broken and contrite heart...Thou wilt not despise” (Psa. 51:17; 34:17). The very purpose of contriteness and humility and brokenness is to bring revival to such a soul.
In Isaiah 57:15, twice He tells us it is to revive them: “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” This reveals the inner attitude of God toward us.
“I will pour out My Spirit unto you” (Prov. 1:23)...but “your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear” (Isa. 59:1-2).
This is the divine diagnosis and we must accept it!