The Need For Power February 18, 2013
Last week I asked: Do you have room in your doctrine ofthe Holy Spirit for a special outpouring of power? Or do you believe we havereceived all we can have of the Spirit at regeneration, and this that we see ofHim in our lives and our church is the most we should expect?
“Many great saints of the past have known their needfor more and expected more. For example, the Nineteenth Century’s greatestpreacher, Charles Spurgeon, once confessed:
We must confess that just now we have not theoutpouring of the Holy Spirit that we could wish. Many are beingconverted. I hope that few of us are laboring unsuccessfully; but we arenone of us laboring as our hearts could desire. Oh, that I could have theSpirit of God in me, till I was filled to the brim. …It is this breath ofHeaven which we want. The Spirit is blowing upon our churches now with hisgenial breath, but it is as a soft evening gale. Oh, that there would comea mighty rushing wind that should carry everything before it, so that even thedry bones of the Valley of Vision might be filled with life and be made tostand up before the Lord, an exceeding great army. This is the lack of thetimes, the grand want of our country. May this come as a blessing fromthe Most High.”
Doyou share with the disciples and great saints like Spurgeon this felt need fora special outpouring of power from God’s Spirit, or are you content with whatwe have? Spurgeon said, “This is the lack of the times, the grand want of ourcountry.” Apparently, lack of power is not unique to our times. But what seemsunique to our times is the widespread failure to recognize our powerlessness.So many in the church have been seduced by the manmade pseudo-power of businessmethods, psychology, political activism, and intellectual acquisition.
Friends, the disciples and saints of old knew theyneeded power, and they knew there was only one place to get it. But they arelong gone. The baton has passed to us. The message of the gospel is the same.The need of the world is the same. The only substantial difference is us. Ifthey needed the Spirit’s power for their mission, how much more do we.