What It Means by W. A. Spicer

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 47.

What It Means

By W. A. Spicer

THE spirit-filled church will be a practical, warm-hearted, sensible, working church.

There is need for emphasizing this side of it, for somehow, too many people think of the power of the Holy Spirit as manifesting itself in strange, erratic, sensational, or spectacular experiences. There is a craving for the sensational in these times. Much that is unbalanced and strained is set down as of the Spirit. Good, healthy, common sense is one of the fruits of the Spirit not to be despised.

Here is one of Paul's definitions of the outworking of the gift of the Holy Ghost: "For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." 2 Tim. 1:7.

There is power—the spiritual strength to stand against the evil, the power that lays hold of the things of eternal life, that sets the soul free, and reaches a long arm after the perishing. This is the power that dwells in the Spirit-filled church.

"And of love." Power must be used in love. The Holy Spirit sheds the love of God abroad in the heart. And love teaches the way of service. It is love-directed power that we need.

"And of a sound mind." It means good sense, a well-balanced judgment. There is the tact and evenness that only love and power can give. With every wild and extravagant movement abroad in the world, and multitudes ready to be deceived by strange and extraordinary manifestations, this gift of "a sound mind" by the Holy Spirit is earnestly to be coveted. The Spirit-filled church will possess this gift and breathe an atmosphere of divinely natural, wholesome, spiritual life.

Where Illustrated

We see it all illustrated in Christ's life. All fulness dwelt in Him. The power of divine goodness was there. There was no swerving. His heart was fixed. His face was set like a flint for truth and righteousness. Yet there was the loving grace, the tender tactfulness, that enabled power to come helpfully close to weakness. He was divine love itself. And through it all gleams the spirit of the sound mind. In Christ's life is seen nothing of the fanciful and visionary, none of the arts of the fanatic, nothing savoring of the strained or unnatural. It was the model life of power, and of love, and of a sound mind, by the indwelling Spirit.

As the Light of the World returned to His Father, He left the promise that this Spirit, which had been given without measure unto Him, should be poured out upon His church. In the prophetic Word the candlestick is used as the symbol of the church. God's design for His church is shown in Zechariah's vision of the golden candlestick, with the two olive trees emptying their golden oil through golden pipes into the candlestick. The church is the light of the world. The oil of the Holy Spirit would cause the light to glow brightly, for no dimly-burning wick can represent the glory of heaven's light.

The Promise of Pentecost

On that very Day of Pentecost when the Spirit's power fell upon the little church in a visible downpour, the Lord renewed through Peter the promise for all time:

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Acts 2:38, 39.

The Lord has poured out the gift. It is for the church to ask for it, to seek for it, and to receive it by faith, as every promise of God is to be claimed. The individual believer may thank God for the gift of the Spirit even as he thanks God for the gift of forgiveness of sin. And as the early rain of pentecostal blessing fell upon a church unitedly seeking God for a fitting for service, so must also the latter rain of blessing come in its fulness to make a Spirit-filled church.

The church that was Spirit-filled at Pentecost was a company walking in the light. They had obeyed the truth, and with the world and a worldly church arrayed against them, they asked only for power to witness to the truth as it is in Jesus. To such a church came the power to bear the message.

The Promise to Whom

The promise of the Spirit is to the obedient only. The apostle said: "We are His witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him." Acts 5:32. The Holy Spirit is not given to lead men contrary to the word of God or to make them independent of the written Word, which is the voice of the Spirit.

Never did men need the Spirit's guidance more than we in these last days. Voices are crying, Lo, here, and Lo, there. The noisy clamor of selfishness and worldliness increases. Men are greedy of gain. It is in many quarters counted foolish simplicity to be true to religious conviction and to principle. Scoffers abound, saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?" Of just such a time as ours we read:

"Wisdom crieth aloud in the street; She uttereth her voice in the broad places; She crieth at the head of the noisy streets; At the entrance of the gates, In the city, she uttereth her words; How long, ye simple ones, Will ye love simplicity? And scoffers delight them in scoffing, And fools hate knowledge? Turn you at My reproof; Behold, I will pour out My Spirit upon you; I will make known My words unto you." (Prov. 1:20-23.)

Thus to-day the Lord's Spirit pleads according to the prophecy: "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh." Joel 2:28. To such as receive the Spirit, the Lord will make known the truth of His holy Word for these last days. And to the church obedient to His Word it is promised the fulness of the latter rain by which the final harvest of souls will be ripened for the coming of the Lord in power and glory.

"Ask Ye of the Lord Rain

in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field." Zech. 10:1. "Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God; for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain. . . . And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten." Joel 2:23-25.

More ready to give His Spirit to those that ask than a parent to give good gifts to his children, God longs to bestow abundant blessings upon the last-day church. Lost time will be restored. The work of bearing the witness to the world will be quickly accomplished. The Spirit-filled church of apostolic times was a missionary church. They were "all at it and always at it," as John Wesley said. By the power given them to carry the message, the Gospel was heralded to every part of the known world within a generation. Now that we have reached the last generation and the time of the latter rain, we must see a similar work accomplished. "And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:14. A Spirit-filled church will do it.