Heavenly Prescription Empty Self Fill with Spirit

When I was in my mid-40s, I got it into my head that I wanted to take up martial arts. That was dangerous at my age because when I attempt to tackle something, I'm in there 100% until I master it. I ended up taking Kung Fu.

I took Kung Fu lessons five days a week for two years, and I became a human fighting machine. I was fighting men half my age and almost giving myself a heart attack. My arms were continually black and blue from deflecting the blows of my opponents, and I broke my finger when a man kicked me in the hand.

But the one lesson I took away from all that training was not self-defense. It was this, friends. On the day of my first lesson, my Sifu asked me a question.

He asked if I'd ever taken martial arts before. I said no. He said, good.

You are an empty cup. And what he meant by that was I didn't need to be retrained and unlearn a previous fighting discipline. I knew nothing and therefore was teachable.

I was an empty cup. That's the best thing I took away from my time in because I can apply that to the Christian life. God can do a lot, friend, with an empty cup, one that is empty of self.

But if that cup is full of self, then I'm afraid God can't use you much. You can still do a lot for him with your cup full of self, but he won't be involved in the activity. I spent years as a Christian worker, but most of what I attempted to do for God was from a cup full of self.

I taught Sunday school because I derived satisfaction from it. I enjoyed being the center of attention. I was a walking cup of self.

But like I said, God wasn't actively involved in my Christian service because what I did for God was centered in mere human effort. I didn't bother the devil too much in those days. All my efforts were about as effective as if I was standing before a big building and it was on fire.

And as I stood before that tower in Aferno, all I had was a water pistol and the fire just raged on. Like I said, I didn't bother the devil much in those days. I hope you don't mind if I make a startling statement to you based on personal experience.

If what you are doing for God can be explained in mere human terms, then God is not actively operating in your service to him. Let me repeat that friends, because some of you seem stunned. If what you are doing for God can be explained in mere human terms, then God is not actively operating in your service to him.

Do you know how when you are ill and you go to the doctor and he examines you and perhaps takes some x-rays and it's his job to diagnose what's wrong with you. And once he makes his diagnosis, he will prescribe some medicine for you. He will write a prescription to get you back on your feet and feeling better.

Well, I have a prescription that I have taken and it has helped me immensely in my Christian service. I would like to share with you this heavenly prescription today, friends. And if you take Dr. Johnston's advice, you may be better for it.

Are you ready for this heavenly prescription? Here it is. It's comprised of two components to better spiritual health and a more effectual ministry. Empty self, filled with spirit.

And that's the title of my message today, friends. Heavenly Prescription, Empty Self, Filled with Spirit. Turn in your Bibles now, friends, to the book of Zechariah.

We will be in chapter four. And this is an interesting passage of scripture for it is a diagnostic text. It has a diagnosis as to our current condition in our service to God, and it has a remedy provided in the text.

We will be in verses six through ten. Let me read the striking passage to us now. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof, with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.

For who hath despised the day of small things? I will stop there. In her passage, we see that God makes a declaration which is startling to the prophet Zerubbabel. In essence, he informs him about the futility of mere human effort in regard to doing the work of God.

God says, It is not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. In other words, friends, anything we do for God in our own strength admits his absence in our work. It's merely the futility of human effort trying to do the work of God, which is an impossible task.

Listen to me, dear missionary friend. The task before you is an absolute impossibility in human terms. How can you hope to pull down the strongholds of darkness that have been in place for centuries? How can you open the eyes of the blind? How can you raise a dead man to life? You cannot.

Only God can through you. But self is in the way. Did you hear me? Self is in the way.

Empty self, filled with spirit. You need to be an empty cup to be filled with God's power. Brother evangelist, how in the world do you expect to save souls from the clutches of Satan by your human arguments and emotional appeals? You cannot.

You will just damn a man twice by making him a false convert if God is not actively in your midst, raising the dead and bringing them to life through Christ Jesus and his blood. Dear youth pastor, how in the world can you deliver the teenagers under your care from the death grip of Satan and lift them from the bog of mire and sin that they are in as his captives? You cannot. Only God by his spirit can deliver them.

Brother pastor, is your preaching of personality and education and winsomeness in the pulpit? Your own might? Your own power? Who is the operating influence in your ministry right now? Your explainable human efforts or God's magnificent power by his spirit? This is business friends because much of our labor can be misguided and misdirected if God is not in our midst through his wonder working grace and power where we can say grace, grace. Eternity is either being impacted by our lives or it is not. We are either putting out the fire with the proper equipment and resources or we are standing before a burning building with a water pistol.

I repeat, the futility of mere human effort will not impact eternity one wit. The futility of mere human effort will not tear down the strongholds of resistance nor will it put a dent in the gates of hell. Our best human efforts for God on their own are just that, a futility of human efforts.

Self is in the way. Self is the ruling factor. Self is the hindrance to power.

In our text we see God speak of the day is small things. This is a reference to weak instrumentalities in his hands being used of him for his glory. My bible says there's strength and weakness friends.

When we are full of self-reliance, God is a million miles away. But when we are poor and needy of him, he is near. This emptying process must take place in our lives if we desire further usefulness for him.

I like the statement of J. Sidlow Baxter when he said, How can a man, full of himself, preach to Christ, who emptied himself? Oh, that's so true friends. That's the first aspect of our heavenly prescription, empty self. There's a picture of this in the life of Moses.

Before God could use Moses, God had to get Egypt out of Moses. Allow me to explain. When Moses was in Egypt, he killed a man with his bare hands for mistreating a Hebrew.

Moses was a self-reliant man in Egypt. He took matters into his own hands by his might and by his power. But when God providentially put Moses on the backside of Midian for 40 years, there was a divine purpose in operation.

The emptying of Moses. God had to make Moses an empty channel that he could work through. I like what F.J. Hegel said on this very subject.

For 40 years on the lonely slopes of Midian, the fiery Moses is schooled. There were graves, if I may so speak, scattered all over the mountainside, where hope after hope was buried until at last, self went down in utter annihilation. And I like the final remarks, friends, from J. Gregory Mantle, who said, When self vacates the throne and Christ becomes the center of our personality, then everything is adjusted to his sovereign will.

So we see, friends, the requirement to comply with this heavenly prescription, empty self. The second part of the cure for our ineffectiveness is to be filled with the spirit, filled with spirit. The apostle Paul declares in Ephesians 5, 18, And be not drunk with wine, wherein in excess, but be filled with the spirit.

Listen to the wise words, friends, of the saintly F.B. Meyer, who spoke on the necessity of being empowered with the Holy Spirit for service. If Christ waited to be anointed before he went to preach, no young man ought to preach until he too has been anointed by the Holy Ghost. In my Bible, friends, the Word of God is compared in Jeremiah to both a hammer and a fire.

When we preach with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, our words should fall like the blows of a hammer, breaking up all false foundations of carnal security, and a fire consumes all dross. Look at this aspect of a holy fire as seen in Luke's Gospel in chapter 3 and verse 16. John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I cometh, the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.

He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. I have known some preachers in my time who possessed this holy fire. Remember my opening statement? If what you are doing for God can be explained in mere human terms, then God is not actively operating in your service to him.

Allow me to share a story with you, friends, about a man whose life demonstrated this principle of which I speak. This man had the Holy Spirit all over him. His name was Ralph Barnard, and it was said of Barnard that he was the human instrument of over 100,000 souls coming to Christ.

I want to read a story from my biography on Ralph Barnard entitled, God's Hitchhiker Evangelist, because it illustrates the second aspect of our heavenly prescription, filled with Spirit, this activity of God operating in a person's ministry by the power of his Spirit in the transformation of lives for all eternity. Here now are Ralph Barnard's words. Listen to the story very carefully, friends.

There is a lot to gain from it. Please listen. In Texas, many years ago, while I was a student in Southwestern Seminary, there was a little mining town nearby, and I went one summer while I was in school and held what is called revival services.

I began the meeting there on Sunday night. I got up that night, and I preached. I remember I preached on hell that night and dismissed the congregation, praying that the Holy Spirit would speak to hearts and disturb people.

As we stood there, something touched my shoulder. I looked around, and the old white-haired pastor stood there, his face drenched in tears. He said, Brother Preacher, might I say a few words? Of course he might.

And he said, Folks, let's don't go home for a few minutes. I just can't let you go right now. Well, somebody happened to look at his watch, and exactly 33 minutes later, a lot had happened.

That pastor stood there with his face in tears, and he pointed men out and called them by their given name. I had never seen anything like it. He'd been a pastor there for over 30 years.

He knew them by their given name. He said, Bill, I just can't let you go tonight. And he preached to Bill, and here came Bill.

Jim, and he preached to Jim, and here came Jim. And he did that to 33 men, one by one. Nobody left.

He just called those men by name and talked to them, and here they came. 33 minutes later, 33 men were lined up. I don't know whether they got saved or not.

I'll find out at the judgment. I simply know this. They claimed to.

There was power there that night. There was somebody there besides us. God used that preacher to talk to those men through him.

He couldn't use me, but he used him. We had an old-fashioned handshaking. We had 33 men professing their faith in Christ.

Everybody made their living in the coal mine, but Monday night I didn't preach. I was going to preach, but they didn't have service Monday night. At 4 26 p.m. Monday, one of the mines had an explosion and caved in, and some men were buried in that mine, and the whistle blew, and sirens and alarms went off in that little mining town, and all they did was to gather at that mine with all their equipment, and while they worked feverishly, some prayed, some cried, and some cursed, but they worked to get down to where those men were trapped.

The timekeeper or whoever is in charge of time consulted his books and knew there were 33 men trapped down in that mine. They worked feverishly, and finally they got to them, and one by one, they hauled up the bodies of those 33 men who were crushed in that mine. Every one of them was dead, and they were the 33 men that lined up there in that church and said they had received Christ.

Now friends, does that story make you want to get alone with God and linger in his presence until you get a touch from him? That will transform your entire ministry and purpose in life, but we have to be willing to do the first part of this heavenly prescription which I spoke about, and that's the first thing, empty self, because you have to be an empty cup to be filled with the living waters of his Holy Spirit and have that fire which John the Baptist speaks of, and when that happens, friends, your ministry will typify our text today from Zechariah, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Oh dear friends, this heavenly prescription and its two requirements for the cure of mere human effort, empty self, filled with spirit, it's my prayer that every one of us can enter in to that experience with God whereby he is active in our ministry, like Ralph Barnard said of that old pastor, God used that preacher to talk to those men through him. Let that be said of us, friends.

Let us pray.