Spirit Filled Life of Revival

We are in part two of the Evangelism Awakening Revival Institutes, and if you would turn in your handouts to session two, A Spirit-Filled Life, Duncan Campbell was preaching at a pastor's conference in Louisiana, and God was moving. After Duncan Campbell left the platform, Manly Beasley commented, It was obvious to all of us there that here was a man who lived his life under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. While a man in revival will lead a spirit-filled life, he will live in an atmosphere sensitive to the Holy Spirit, but careful not to grieve or quench him, always conscious of his presence and power.

F.B. Meyer said, 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. Well, one of the things that so impressed me about Stephen Olford as a preacher was that he preached with a mantle of authority from on high. His entire ministry revolved around the spirit-filled life.

I remember I was waiting for him in his study one day, and he finally came in and slumped in a chair. He apologized, Give me a few minutes to gather myself, brother. I must regather myself.

I just finished preaching, and virtue has left me. When he said that, my thoughts ran to the Gospels, where Jesus is being pressed by a crowd, and the woman with the issue of blood reaches out to touch the hem of his garment, and she's immediately healed. And Jesus turns around and says, Who touched me? For I feel virtue has left me.

Let me ask you, brother preacher, when you preach, does virtue leave you? This can only come from preaching with an endowment from on high. Spirit-anointed preaching will transform lives. Samuel Chadwick, the great Methodist preacher, said, The Church has a theology of the Holy Ghost, but it has no living consciousness of his presence and power.

I love the story about D.O. Moody. D.O. Moody came to understand the necessity of this power when two old ladies in his church told him they were praying for him, and he said to them, Why pray for me? Why don't you pray for these other people? And they told him they were praying for him to get the Holy Spirit. Moody spoke of this incident years later.

He said, I asked them to come and talk with me, and they poured out their hearts in prayer that I might receive the feeling of the Holy Spirit. There came a great hunger into my soul. I began to cry out as I never did before.

I really felt that I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service. And that's what we need, friends, power for service, help from above. We need an anointing of the Spirit of God, but there's a cost involved.

R.A. Torrey said, If you want more of the Holy Spirit, then be prepared for the Holy Spirit to have more of you. In Acts 1.8 we read, But ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

This aspect of the Christian life is seen in a life transformed by the Spirit of God. Vance Hafner summed it up when he commented, If we serve such a dynamite God, then why are so many of us living firecracker lives? Well, that's true, friends, but Spirit-anointed preaching will transform lives unto God, who in turn can then go and impact others as well for the glory of God. Stephen Olford had a power in the pulpit that was directly connected to his vital walk with God.

We have a command from heaven to be filled with the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 5.18 declares, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. The doctrine of the fullness of the Spirit is seldom taught anymore because few are living it. The Christian life is an impossible life to live in the flesh.

We will fall flat on our faces in sin. A Spirit-filled life is the only way to have victory in the Christian walk. Too many today live what I term elevator Christianity, where you walk with God is like being on an elevator.

It's an up-and-down experience. One day you're on the top floor enjoying the penthouse view in a life of victory, and then, remarkably, the next day you're down in the basement of despair and defeat. It's a continual up-and-down frustrating experience.

Well, allow me to explain the fullness of the Spirit in these terms. We receive the Holy Spirit at the time of our conversion, yet it is possible for the Holy Spirit to be present without being president, to be dormant without being dominant, to be resident without reigning. The Holy Spirit can be quenched and grieved in a believer's life, but when sin is exposed and self is executed, the Holy Spirit can fill to overflowing and anoint with power and authority.

We must understand what the Apostle Paul was saying in 2 Corinthians 3.17. Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. This can be understood where the Spirit is Lord, that is, where He is given His true deity and sovereignty, there is liberty, a life lived in the power of the Holy Spirit is a life lived beneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The Lordship of Jesus Christ is a forgotten doctrine today.

Holiness has been thrown out the window of the church, but we must get back to the fact that Christ is Lord. He is a risen Lord who sits at the right hand of the Father, and He earned that right by way of a bloody cross. We are bought with a price, and that price was Christ's blood.

When we are saved, our lives are no longer our own. Our time is not our own. Our money is not our own.

Our bodies are not our own. Christ must be a complete master. Until we understand and appropriate that, we are left in the fog.

But the person who is willing to bow daily and hourly to the sovereignty of Christ and the authority of His Word will experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and their life will never ever be lived on that same plain again. You will soar like an eagle and have power you never dreamed of to live above the world in sin. Well, this concludes our session today.

We will now prepare for the next session.