The Full Blessing of Pentecost: How little it is enjoyed - continued 5

The Full Blessing of Pentecost
- The One Thing Needful
By Andrew Murray

How little it is enjoyed
(Excerpts - continued 5)

"My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
1 COR. ii. 4, 5.

Think how little there is of power for service amongst the unconverted.

What an immense host of workers there is in Christian countries.
How varied and unceasing is the preaching of the Word.
Sunday-school teachers are to be numbered by hundreds of thousands.
How great is the number of Christian parents that make their children acquainted with the Word of God and would fain also bring them to the Lord as a Saviour.
Yet how widespread is the acknowledgment of the little fruit that springs from all this work.

How many there are who, notwithstanding all they hear, and in spite of the fact that they are by no means indifferent,
are yet never laid hold of with power and helped to make a definite choice of salvation.

How many also there are who from youth to old age are conversant with the Word of God but are never seized by it in the depths of their heart.
They find it good, and pleasing, and instructive to attend church, but they have never felt the power of the Word as a hammer, and a sword, and a fire.

The reason why they are so little disturbed is that the preaching they listen to is so little in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
Alas! there is evidence enough that there is but too great lack of the full blessing of Pentecost.

Does the blame for this issue attach to preachers or to congregations?
My belief is that it belongs to both together.
The preachers are the offspring of the Christian community.
By the children we are enabled to see whether the mother is healthy or not.
Preachers are very dependent on the life that is in their congregations.

When a congregation finds satisfaction in the merely acceptable and instructive preaching of a young minister, it encourages him to go forward on the same path, whilst he should rather be helped by its elder or more advanced believers to seek earnestly the demonstration of the Spirit.

When a minister does not lead his congregation, either in public worship or in private prayer,
really to expect everything from the Spirit of God,
then he is tempted, both for himself and his people, to put confidence in the wisdom of man and the work of man.
that we could lay it to heart,
that, in the midst of all our lamentation over increasing worldliness of spirit and widespread indifference,
the great cause of all impenitence is the lack of the full blessing of Pentecost!
This alone gives power from on high which can break down and quicken again the hard hearts of men.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Real-life Deliverance Account

My sister and I had just done a deliverance on my mum yesterday (Tue, 28 Nov 2023).  It started when she kept vomitting and feeling very giddy and we laid hands upon her as usual according to the Word for divine healing.  However, it merely gave some relief to her, unlike other times as after a while, the extreme nauseousness and giddiness attacked her again. Then right around this point the demon took over her mind (soul) somewhat partially. The symptoms was that she looked dazed and kept repeating over and over again a number of questions like "Why am I sitting here" etc.  At this point when we talked to her, she did not remember anything that she did for the whole day (current time around 4pm+). It is very much like how a person with dementia would behaved and conversed.  To keep the long story short,  we took 2-3 hrs of casting out the demons in her and she is well now. Fast forward, It appeared that the demons came from H***i B***r (American Missionary) who came to our s
Read more

Absolute Surrender: Peter's Repentance

Image
Absolute Surrender By Andrew Murray Peter's Repentance You may be a very earnest, godly, devoted believer, in whom the power of the flesh is yet very strong. That is a very solemn truth.  Peter, before he denied Christ, had cast out devils and had healed the sick; and yet the flesh had power, and the flesh had room in him.  Oh, beloved, we have to realize that it is just because there is so much of that self-life in us that the power of God cannot work in us as mightily as God is willing that it should work.  Do you realize that the great God is longing to double His blessing, to give tenfold blessing through us?  But there is something hindering Him, and that something is a proof of nothing but the self-life.  We talk about the pride of Peter, and the impetuosity of Peter, and the self-confidence of Peter. It all rooted in that one word, self.  Christ had said, “Deny self,” and Peter had never understood, and never obeyed; and every failing came out of that. What a solemn thought,
Read more

A word of Knowledge: Stop depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove

Image
A word of Knowledge Stop depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove Luke 3:22 KJV And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. Many people, if not everyone, have misunderstood this verse. They pictured the Holy Spirit coming in the shape of a dove coming down upon Jesus. No, this is not what God is telling us at all.  What purpose does it serve to tell us the Holy Spirit looks like a dove where He obviously does not look like that?  God is not the author of foolishness and  confusion.  We are made in God's image, therefore, God the Holy Spirit's bodily shape is one that resembles that of a man, just as God the Son and God the Father. Now, let us read the verse again slowly: "And the Holy Ghost descended in a BODILY SHAPE like a dove upon him" ...in what bodily shape? It is of course in the shape of a man! And the Holy Ghost DESCENDED in a bodily shape LIKE A
Read more