Some advice from a “Billy Graham” evangelist who was active around 1900:
R. A. Torrey, the first dean of both Moody Bible Institute and BIOLA University, wrote these words in his book, How to Work for Christ:
The supreme condition of power in the apostolic church was the definite baptism with the Holy Ghost. The supreme condition of success in soul-winning is the same today. Many in these days are trying to prove that there is no such thing as a special baptism with the Holy Spirit, but a candid and careful study of the Acts of the Apostles will show that there is. Very many in our day also know by blessed experience that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a present-day reality. One ounce of believing experience along this line is worth whole tons of unbelieving exegesis, no matter how subtle and learned it may be. There are thousands of men and women in this and other lands who have been brought out of a place of powerlessness into a place of power in the Lord’s service, through meeting the conditions plainly laid down in the Bible for receiving the Holy Ghost. This baptism with the Holy Spirit is for every child of God, and the one who would be largely used of God in personal work must get it at any cost. (From: www.amazon.com Kindle edition, November 22, 2013.)
Torrey graduated from Yale University and Yale Divinity School and went on to do Biblical studies in Germany at the Universities of Erlangen and Leipzig; there he studied under top Old Testament scholar, Franz Delitzsch. Torrey came to reject the destructive higher criticism of the Bible in the German universities and returned to the US to begin his fruitful evangelistic ministry.
Who was R. A. Torrey? D. L. Moody urged Torrey to be his successor at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, IL, which is still very influential in evangelical circles via Internet and radio.
Torrey had been holding his own crusades with the same evangelistic passion as Moody when Moody urged him to become the first dean of Moody Bible Institute. (The ever-fruitful Torrey later also became the first dean of BIOLA, Bible Institute of Los Angeles, now a major Christian university.)
Torrey made the decision to lead the famous Moody school into the next century. He leaned on the same Power that guided his friend, Moody. He remembered that Moody once said that when he felt a loss in Power, he would take a day off and seek a refilling of the Power that propelled him to the pulpit.
Torrey said he also experienced that infilling of Power. In fact, he taught his followers to seek that infilling of Power in an actual encounter with the Holy Spirit. He said it would be characterized by such an exhilarating experience that the believer would remember the date, the time, and the place where it occurred. Why wouldn’t someone remember such an event? One moment his life is Powerless; the next moment a heavenly Guest had come to take up residence in a yielded life. Torrey didn’t expect any of the “sign” gifts of I Cor. 12 or the personal prayer language, or glossolalia--just a changed life.
What happened to the “R. A. Torrey version” of the infilling of the Holy Spirit? Sadly, subsequent leaders at the Moody Institute have stripped it both of Moody and Torrey’s secrets. They dictated the removal of any mention of such doctrines from the curriculum at Moody Bible Institute. My husband found these sad facts in some of his research:
John R. Rice (Sword of the Lord Ministries) was very familiar with this history and wrote the following interesting description of events in those early years:
R. A. Torrey, the closest associate of Mr. Moody, preached again and again on “The Baptism of the Holy Ghost,” and has a book by that title. In his memorial sermon on “Why God Used D. L. Moody,” he said that Moody had a definite baptism of the Holy Ghost for power. And remember that again and again Moody insisted that everywhere Dr. Torrey should go, he should preach on this baptism of the Holy Ghost or enduement of power….
There came a time [after the death of Moody] when some of the teachers in Moody Bible Institute decided to take out of the curriculum the teaching of Moody and Torrey on the Holy Spirit….
And so the fad…left people to disregard that clear Bible teaching that one can have a mighty enduement of power by waiting on God for soul-winning power….Our seminaries pour out men who are taught to play down the enduement of power from on high and to minimize any teaching of waiting upon God for the fullness of the Spirit….”
The hymn “Spirit of the Living God, Fall Afresh on Me,” has been used all over this country with great blessing to Christians as they prayed for the fullness of the Holy Spirit, despite their ultra-dispensational theology! (From The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Believer by Allan Gravely, pp. xxii-xxiii, available on Amazon).
Another who added his voice to Torrey’s advice is none other than the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, Lewis Sperry Chafer. Here are his exact words:
Undoubtedly the experience of being filled with the Spirit for the first time is a very dramatic one in the life of a Christian and may be a milestone which elevates Christian experience to a new plateau….
From the nature of the filling of the Spirit, it may be concluded that the wide difference in spiritual experience observed in Christians and the various degrees of conformity to the mind and will of God may be traced to the presence or absence of the filling of the Spirit….
There is no experience or feeling related to the Spirit’s baptism of the believer into Christ, but all manifestations of blessing and power are directly related and due to the Spirit’s filling. (From the Preface of Allan Gravely’s book, The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Believer, p. xi)
And in our day? The phenomenon of this infilling happened repeatedly in the 1960s and 1970s in multiple denominations during the Charismatic movement. Many times, it included speaking in tongues or glossolalia. Here is how it occurred within the Catholic church:
One chapter in a book changed history!
It was Chapter 21 of David Wilkerson’s book The Cross and the Switchblade. That chapter was responsible for creating the physical office of the Charismatic wing of the Catholic Church in the Vatican! It was the catalyst for holding large arena-sized meetings of Charismatic Catholics.
A group of sincere Catholics were planning to meet at Duquesne University in the 1960s. Their required reading for the weekend was the book by Wilkerson.
Chapter 21 begins with the words, “What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?”
The book continues with an explanation of what is meant by the Pentecostal view of that term.
Wilkerson pointed out the five locations in the book of Acts where such an experience is highlighted. (Given below.) That weekend, numerous Catholics from various walks of life entered into the then-controversial experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The rest is history, thrilling church history. Since then, arenas of happy Catholic clergy and laymen have met and compared their exciting stories.
I believe the Christian’s first step in receiving this wonderful Filling or Baptism of the Holy Spirit is to know scripturally that (1) such an experience exists today and (2) that every believer qualifies to receive it. Those two things need to be settled.
- Begin with the Bible. Notice that this on-going ministry of Jesus is predicted by John the Baptist and cited six times in scriptures. See Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:33, Acts 1:5, Acts 11:16. John the Baptist never lived to see his famous prophecy fulfilled, because the promise in John 7:37-39 said that believers would receive the Spirit after the glorification/resurrection of Jesus. Study carefully the five accounts in Acts in which ordinary people receive the Spirit.
- chapter 2
- 8:4-25
- 9:17
- 10:1-11:18 and
- 19:1-7.
- Believe that you qualify. John 7:37-39. Only non-Christians do not qualify (John 14:17). If you heard from a lawyer that you had inherited a sum of money, you would believe that and show up at his office to claim your inheritance. Similarly, as one young lady shared, if a friend called and told her that the mall was having a big sale “for women only,” she or any woman would believe that she qualified.
- Ask in faith to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is biblical to ask for laying on of hands for this experience. In addition to the Bible, there are many trustworthy testimonies in the Christian world. As mentioned in Appendix II, p. 269, in my book (Alabama and Beyond), the introduction above, and chapter 21 of David Wilkerson’s book, The Cross and the Switchblade, there are many clear testimonies of the positive benefits of this experience. Wilkerson asked many of his former drug-addict converts how they knew that they would not return to drugs. Every one of them said the same thing; they knew it when they received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. My book also details how Allan and I, along with all four of our children, received this gift.
There are countless other testimonies of the power that has come to earnest Christians as they seek to be totally yielded to the will of God. Others may not understand, but you know you are on solid ground since your experience is in line with the written word. Reach out and claim your inheritance!