Everyone recognizes that Stephen was Spirit-filled when he was performing wonders. Yet, he was just as Spirit-filled when he was being stoned to death.
When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed.
Unctionized by the Spirit’s might, John cried, ‘‘Repent!’’ And they did! Repentance is not a few hot tears at the penitent form. It is not emotion or remorse or reformation. Repentance is a change of mind about God, about sin, and about hell!
It has been well said that there are only three classes of people in the world today: those who are afraid, those who do not know enough to be afraid, and those who know their Bibles.
And before we can be clean and ready for Him to control, self-seeking, self-glory, self-interest, self-pity, self-righteousness, self-importance, self-promotion, self-satisfaction – and whatsoever else there be of self – must die.
God never intended His Church to be a refrigerator in which to preserve perishable piety. He intended it to be an incubator in which to hatch out converts. – F. LINCICOME.
Do not we rest in our day too much on the arm of flesh? Cannot the same wonders be done now as of old? Do not the eyes of the Lord still run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those who put their trust in Him? Oh, that God would give me more practical faith in Him! Where is now the Lord God of Elijah? He is waiting for Elijah to call on Him. – J.
Oh! my ministering brethren! Much of our praying is but giving God advice! Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is sullied, His blessed Son who is ignored, His laws broken, His name profaned, His Book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.
Prayer makes the soul tender.
At this grim hour, the world sleeps in the darkness, and the Church sleeps in the light;.
Jesus said, ‘‘Go ye!’’ but He also said, ‘‘Tarry until!’’ Let any man shut himself up for a week with only bread and water, with no books except the Bible, with no visitor except the Holy Ghost, and I guarantee, my preacher brethren, that that man will either break up or break through and out. After that, like Paul, he will be known in hell!
True preaching is the sweating of blood. – DR. JOSEPH PARKER.
The ugly fact is that altar fires are either out or burning very low. The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh. What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer? Yet ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees.
For this sin-hungry age we need a prayer-hungry Church.
There can be no revival when Mr. Amen and Mr. Wet-Eyes are not found in the audience. – CHARLES G. FINNEY.
Some Christians cannot say when they were saved. But I never knew a man yet who was baptized with the Holy Ghost and Fire and was unable to say when it happened.
The Spirit-filled believer will hate iniquity, injustice, and impurity; and he will militate against all of them. Because Paul hated the world, the world hated Paul. We, too, need this disposition of opposition.
He who would teach the people to pray must first himself be given to prayer.
Such a sinning, repenting ‘‘easy believeism’’ dishonors the blood and prostitutes the altar.
An experience of God that cost nothing, does nothing, and is worth nothing.
There is something very questionable and unbiblical about those who claim a baptism of the Spirit and yet know nothing of extended periods in prayer.