THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

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THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

Short Bio:  The Rev. Frederick Brotherton Meyer (April 8, 1847 – March 28, 1929) was a contemporary and friend of D. L. Moody. He was a pastor and evangelist in England involved in ministry and inner city mission work on both sides of the Atlantic. He was the author of numerous religious books and articles, and God has used him to help many on a path to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This material is very old, but it's timeless because God is Glorified, and God is still using it.


There is no need for me to prove or attempt to prove that the Holy Ghost is a person. In the Greek, though the name for the Holy Ghost is neuter, it is followed by a personal pronoun autos, which could not be used unless the Holy Spirit was a person. Readers of the English Bible will remember that the Holy Spirit said: "Separate me Barnabas and Saul," and the Apostle says: "Grieve not the Holy Spirit." Only a person can designate workmen, and only a person with a tender nature could be grieved. As you worship the Father and the Son, worship the Holy Spirit; three persons, but one God.

Before Pentecost the Holy Spirit brooded over our world. In chaos He moved to educe cosmos. He wrought in holy men to inspire the Word of God. He prepared the way for Christ. But Pentecost was His birthday. Just as Jesus Christ was in the world before His incarnation, but His incarnation was His birthday into the body, so the Holy Ghost was in the world before Pentecost, but on the day of Pentecost He was born into the body of Christ. And as the body born of the virgin was the home of Christ, and through it He wrought, so the Church is the body of the Holy Spirit, through which He is working during this era, until the body shall rejoin the Head, and Head and body make one entity, a new man for ever more. As the manger was the cradle of Christ, so the upper chamber in Jerusalem was the cradle of the Holy Spirit's incarnation.

Men talk as though God were an absentee. But every true believer, every audience gathered in the name of Christ, is the home, the see, the body of God the Holy Spirit.

Now on the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to give power to the preaching of the gospel. Jesus Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Thing born of the pure virgin was wrought by the Holy Spirit, and through thirty years Jesus was led and taught amid His native hills by the divine Spirit. Beneath His impulse our Lord went down to the Jordan, and being baptized He identified Himself with the sins of men: for the Jordan was (so to speak) saturated with the sin that was confessed over it, and when Jesus Christ stepped into it He became (as it were) identified with the sin of the race, though He Himself was sinless. From the Jordan He went forth to His work, but not before the sky had been rift, and the Holy Spirit had come upon Him with the gentle movement of a dove.

What! had He not been conceived by the Holy Spirit? Yes. Was He not one with the Holy Spirit? Certainly. Why then should He be again anointed? Because His human nature needed to be empowered by the Holy Spirit before even He could do successful service in the world. Jesus waited for thirty years until He was anointed, and only then did He say: " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, (Greek, epi, upon me), and He hath anointed me to preach."

How absurd it is for us to send young men to college to equip them with intellectual store of classic and philosophic learning, and to send them out to teach, without insisting upon it that if Christ waited to be anointed before He went to preach, no young man ought to preach until he, too, has been anointed of the Holy Ghost!

For three years our Lord wrought in the power of the Holy Ghost. Never forget that our Lord's ministry was not in the power of the second person of the Holy Trinity, but in the power of the third person of the Holy Trinity. As Saint Peter said: "God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost, and He went about doing good." On the cross He offered Himself to God in the power of the eternal Spirit. He was raised from the dead by the Holy Ghost, and during the forty days He gave command to His apostles in and by the Holy Ghost. And before He went, He said to His disciples that as He received His Pentecost at the Jordan, He would see that the church had her Pentecost too. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, but He was anointed by the Holy Ghost. The church was conceived by the Holy Ghost, but the church, before attempting her ministry, must also be anointed by the Holy Ghost; and what the baptism in Jordan was to the Head, the day of Pentecost was to the body.

The Head communicated the Holy Ghost to the body, as I explained in the preceding address.

I ask every Bible student to note that wonderful word: "He received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost." No sooner had He received it than He turned to see if His people were prepared to receive it, and then He opened the window of heaven and poured down a Niagara upon His church; and ever since He has been there in the glory, charged, yes, charged with the power of the Holy Spirit. And just as a man may touch a man charged with electricity, and a spark will answer, so you cannot touch the living Christ by faith without the spark of the Holy Ghost flashing into your soul.

Brethren, the Greek preposition epi is significant of Pentecost. Pentecost differs from regeneration. In regeneration the Holy Spirit is described as being within, but in Pentecost and ever after the Holy Ghost is described as being upon. He anoints, He falls upon, He equips; and I ask that before this meeting shall close, every one in this audience who has been regenerated by the Holy Ghost shall become anointed, filled, empowered with the Holy Ghost.

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THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

THE GREATEST DIFFERENCE POSSIBLE IN YOUR LIFE.

There is where you have failed, my brother. You have been preaching the cross, but you have not been preaching the cross in the demonstration and power of the blessed Spirit.

When I was at Leicester, there were many discharged prisoners whom I took from the prison gate to my house, where they lived with me, under my care. I had a firewood factory. The great beams came from Norway, and they were sawn up by a circular saw wrought by a crank, and on that crank fifteen men were kept at work to give them an opportunity of regaining their character. But these men served me ill. I lost much money. I presently swept them away, and instead purchased a gas-engine, and the gas-engine did in an hour as much work as the fifteen discharged prisoners did in eight hours.

One day I asked my circular saw how it was that it turned out so much work, and the saw at first said it could not tell. I asked if it had been sharpened. It said no. I asked if it had been polished. It said no. I asked if it had been oiled. It said no. Then I said: "How is it?"

"Why," it replied, "I think there is a stronger driving power behind me. Something is working through me with a new force. It is not I, it is the power behind."

Would God that you, my brother ministers, who have been working with the power of intellect, of energy, of enthusiastic zeal, with but poor effect, may become linked to the power of God the Holy Ghost stored in Christ; for as soon as you shall link to it, not you, but the power of God through you, will repeat the marvels of Pentecost.

One word more here. You ask me if the day of Pentecost was a specimen day. I answer: yes, and for two reasons. First, on the day of Pentecost the priest in the Temple presented twelve loaves, the specimen and the result of the harvest; and inasmuch as God chose the day of Pentecost for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, He surely meant us to understand that the day of Pentecost was a specimen day, and that what He did that day He was prepared to do every day; and He would have done it if the church had not choked and frustrated His plans. Secondly, in Acts 2:39 you have these words of Peter: "This promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Understand therefore that the promise of Pentecost is for you also, because God has called you, and from to-day you may go forth charged with power from on high.

HOW MAY WE GET THIS ANOINTING?

Now a step further. You say to me: "Sir, tell me how I may get this power myself."

I will. I know a little of it, thank God, and I hope as the years pass that I may know more and more. This truth has revolutionized my life.

Any mechanic knows this law to be true: obey the law of a force, and the force will obey you. I repeat it: obey the law of a force, and that force will obey you. Take water, force. I cannot make water do my will until I understand the law upon which it works. If I want water to go up hill, I must study the law by which water seeks its own level; and if I construct my machinery to obey the law of falling water, then having obeyed the law of water, water will obey me. What has Edison been doing for the last twenty years in his laboratory? He has been studying the law of electricity, and having studied the law upon which electricity works, he has constructed his machinery to obey that law; and ever since he perfected his obedience, electricity has been his slave, and there is nothing he cannot make electricity perform if only he is patient and wise enough" to understand the method on which electricity will work.

I once asked some men this very profound question: " When was there more electricity in the world  -- now, or away back a hundred years?"

They all said there was more electricity in the world to-day than there had ever been before. Poor fools they must have been to come to such a conclusion. Why, before Adam stepped the sward of Paradise there was as much electricity in the cloud, in the air, and in nature as there is to-day, only man did not understand the law of electricity, and therefore electricity would not obey his summons. There was plenty of electricity, but men never used it.

So is it with the Holy Spirit. There is as much Holy Spirit power in your little village church, my brother, as there is in the largest tabernacle in the country, and the mistake of your life has been that you have never yet learned the law of the Holy Ghost; for if you had, the Holy Ghost would have come flowing through your life as much as through the life of a Peter or a John. You seem to think that God is a God of favoritism. You seem to think that God has His chosen favorites whom He endues with the Holy Ghost here and there, whilst all the rest are left to take their chance. I admit that the gifts of the living Christ are given on His sovereign decision, but the power of the Holy Ghost is FOR EVERYONE, for you.

Now let me tell you briefly the conditions on which, if you obey them, you may at this minute and from now be able to -- I was going to say, but perhaps it is too startling, -- to command the Holy Ghost. I think I will say that, however, because God says: "Of the work of My hand command ye Me." And if a man will obey God to the uttermost, he may command the power of God at any moment.
Now what are these conditions? They are as far as I know five. If you discover another, let me know.

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THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

FIVE CONDITIONS

First. You cannot have the power of the Holy Ghost without having the Holy Ghost Himself.

That is, the Holy Ghost must come to you as a person before you can enjoy His attribute. In other words, you must be a holy man before you can wield the power of the Holy Ghost. There are plenty of men who think that if they could only get the power of the Holy Ghost they would be able to fill their churches and sell their books and get themselves name and fame. They want it, but not Him. You cannot have it without having Him. If you want the power of the Holy Ghost, open your heart to-day and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and then you will have His power.

Second. You must be cleansed.

Oh, I do want to speak wisely! I do not want needlessly to offend you, or denounce you. But I do feel in my heart that if the Holy Spirit is going to work through you or any body He must have a cleansed vessel. The body must be clean.

Now I know that I might here dilate on many of those indulgences that men and women permit. I would much prefer not to characterize them, because you yourselves know anything in your life which is inconsistent with the perfect majesty and purity of that Spirit who has made your body His temple. But if my body is really the temple, the residence and the throne of the Holy Ghost, I must be as careful of it as I would be if I were the custodian of a temple in the inner part of which the light of God shone. I need not say more than that.

Third. You must live for the glory of Christ as your supreme end.

Jesus Christ, came into the world to glorify the Father, and the Holy Ghost came into the world to glorify the Son. If therefore you want the Holy Ghost to work with you, you must agree with the Holy Ghost to glorify Jesus, for the Spirit was not given till Jesus was glorified.

Fourth. Your preaching and teaching must be in harmony with the Word of God. I am a Quaker by extraction, and I glory in it, especially when I know what they have been in this country. I dissent from them because I believe they went wrong when they magnified the Holy Spirit to the exclusion, in many cases, of the Word of God. And with all love I would say that if there is one danger ahead for the Salvation Army of the present day, it is lest they should magnify the work of the Spirit of God in experience, apart from the Word of God taught to their converts.

THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

Like the steel rails; and you must have the steel rails of the Bible as well as the steam power of the Holy Ghost. Let the Holy Ghost fill you, but He will work along that Book. And I hold that the fact that the Holy Spirit elects to work through that Book is its most complete vindication against all that modern critics have to say. As long as the Holy Ghost is prepared to stand by it and to work by it, I hold it to be in an incomparable sense the Word of the living God to man. I am well satisfied to accept it all, Jonah and the fish included.

Fifth, and last. The Holy Spirit must be received by faith. Galatians 3:14 is the battle-axe. I would not be without that text for anything: "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit though faith;"

All God's dealings with men are on the same principle, by faith. By faith you are regenerate, by faith you are justified, by faith you are sanctified, by faith you receive the Holy Ghost, by faith you receive Christ as the power of God into your life. It is all by faith.

Let me close with this bit of personal experience. I have always gone on the principle that our moral constitution is on the same plan; that just as our faces are made on the same plan, so our moral nature is made on the same plan; and one of the key-notes of my life has been: Understand yourself, and you will understand something of everybody else.

I had been for a long time a minister in Leicester, with a large church and of considerable influence in the city, but very unhappy. Conscious that I had not received the power of the Holy Ghost, I went up to that little village, the name of which you hear so often, Keswick. A great number of God's people gathered there to seek and to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and they elected to have a prayer-meeting from nine o'clock to eleven and onwards, to pray for the Holy Ghost. A great many people were there agonizing. I was too tired to agonize, and I somehow felt that God did not want me to agonize hour after hour, but I had to learn to take; that God wanted to give, and I had only to take.
To-morrow your little girl will come down to breakfast. She is very hungry, and the bread and milk or the oatmeal is on the table. You do not say:

"Little girlie, run upstairs, and agonize, roll on the floor for an hour, and then come down."

You say to her: "Little one, I am so glad you have got a good appetite. Now there is your chair, in you get, say your prayer, and start away."

That is what God says to the soul. Those all, nights of prayer for the Holy Ghost are principally necessary to get the people who pray into a fit condition to receive the Holy Ghost; for when the people are ready the Holy Ghost will come without agonizing.

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THE ANOINTING WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
by F. B. Meyer
1847-1929

So I left that prayer, meeting at Keswick. It was eleven o'clock or half past eleven, and I crept out in-to the lane, and away from the little village. The lights died away in the distance, and I stood on the hill, or walked to and fro, the stars shining upon me, and now and again a little cloud dropping a baptism of rain upon my face, as though symbolic of the refreshing my soul was to receive. As I walked I said:

"O, my God, if there is a man in this village who needs the power of the Holy Ghost to rest upon him, it is I; but I do not know how to receive Him. I am too tired, too worn, too nervously down to agonize."

A voice said to me: "As you took forgiveness from the hand of the dying Christ, take the Holy Ghost from the hand of the living Christ."

I turned to Christ and said: "Lord, as I breathe in this whiff of warm night air, so I breathe into every part of me Thy blessed Spirit."

I felt no hand laid upon my head, there was no lambent flame, there was no rushing sound from heaven; but by faith, without emotion, without excitement I took, and took for the first time, and I have kept on taking ever since.

I turned to leave the mountain side, and as I went down, the tempter said:

"You have got nothing. It is moonshine."

I said: "I have."

He said: " Do you feel it?"

"I do not."

"Then if you do not feel it you have not got it."

I said: "I do not feel it, but I reckon that God is faithful, and He could not have brought a hungry soul to claim by faith, and then give a stone for bread, and a scorpion for a fish. I know I have got it because God led me to claim."
I met a number of young clergymen, and they fought it with me. They said:
"No, no, we feel, we feel to have it, and we know we have got it."

But said I to them: "How will you do to-morrow morning when you do not feel it? Now I, who take by faith, am independent of feeling to-morrow or any future time."

Whilst we were talking, a young merchant who was listening, said: "I want to say a word. You parsons have been talking a great deal about the Holy Spirit. Now I know I have received the Holy Spirit when I have most of Jesus, and in my place at Glasgow, if I miss the presence of Jesus for half an hour, I go into my counting-house, and kneel down and say: 'Holy Spirit, what have I done to Thee that Thou hast taken from me the sense of the presence of Christ? '"

"O," we said, "when we know we have most of Christ, when we love Him most, live for Him most, we know that the Holy Ghost is within us in power."

So, brothers, sisters, may I ask you to let this day be the time of transaction with God. Walk to and fro, and say if you like:

"I sadly need a Pentecost. As far as I know, I fulfil the conditions, in my will at least."

Then put your hand upon your heart, and say: "I do now receive."

Let the devil say what he likes. Keep reckoning that the Spirit of Christ rests upon you, and when you come to your Jordan, and the students are there to look on, and you might draw back, -- that Jordan representing your temptation, your mission, some bit of work to do, -- say:

"Holy Spirit, I now trust Thee to do through me Thy Pentecostal work in glorifying Christ."