Now, what is the secret of all this?
I could give you so many more illustrations
and facts, but I don't need to convince
you further, I trust.
This movement lasted roughly a generation.
I think the secret, very simply, the person
of the Holy Spirit.
There's a verse that puzzled me a great
deal.
I wonder if it's puzzled you.
Not by might, nor by power, but by
my spirit, saith the Lord.
Not by might, but don't we deal with
a mighty God?
Not by power, but don't we have the
power of the Holy Spirit?
What does that really mean?
I discovered that, if you go into the
Hebrew words, the word might there might be
illustrated, have you ever heard of the German
Wehrmacht?
M-A-C-H-T.
That's the same as the word might.
Hitler and his generals organized a superb military
machine.
It was the might of the German army.
Those panzers were like a clenched fist, smashing
into other nations.
It was a superb organization.
There's no doubt about it.
It took the rest of the world many
years to catch up with them.
That's the word might.
The word power means pressure, rather than the
power of the Holy Spirit.
The best translation I've seen of that is,
not by force or chain of command, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord.
What could the churches have done in 1790
to stem the tide?
It was too much for them.
Some things are too much for us.
I was conducting a week of meetings in
Bishop.
The pastor said to me, come, I'll show
you how I'm beating the energy crisis.
He took me to his living room in
the parsonage, and there he had an old
-fashioned black pot-bellied stove.
He's up in the mountains there, there's plenty
of wood.
And he said, I'm saving a lot of
money, I don't have to buy oil anymore.
Well, that's good for you, but I said,
I doubt if it would work in Los
Angeles.
First of all, they wouldn't let us have
incinerators, so I doubt if they'd let us
have pot-bellied stoves again.
Besides, we wouldn't have enough wood.
In one sense, this energy crisis, too much
for any Christian congregation, isn't it?
Too much for any little firm.
It's a world crisis.
And that's what the churches faced in those
days.
And the answer was not by organization or
chain of command, but by my spirit, saith
the Lord.
Now, the disciples said to the Lord Jesus
before his ascension, Lord, will you at this
time restore the kingdom to Israel?
They had been told that the Messiah would
bring an end to the tyranny.
And they expected him to do this now.
And the Lord Jesus said, it's not for
you to know the times or the seasons
which the Father has put under his own
direction.
But you will receive power after the Holy
Spirit has come upon you.
And you will be my witnesses, both in
Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the
uttermost parts of the earth.
There was that great commissioning.
Now, what did he mean when he said
you will receive power?
I'm thinking, for instance, of different illustrations.
I talked to a farmer up in the
San Joaquin Valley.
I said, are you all prepared for harvest?
He said, I'm all set.
That tractor is the best tractor that money
can buy.
That's one reason why American farmers are producing
so much of the fruit of the soil.
They're way ahead of Soviet Russia or any
other country.
They have the power to do it.
They're well organized to do it.
But that tractor lies there to be used
when he wants to use it.
He covers it with a tarpaulin when he
doesn't want to use it.
Let's take a different illustration.
A man looking for a job, a migrant
worker.
He shows up at the edge of the
field.
He doesn't ask the worker working there, can
you give me a job, because he's only
a worker.
He says, where's the boss?
He said, you see the tall man there
with the straw hat?
That's the boss.
Pretty decent fellow.
Wish you well.
He goes and speaks to the boss, I'm
looking for work.
What's your experience?
Oh, I've had about 15 years in harvesting.
Okay, we can use you.
Now, you see that second field there?
You see the fellow in the blue jeans?
Tall fellow?
You go to him and tell him I
sent you.
Tell him I told you you were to
work in that corner there.
This is the boss.
It was the Lord Jesus who said, Pray
ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that
he will thrust forth labourers into his harvest.
Who is the Lord of the harvest?
The Lord of the harvest is the Holy
Spirit.
Who was it that said to the church
at Antioch, Separate unto me Barnabas and Saul
for the work unto which I have called
them.
It was the Spirit who said this.
The Holy Spirit is the Lord of the
harvest.
I take it many men here have performed
military service.
You know that in every organization of the
military there must be a commanding officer.
To paraphrase Harry Truman, the buck stops here.
Somebody must be responsible.
But the commanding officer doesn't rush around doing
everything.
He delegates work.
He has an adjutant.
If you want to see the commanding officer,
you go to the adjutant and say, Captain,
I must see the colonel.
It's very important.
The colonel just can't see you until ten
o'clock tomorrow, but we'll put your name
down.
You'll be here at ten o'clock sharp.
Now remember, ten o'clock sharp.
That's the adjutant.
On the other hand, if the colonel wants
something done, he gives it to his executive
officer.
He may say, Major, we have a long
hike tomorrow.
See the men are all outfitted with heavy
footwear.
And give them special rations and so forth.
He doesn't rush around doing that himself.
He tells his executive to carry it out.
Now may I use this as an analogy,
remembering all analogies break down at some point.
I use this as an analogy of the
Godhead.
God the Father is still on the throne.
Where is the Lord Jesus Christ?
Now that he has accomplished the work of
salvation, he is at the right hand of
the Father, interceding for us.
He is our adjutant.
When we pray, we pray in Jesus' name.
But who is the executive of the Godhead?
The executive of the Godhead is the Holy
Spirit.
It's through him that things are carried out.
He has unlimited power, yet he will not
intrude on anyone's will.
He will not make you do what you
don't want to do.
He will convict you, he will persuade you,
but he won't intrude upon you.
So I want you to get that idea
of the Holy Spirit being the personal power
of the Godhead.
Some people think the Holy Spirit is like
a power additive.
You see signs, you know, to use such
and such a power additive, you get better
mileage with your gasoline.
People think, well, we do Christian work, but
we've got something special, we really need the
help of the Holy Spirit.
No, no, the Holy Spirit is in charge
of everything.
Everything.
And we are sometimes like spoiled children, we
just want to do things our own way.
Instead of submitting our wills to him.
For instance, we could plan a great visitation
campaign, say, for Pasadena.
Supposing we do it entirely on our own.
Only the Holy Spirit knows that the day
before that visitation program begins, there's going to
be an earthquake that's going to shake the
whole of Pasadena.
We don't know that, he knows that.
So he can lead us about timing, about
everything.
The Holy Spirit is the one in charge.
Now what can we say about the Holy
Spirit, except that he seems to be the
unknown member of the Godhead.
I was preaching in Belo Horizonte in Brazil.
When the doorbell rang, I was having lunch
with a Presbyterian minister, so he went to
the door and greeted the man at the
door.
He said he was collecting por espiritu santo,
for the Holy Spirit.
To make conversation, my Presbyterian friend said, Who
is the Holy Spirit?
And the Brazilian said, Don't you know?
He's a bird.
He used the word pasareño.
You remember the American passenger pigeon?
He said he's a pasareño.
He's a pigeon.
Some churches have him carved above the altar,
but our Padre noticed we didn't have the
Holy Spirit in our church, so we're collecting
money, this Whitsuntide, this Pentecost, to put the
Holy Spirit in our church.
Now people smiled at that, yet a Baptist
lady in Portland and Oregon said to me
once, How do you distinguish between the Holy
Spirit and Santa Claus?
After I got over my astonishment, I said,
Santa Claus is fictitious.
The Holy Spirit is the power of God.
But he's a personal power.
You drive up your car to a gasoline
station, you say, Fill my tank with gas.
But the gasoline doesn't care whether you drive
north, south, east, west, fast or slow.
But the Holy Spirit does care how you
behave.
Now he is a spirit, not a thing.
How do we know he's not a thing?
Not just the influence of God, as the
Unitarians would say.
Or the Jews, or the Jehovah's Witnesses.
We know he is a person because Scripture
teaches he has intellect, he has will, he
has emotion.
He can think for himself.
How do we know that?
He will teach you all things, he will
lead you into all truth.
He has will.
He said to Paul and Silas not to
go into Bithynia.
He forbade them.
Why?
He wanted them to go to Macedonia.
Does he have emotion?
Grieve not the Holy Spirit.
Not only is the Holy Spirit a person
who can think for himself, act for himself,
feel in himself, but he's a super person.
I have a friend in Los Altos in
California who has an IQ of 208.
Albert Einstein's IQ was 209.
My friend Dr. Gerhard Dirks holds 240 patents
for IBM computers.
Now what do you think would be the
IQ of the Holy Spirit?
The figure thousand, would that do?
Well, million?
No, no, infinite.
Is there a figure?
Yes, there is.
You mathematicians know that little figure of eight
lying on its side.
The double alpha for infinity.
That's his IQ.
The Holy Spirit has irresistible will.
An Irishman said to me, well, you have
to admit I've got a strong will.
I said, your wife says you're stubborn.
I didn't tell him that a critic said
he was pigheaded.
Have you got a strong will?
Yes.
Perhaps it is strong, but strong at the
wrong points.
Have you ever made up your mind to
get up early in the morning to pray?
How long did you keep it up?
Did you ever make up your mind not
to criticize other people unkindly?
How long was before your tongue was wagging
again?
You have a weak will.
And you have confused emotions.
You love some things you should hate.
You dislike some people you should love.
But the Holy Spirit has infinite intellect, and
will, and emotion.
He is also God.
What a way to say it.
He is deity.
Now, this is hard for some people to
understand.
How do we know he is God?
Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses teach that Jesus Christ
is a created angel, and the Holy Spirit
is just the influence of God.
But how do we know that this person,
the Holy Spirit, is deity?
Well, if he is not, what could he
be?
Could he be an angel?
What other kind of life?
Human?
Animal?
Now, we look at what the scripture says.
In what way does God differ from all
his creatures?
You would have to say, well, he is
omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.
That means he is all-powerful, all-knowing,
everywhere present.
Men are not omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.
Neither are devils, neither are angels.
Certainly not animals.
But only God.
Can you think of a verse of scripture
that suggests that the Holy Spirit is omnipotent?
The second verse of the Bible.
The Spirit of God moved upon the chaos
in creating the world.
He can create.
Can you think of a verse of the
scriptures that teaches that the Holy Spirit is
omniscient, that he knows everything?
Well, he'll teach you all things, but there's
a better verse still.
It says, just as it takes the spirit
of a man to comprehend the thoughts of
a man, so only the Spirit of God
can comprehend the thoughts of God.
You have a pussycat at home, you stroke
the cat, the cat knows you're pleased.
Kick the cat out of the way, the
cat knows you're cross.
But if you're worried about your income tax
returns, the cat doesn't know what's bothering you.
The cat can't comprehend that, can't take it
all in.
Only the Spirit of God can comprehend the
thoughts of God.
How much does God know?
Everything.
How much, then, does the Holy Spirit know?
Everything.
He's omniscient.
Is he everywhere present?
Whither shall I flee from thy Spirit?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art
there.
If I make my bed in hell, thou
art there.
The Holy Spirit is everywhere.
Therefore, he's deity.
You say, yes, but I don't understand, how
can he be a person and be deity?
Well, that's a mystery.
You have a body that's alive, a soul
that's alive, a spirit that's alive.
For instance, pinch yourself.
You have feeling in your body.
When you step outside the church, you'll probably
say it's a little chilly tonight.
It cools off here so much in California.
You feel that in your body.
But when our flutists were playing, we were
stirred by good music in our souls.
It's in our soul we feel patriotism, certainly
not in our bodies.
Otherwise, a big fat man would be more
patriotic than a little thin man.
And in our spirits, we have conviction, too.
We worship God in spirit.
You know, I meet all sorts of people.
I had a pastor once who thought that
it added to the spirit of the meeting
to dim the lights and raise them again.
He would dim them and so forth.
That's not spiritual.
That's psychic.
I don't object to it, but it's not
spiritual.
It's psychic.
Maybe it saves distraction.
You don't see the person directly in front
of you.
But you have a spirit.
The Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit
that you're a child of God.
How did you arrange to be body, soul
and spirit?
Well, you didn't arrange it, but you are.
Now, in the same way, we add up
all the Bible says about the Father, we
find he's the Eternal Father.
We add up all the Bible says about
the Son, we find he's the Eternal Son.
We add up all the Bible says about
the Spirit, we find he's the Eternal Spirit.
One God, but revealed to us as Father,
Son and Spirit.
It's a mystery, but it's true.
Is there any good analogy of this?
I'm afraid not.
One lady came to me recently.
She said, I'll give you a good illustration.
An egg.
I said, I beg your pardon.
She said, I said an egg.
She said, an egg has a shell and
a white and a yolk.
But I said, there's no oneness there.
The shell is made of calcium.
The white is made of albumin.
The yolk is made of fat.
Those are three things wrapped together.
Whereas we believe Father, Son and Holy Spirit
are of one essence.
A Baptist pastor in Tempe in Arizona said
to me, I'll give you a good illustration.
I am father to my family, pastor to
my congregation, and a citizen of the state
of Arizona.
I said, well, keep your functions straight.
You kiss your family goodbye, but you shake
hands with the congregation at the door and
you go into a polling booth and you
vote in the elections.
But I said, that's one man acting in
three ways.
That's not God.
Jesus wasn't the father dressed up for a
certain role.
There's no real analogy.
But the truth has been revealed to us.
You'll find God's footprints in creation.
Everything that happens is future, present and past.
All three form time.
I could give so many illustrations like that.
Why do I mention this?
The whole secret of revival is the Holy
Spirit.
He's the only one that can do it.
It doesn't mean we can't do anything.
We can pray.
And trusting him we can preach the word
powerfully.
We can witness by our daily living.
But when it comes to things of this
magnitude, only the Holy Spirit can bring about
the renewal of our nation or the Christian
church throughout the world.
Therefore we should start asking him to do
it.
Then when we pray he tells us what
to do.
It's as simple as that.
Yet some people are afraid of the Holy
Spirit.
I know some ministers, if they thought that
a movement of the Holy Spirit was beginning
in the congregation, they'd say to themselves, I'd
better not let this get out of control.
They're afraid of the Holy Spirit.
You can be afraid of Satan's counterfeits and
take every measure against that.
But don't be afraid of the Holy Spirit.
Because one of his titles is, he is
the Spirit of Jesus.
And another title is, he's the Spirit of
Christ.
Do you love the Lord Jesus?
Then you surely ought to love the Holy
Spirit.
Because he is the Spirit of Jesus.
The Spirit of Christ.
First time I ever heard that little chorus,
there's a sweet, lovely spirit in this place,
was in Don Momo's church up in Bel
Air.
And I felt the hush of the Spirit
there.
Do you remember you were in trouble?
And the Lord comforted you?
That was the Holy Spirit.
Do you remember you faced temptation, but you
were fortified?
That was the Holy Spirit.
You remember you were deeply convicted of sin?
But now you look back and you think,
I surely needed that.
That was the Holy Spirit.
The same Holy Spirit is concerned with the
work of God throughout the United States and
all the world.
He's in charge.
There was about time we started talking to
him.
But whether you're praying for a renewal in
your own life, or revival in this congregation,
or awakening all over this country, or throughout
the world, the lesson is the same.
It's the work of the Holy Spirit.
Now Charles Finney said, Revival is nothing more
than the right use of the appropriate means.
If he had said that of evangelism, I
could have accepted it.
But the scripture doesn't say that.
It says, Wilt thou not revive us again?
Revive thy work in the midst of the
years.
And in the New Testament, times of refreshing
from the presence of the Lord.
It's time for the Lord to work.
Let us pray.
Search me, O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts.
See if there be any grieving way in
me.
Then lead me in the way everlasting.
O God, when we contemplate the sin and
unrighteousness in our nation today, wilt thou not
raise us up again?
Pour out thy Spirit on the Church to
revive us, and on the people to awaken
them.
Then give us the privilege of bringing them
in.
For that's the work thou hast given us
to do.
Amen.