Holy Spirit — Alan Redpath

And outpouring of thy Spirit, that this may not just end in having a happy time and a nice time, but it really may revolutionize some of our lives. Lord, turn us inside out and upside down, and make us real in all our testimony and vital in our witness for thee.

We can't do it, Lord, we are useless and helpless in ourselves. A preacher can't do it, but Lord Dawkins do it. We would rather be out of the way than get in thy way. All we want is that we may be a voice to proclaim thy word.

And Lord, if the voice can't do that, silence it. But please, please, get thy way in our lives tonight. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. My colleagues who have been on the platform and just left it, I'll ask them just for three minutes to have a sleep, because at this point I want to use an illustration which they've all heard me use before, perhaps many times, but it describes to me, it gets me to my heart at least, what are we aiming at right now at this very point in the convention.

The Aim of Spirit-Filled Christian Living

It's very crucial, because some people when you talk about the filling of the Spirit and so on, they all think you've got weird ideas and it's high pollutant, it's away, Pentecostal and extreme, and extreme holiness, etc, etc, etc.

Well now, what are we really after? Now let me use the illustration and then they'll wake up when I've finished, I hope. Some years ago, many years ago in fact, my wife and I, plus two children, which is all we've got, were travelling over the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York in what, if you'll pardon me mentioning it, is the world's largest liner, the Queen Elizabeth.

And we were about two days out from Southampton on a perfectly clear day, perfectly smooth sea, and we noticed that day the captain, the commander of the ship, had his glasses trained on a cloud of smoke that was at the rear end of the ship.

It was getting larger. And we watched this cloud of smoke coming along, getting bigger and bigger, and presently the news went round that the world's largest liner, the Queen Elizabeth, was for the first time in her history being overtaken at sea by the world's fastest liner, the United States.

Yes, I thought you would appreciate that more. About once off that day, about midday, the United States passed us, unnecessarily near I thought, and as she went by, the commander of the United States sent a message to the commander of the Queen Elizabeth and said on the cable, you look very beautiful, but you're very slow.

His answer wasn't published. About eight weeks later, we were returning from America to Britain on the same ship, and one afternoon I was having a cup of tea with the chief engineer, who was a lovely Christian man from Glasgow in Scotland, and he was telling me that exactly the same thing happened on the return voyage from New York to England about two weeks before we were on this return ship trip.

And he said, you know, once again, the United States overtook us. But he said the boss was ready for him. That is, the commander. And the United States sent us a message, which simply said, sorry to pass you.

So the commander of the Queen Elizabeth said in his reply, that's perfectly okay, but it does not meet for the royal lady to travel in fast company. Well, I thought that was a pretty good answer. And then he suddenly said to me, he said, by the way, do you want to see the engines?

Oh, I said, I'd love to. He said, come on then. So we went out of his cabin, we went into a lift, I mean, an elevator, and we went right way down, way down deep, into an engine room in which there were four steam compression boilers.

One of them was shut off. He said, do not use that. It's the economy they're after now, and we only use three boilers because we can do it on 900 tons a day instead of 7, instead of 2 ,000 tons of oil a day.

And when he showed me that, he then said, come on, I want to show you something else. And we went still further down in another elevator, and we arrived out on the tiny little platform. And there, right in the middle of the ship, there's a long gangway.

And we walked along it, right to the end, right to the stern of the ship. And on either side of us, there were two huge propeller shafts. Each of them was 450 feet long. That's 150 feet, yards rather, 150 yards of solid steel.

And they seemed to be going round at a tremendous speed. And we walked on and on, right to the very end of the ship, and we got to the place where those propeller shafts went through the skin of the Queen Elizabeth out into the ocean.

And we stopped, and I heard the thrash—yes, that's the word, I think, the thrash—of four giant propellers, which drove a floating attell across the eclanting ocean, 82 ,000 tons in weight, at about 33 miles an hour.

It was tremendous. Oh, I shall never forget that, the sense of, the power that was behind them all. So we went back into his cabin, and for the sake of conversation, I said to him, my, I said, that was tremendous, thank you so much for showing me that.

Those propellers must be going awfully fast. And he laughed at me. He said, I see you are no engineer. I said, no, I'm not, but what do you mean? He said, if you were, you would know that I would get those propellers, or could get them going so fast, that ultimately they would simply make a hole in the water, and the ship would stop.

Well, I don't know anything about engineering, seemed rather peculiar to me. But he said, you know, I have 48 engineers on board this boat, and they're calculating constantly the ratio between revolutions per minute in the engine room, and, now notice this phrase, and steadiness at the point of drive.

What we want from those propellers isn't speed, it's steadiness. And he said with a touch of pride, justifiable pride, I think, he said, you know, the old lady, that's what the ship, has been going across this pond, that's the Atlantic Ocean, going across this pond for about 25 years, and I guess we'll be doing it for at least another 10.

And he said, you know, we've been going over in wartime, when we've been bombed on torpedoes, and we've been going over in fine weather, blue skies, calm seas. We've gone over in fog, we've gone over in hurricanes, in blizzards, in rain, in cloud, in storm, in tempest.

And he said, you know, we've never been late. Sometimes he said we're behind schedule, but he said we've made it up. We've never been late. Because, he said, Cunard have discovered the secret of steadiness at the point of drive.

Now, that's all my illustration, but it is to ram home to you, that what we are out to do at this convention, God helping us, and what I believe the Lord desires of all his people, is not speed, but steadiness.

It is to coin the title of a book written by my good friend George Duncan, it is to discover the secret of mastery in the storm. Mastery in the storm. Steadiness when the storms hit me. Steadiness when I'm tested, that I don't sink and collapse and go down at every time I'm tempted and try.

That's what a Christian has to be. After all, after all, it's our reaction in time of testing that is the basis of other people's judgment of our Christian faith. So, we're concerned tonight as we think about this tremendous truth of the fullness of the Spirit, about it shouldn't lead us into emotional ecstasy, but to the point of knowing how to be steady.

Now, that's the kind of life I want, don't you? And as my good friend Dr. Friess has said, it gets worse, there's worse to come, and the storms get heavier, and the tests get severer as you get older.

I didn't think that thirty years ago, but I do now, I've proved it. It gets worse, the storms are more severe, and the Lord expects from you what? I'll tell you, one word, failure. At every point, he expects from you total failure.

Let that sink in. But, oh, here we come, but, he has given you the Holy Spirit that you need never fail, that can ever be made upon you by testing and trial and temptation, I don't care what it is, every demand is met at the instant it comes, by the life of Christ within you, and he is always sufficient.

Stephen as a Model of a Spirit-Filled Life

Now, I want tonight, very simply, and speaking to you in shorthand, so as not to take too long, I want to turn your attention to a sample of a spirit-filled life, and you'll find my sample in Acts chapter 6.

It concerns the story of a man called Stephen, and do you know what that name means? It means crown, and what a crown he had, what a crown he won, but my, what a cross he bore. And we're going to think about this man for a moment tonight.

Let me, however, just show you the context of his life. You notice in the first verse of the sixth chapter, the number of the disciples was multiplied, and there arose a murmuring. Just pause, I've underlined in my Bible two words, multiplication, murmuring.

Yeah, that's always what happens when God blesses, murmuring. Just for one instant in the Acts of the Apostles, they become the Acts of a deacon. Stephen was one of the deacons appointed. Actually, the Acts of the Apostles is a very bad title for the book, as you know.

It is really the Acts of the Holy Spirit through yielded men. And there's some wonderful spiritual arithmetic in the first early chapters of this book, because the Lord had been adding to the church constantly, such as should be said, he'd be giving additions, additions, additions, and then the devil tried division, and Ananias and Sapphira came on the scene, the devil had a shot at dividing, and then the Lord gave multiplication.

Multiplication and murmuring. Now listen, there is never a movement of the Spirit of God without a counterattack of the devil. When the Lord works, Satan moves in. When the Holy Spirit blesses, Satan moves to counterattack.

You know anything about that at your church, or is everything very placid and calm? You have a sign outside your church door, please do not disturb, that's what is on most hotels or doors, you can put it on your room if you like, but is there any sign of movement, of multiplication and murmuring?

It's a good sign, it's a good sign, it's a sign that God's at work. And such a time as that, Stephen lived. Now he's a very wonderful character, this man, because I find that he was a man who always lived, in every area of his life, he lived to maximum capacity.

He was a man who was always full. Look at it in verse 5, when they set about choosing these men to be deacons, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. Verse 8, and Stephen, full of faith, actually the word there I believe is better translated, it's a different word, better translated, grace.

And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people, and in Acts chapter 7, verse 55, Stephen, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God.

Now here's a man who's always full. You notice the sequence, he's full of faith, he's full of the Spirit, he's full of grace, and he's full of power. Let's look at those in reverse a moment. Here's a man who is full of power, dunamis, dynamite.

There's something about him that he's got, he's got real power in his life. And he's full of power because he's full of grace. Power isn't noise, it isn't eloquence, it isn't oratory, it isn't self-assertiveness, it isn't my ability to crush other people, that's not power.

Power is grace. He was full of power because he was full of grace. And he was full of grace because he was full of the Holy Spirit. He wasn't merely a natural gentleman, it wasn't something natural, something that he'd sort of built into himself as he was educated and grew up.

He was full of grace because he was full of the Spirit. You see, the gracious man is the Spirit-filled man, the Spirit-filled man is the gracious man. The fullness of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5 .22, is described in one word as character.

That's what we're after, that's what the Lord is after. Now here's this man who is full of dynamic power because he's full of grace, and he's full of grace because he's full of the Spirit, and he's full of the Spirit because he's full of faith.

Oh my, this is a life that I long to live, filling up to capacity in all levels, full of faith, full of the Spirit, full of grace, and full of power. Now that's the kind of life that I believe the Lord Jesus wants all of us to live.

Faith as Total Surrender and Holy Desire

What's the secret of it? I think suggested very clearly in this passage of Scripture are rivalries that Stephen resisted in order that he might be full of faith and of the Spirit. Full of faith, that isn't just full of an understanding of doctrine, that isn't just having a statement of creed.

Would it shock you very much, but you can come and tell me if you disagree with me, but I'm sure I'm right. I don't mean to, you know, but I'm just saying what I'm convinced is true. It doesn't make one scrap of matter a matter, doesn't matter a bit.

If I can believe a statement of doctrine and have everything absolutely correct, it doesn't make any difference whether I believe a system of truth or I reject it, unless that system of truth which I say I believe gets into my feet, my hands, and gets me moving.

A man who is full of faith is full of the principle of forsaking all, I take him, that's faith, F-A-I-T-H, forsaking all, I take him. Now Stephen is full of faith, not an intellectual understanding of truth, not a head knowledge of facts, not sound simply in his doctrine, but I think faith means, as we've heard this evening in another way, it means desire, intensity, longing, concern, and this means to me that he's resisted every other rivalry.

He's full of faith because he's emptied himself of other things that would stop him being full of faith. He's concentrated on this one thing. He's full of faith and longing and desire. In other words, this man wanted God so badly they didn't care about anything else.

Oh, would to God that that was true of this congregation, of every one of us here. I tell you, my friend, God gives you himself when you really want it, but how much do you want it? Why God doesn't fill the church today with the Holy Spirit is because there are too many rivals, too many contestants.

We're not full of faith and longing and desire for him, and God meets us on the level of our desire. This man was full of faith. I hunger and I thirst. Jesus, my manna be, ye living waters burst out of the rock for me.

For still the desert lies, my thirsty soul, before. Does that language sound strange to you? It's the language of Mansell, that great hymn writer. It's the language of men and women who know that you don't meet God at a little encounter, at an after-meeting, or sticking a hand up, or signing a card, or coming forward in response to an invitation.

You meet him when you really long to know him. There's an amazing cycle of Christian daily experience in Psalm 63, which I just, without seeking to expound it at all, I just read to you. Here's a man who knew what it's all about.

Listen. Verse 1 of Psalm 63 says, My soul thirsteth for thee. Verse 5, My soul shall be satisfied. Verse 8, My soul followeth hard after thee. That's daily Christian experience. Every day, my soul thirsteth after thee.

And every day, in answer to that thirst, my soul is satisfied. But being satisfied, it follows hard after thee. The more I have of Jesus, the more I want. He's so wonderful. The more you know him, the more eager you are to know more.

So this man is full of faith. That was a condition of the fullness of the Spirit. Are you full of faith tonight? I'm not asking about your intellect, your mind, your brain, your knowledge of truth. I'm asking about the condition of your heart.

Is the heart hunger and thirst and eagerness and longing for God? Or you just not care? I mean, are we just content to be 20th century fundamentalists? Lord forbid. Desperately we need in these days Holy Spirit revival in our church.

And it'll only come in the lives of men and women who really care with all their hearts for God. He was full of faith. And that suggests to me he was full because he was empty of other things. This was his priority.

He longed after God. God only fills what I empty. North of Ireland, a little country near my home, a place called Ulster, six counties that are still British. There's a town in Northern Ireland called Ballymena.

Funny names they have. This town is a very hot spot for Protestants. A very difficult place for Roman Catholics. Very few of them. And one lady I knew had a cottage meeting in her home and she lived next door to one of the few surviving Roman Catholics.

And she asked her to come. Oh no, she said, I can't come. Not allowed to. She had a meeting and she had a wonderful time and the Irish are a curious race. And so the Roman Catholic went over the fence the next morning and said, how many did you have at your meeting last night?

Oh, she said, 27. It was wonderful. Come the next week. No, can't come. Not allowed to. The following week she had another meeting and the lady asked her again, how many did you have last week? Oh, she said, 36 last night.

It was wonderful. Come again. Come. The last one. I'm having one more. No, can't. Not allowed to. And the third meeting went on and finished and the next morning the same conversation. How many were at your meeting last night?

51, she said, and my house was full. This Roman Catholic looked at her. Well, she said, you said you had 26 the first time and your house was full. And you'd got 31 the next time and the house was full.

And now you had 51 and your house was full. How did you do it? Oh, she said, perfectly simple. What do you mean by perfectly simple? It's impossible. Oh, she said, didn't you hear us? What do you mean, didn't I hear you?

Oh, she said, it was wonderful. All we did was to put every stick of furniture out into the yard. And we made more room for people. Now, you'll excuse me if I get under your skin about this tonight, but I'm concerned that God may get right to my heart and yours.

What about some of the unspiritual, unchristian furniture that gets into our lives and we don't have room for God to fill us? God wants to fill, but there are so many things that fill up our lives and clutter them up that our desire is not singleness of heart for Him.

This man, Stephen, was full of that. He emptied himself of everything that would hinder God answering His prayer. Are you prepared to do that right now, tonight, in the books we read, the television shows we watch?

Are you prepared to put discipline on the button, the places we go? Oh, unspiritual furniture in the Christian life that just simply make it impossible for God to bless us. Stephen was full because he was empty of everything else.

The Spirit's Constant Supply and Fullness

And because he was full of faith, he was full of the Spirit. May I just say one thing to make this perfectly clear? I know it's been said today already, but I'd not think this evening, but today it has.

There's no such thing as finality in fullness until we get to heaven. The fullness of the Spirit is a constant appropriation of a constant supply from Jesus Christ Himself. A constant trust in a constant cleansing.

A moment-by-moment faith in a moment-by-moment resource. And at the moment I begin to believe, at that very moment I begin to receive. And as I go on believing, I go on receiving. That, by the way, is the statement of a Methodist called Charles Inwood, of a generation ago, who was a great Keswick speaker.

And that statement did me good. Praise the Lord, as long as I go on receiving, believing, I go on receiving. So that every day of your life you have greater capacity for more and more of Him. You're indwelt by the Spirit of God when you're born again, but you're filled up as you go on believing and go on receiving.

Stephen, therefore, was a man full of faith, and because he was full of faith and full of desire, full of longing, God filled him. You know, just as quickly, just as simply as that, it can happen in your life tonight.

It can. Just right now, just as your heart goes out to Him with deep, deep longing, long, that's what I want in my life, then it'll take place. He feels when we want Him to. But let me ask you just to notice very carefully, not only the rivalries that he resisted, but the rageance he revealed.

Radiance in Ordinary Christian Service

Verse 15,. And all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Have you ever seen the face of an angel? Well, I haven't. I have the least idea what it's like.

But I can't imagine the face of an angel ever showing any sign of worry, or any sign of fear, or any sign of resentment, or any sign of anger. And he saw Stephen as the face of an angel. What did Stephen do?

Had he a big job? No. I'll tell you what he did. He looked after a few poor widows in the church, of a very poor church, to see that they were all treated fairly, they had right share. Therefore Stephen was the man who was in contact with ordinary people seven days a week, day after day, dealing with people who had a bit of a chip on their shoulder, dealing with people who weren't quite thinking they were getting fair treatment, and he went to be a kind of peacemaker and pour oil on troubled waters.

Doesn't that bring Stephen right up to date now? You're not finding him two millenniums ago in the New Testament, he's right here with us, here in this church tonight. Because, you see, you live with people every day and so do I.

Stephen's face was as the face of an angel. Isn't it Oswald Chambers, I hope you read him by the way, that lovely book of his, My Utmost for His Highest? Tremendous. Where he says, a Christian is not expected to do extraordinary things in unusual circumstances, but a Christian is expected to be extraordinary in usual circumstances.

I like that. Don't you? Now that's exactly Stephen. His face was as the face of an angel. No worry, no fear, no resentment, no anger. You see, that's the radiance that comes out of a Spirit-filled life.

Not something that you can work up, not something that you can try to impress other people that you have, but just the sheer quality of the life of the Holy Spirit shining through you. Stephen was a man like that.

He revealed radiance. Now, you know, we're getting awfully near the crux of this whole series of meetings. I hope you're with me. Because, you see, you're longing for something, someone, so am I, longing for Jesus to fill your heart, fill your life.

Oh, longing for that. Why? That that radiance might shine through and there may be seen in my life, there may be no worry and no fear and no resentment and no anger. These things may have gone and there may be something about the way we live, the way we act, all that reminds people of Christ.

I once heard somebody say, it was a very long word. I think I understand it. I'll explain it to you. It was, I heard it when I was at Ben Lippin. A speaker said there, a Christian is intended to be an, here it comes, eschatological phenomena, which simply means a projection from heaven into time.

That's a Christian. Someone who makes the Lord very near. Someone who reminds us that God is not dead. Someone who tells us that he's walking and talking with a king. Someone who, about whose very face and whose very life, there's a radiance, he's lit up by a glow from within.

He's got, he's got the love of Christ in his heart and he's lit up with the reality of the living Christ. Stephen was a man like that. That's why we're getting so close to the crux of the whole thing, because that's the whole object of this convention.

The Crisis Provoked by a Spirit-Filled Witness

Well now, just one other thing, quickly. Let me show you here, what does a spirit-filled man expect? I want to speak to you about the reaction to a spirit-filled life. Very interesting. You'll take, for instance, chapter 6 and verse 10.

They were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. In other words, there was about him, while a humility and a radiance and a reality of Christ, there was a measure of authority.

You know, he had real anointing and authority in his wisdom, in his ministry. And you look on to verse 54 of chapter 7, and we read this. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

Well now, that being rather literal, I don't suppose people will do that with us, but what I want to say to you is just this one thing. Listen, you can't be neutral about the Christian faith when you come in touch with a spirit-filled Christian.

I want to underline, that's the kind of man who led me to Christ. A man who was a CPA in England, by whose whole life I was challenged. You know what a spirit-filled Christian does with you? If you're not a Christian at first, he makes you mad.

You get absolutely mad with him, resentful with him, you don't like him. Oh my, I tell you, a dozen of us in our office in Newcastle, Newcastle sat round in a public house drinking beer. And vowed that in six months time we'd knock the religion out of him.

We couldn't stand it. We didn't ram it down our throats, but he was so terribly consistent. He always got to the office on time, he never left early, never took more time for lunch than he should, and never would come out for a drink.

And when we were stopped at eleven for something worse than coffee, he wouldn't do it. We couldn't have any fun when he was around. There's something about his life that annoyed us. See? Oh, within six months, that man had led me to Christ.

That's another story which I have no time to tell you. But the reaction, the spirit-filled life, is one which precipitates a crisis. Nobody's neutral. Some will be mad, some will be mighty thankful that at last they've met reality, but nobody will be neutral.

When you're filled with the spirit, everybody jumps off the fence. They get right off the fence. Not all on the right side, but they come off. Now let me get under your skin again and into your heart again.

Tell me, in your home, in your neighbourhood, in your office, does nobody care about the Christian faith? Perfectly indifferent? Do you go along happily with them? There's something wrong with your testimony.

A spirit-filled man or woman cannot live in a situation where people are neutral about the gospel. That was one reaction that followed Stephen's spirit-filled life. And, of course, it led to him being the first to be stoned to death for his faith in the Lord Jesus.

Stephen's Vision of Christ in Glory

And what is the reward of a spirit-filled life? Verse 56 of chapter 7, and verse 55, being full of the Holy Ghost, he looked steadfastly up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, I behold, behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.

At that minute he became the first of a tremendous succession of those who have counted not their lives dear unto death, but have given them in the cause of Christ. And at that tremendous moment, when he was being stoned and beaten to death, he looked up into heaven and he saw Jesus.

And he said, I see Jesus standing on the right hand of God.