Power for Service - 2 — Jackie Pullinger

The Holy Spirit’s Power Is Measured by Visible Fruit, Not Feelings

Now, I've looked up all the scriptures in the Old Testament where it talks about the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon someone. There are other scriptures that talk about the Holy Spirit and I've not included them.

But in every case where it talks about the Holy Spirit coming upon someone in the Old Testament, you'll find that there's something visible or audible. That something happens, not an emotion. It doesn't say the Holy Spirit came upon him and he felt good.

So we're not talking about feelings in this instance. Though an experience of Jesus will, from time to time, certainly bring us feelings. But the power of the Holy Spirit to minister is not measured by feelings at all.

When I pray in tongues, I feel zilch. For me, it's an obedience. I might enjoy talking to Jesus. I might simply, not particularly enjoy talking to him that day. But do it because I'm supposed to be doing it.

So I do this out of obedience sometimes. And don't feel anything necessarily. But when I see people's lives changed, after I've prayed in the power of the Holy Spirit secretly, and see that when we come together they're healed and changed, then I'm emotional.

So praying in tongues doesn't make me an emotional. But seeing what happens as I use the gifts of the Spirit does. Because I love it when people are changed. I get no high out of praying in tongues. All the scriptures in the Old Testament where it says the Spirit came upon him, you'll find that the power of the Holy Spirit came upon the men in the Old Testament to save Israel in every case.

The Spirit’s Empowerment of Moses, Gideon, and Samson

So the power of the Spirit came upon Moses. And the word used is like a good gush. I'm staying in a really nice place and they've got a very nice shower. And thank God it's one of these ones that doesn't get off after three minutes.

You've still got the froth in your hair, you know. But we used to have a really nice one in a place we lived. And all our brothers used to stay in half an hour at a time because it had such wonderful pressure coming out of this shower.

And they'd all sing spiritual songs and everything else in there for hours. Because it came up. Not a blessed drop, but a holy shower gushing out. And these are the words used in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit came upon Gideon.

And what happened? He felt good. No. He blew his trumpet. And having simply been an ordinary farmer's son, suddenly he's commanding an army. And he wins an extraordinary battle which saves Israel without even fighting.

From one minute to the next, there's power. The Holy Spirit came upon Samson. And he had extraordinary strength to lift up the building to save Israel. Power you could see, hear, or measure for the saving of Israel.

And so you'll see that in the Old Testament there are particular men, but they're usually just one. And they're kings like David, prophets, or judges. And they're just one at a time until you get to Joel.

Joel’s Promise of the Spirit for All People

And in Joel 2, there's a promise. And in Joel 2, he says, verse 28 to 30, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Now, the promise of the Spirit being poured out to do the works of God, not to know Him, okay?

That's the other work of the Spirit. The pouring out of the Spirit is to do the works of God. And he said, this is going to be for all people. Not just the odd king, the odd prophet, or the odd judge.

But now, all people. And he says, your sons and your daughters. It's for men and women, will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, young and old. And your young men will see visions. On my servants, both men and women.

It's for high and low, young, both sexes, indiscriminate. Pouring out of His Spirit on all people. Followed by feeling good? No. Followed by wonders in the heaven and on the earth. And finishing up with the saving of a nation.

Again, the saving of a nation. That's what it's for. The power of God to do the works of God. To bring men into Israel. A saved nation. So, Joel brings this promise in chapter 2. Of Joel. And when you get to Acts chapter 1.

Pentecost: The Promise Fulfilled in Acts

The disciples got the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Because we read in John. They've been breathed upon. Don't know if they fell down. But they, he said, received the Holy Spirit. So, then he says in Acts 1 again.

Wait. Wait for what? Wait for the promise of the Father if you read in chapter 1. What's the promise of the Father? The promise of the Father is the Joel promise. The day is coming when the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you.

Now, they already have done some miracles, the disciples, right? Because they've been sent out on short trips. Now, this is going to be their anointing. Which will not be recalled. It will be walked out.

And wait for the promise of the Father, he says. Because you're going to be witnesses. And in chapter 2 of Acts. The Holy Spirit comes upon them. And I'm sure they felt good. But it says there were recorded signs.

They spoke in tongues. There was fire and wind. And it was the signs. It was the fire and the wind and the tongues that attracted the crowd. And the crowd said they are blind drunk. Now, when you receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

I'm very sorry to tell you. There will always be a mixed reaction. And it was in those days and it will be now. Now, 50 are going to say, this is the wonder of God. And the other 50 are going to say, they're off their heads.

And Peter stood up and said, no, no, no, no, the bars aren't open. Couldn't be that we're drunk. This is what the prophet Joel promised. This is the promise. And then he goes on to say what you see and hear.

Measurable power, not emotion. Now, I keep saying this because as we pray for you in a minute. Some of you are going to speak in tongues. And when you come up to us, you'll say, but I didn't feel anything.

Well, I'm just telling you, you may not. We're not praying about feelings. I hope you go on having them. As long as you deal with the Lord, that's yours and his business. But receiving power to witness and do the works of God.

You may or you may not feel anything. Some of you may simply start to speak in tongues and think how strange. And if you do, you are just like me. I thought how strange. In fact, not how strange. I really did have a feeling.

I was overwhelmingly embarrassed. And I can remember thinking, oh, thank God they're Chinese. You know, I couldn't have done this in front of the Brits. But anyway, I certainly wasn't flowing with wonderful sounds and exuding with joy and sitting on clouds and wafting on mountains and all the things that I've read other people feel.

But you may. You may. I mean, that's up to God. I don't know what you'll feel. But we will tell you how to receive power. Okay. Now, I'm going to be very specific. So, I really hope that nobody is here, unless you mean business.

Because this is not an observer sport. Okay. And the things that I'm going to tell you now, they're not secret, but they must not be taken lightly. Because I don't want people watching. In a minute, we'd like you to pray to receive the power of the Holy Spirit or to pray for people to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

And there shouldn't be a third category. If you feel like being the third character, I think I'll watch and wait and see, we'll invite you to leave at five. Because people who are putting themselves on the line to receive the power of the Holy Spirit need to know that it's not that other people are going to stay and watch.

Okay. Because sometimes they're taking a great step of courage when they do this. Okay. So, it's alright to feel a bit nervous. And the Lord has already spoken to us today about being afraid, because He knows we are, so that's alright too.

But He will deal with that. Now, let me tell you how it happens. Many people have gone to meetings in the past and said, Lord, I want to receive the power of the Holy Spirit or I want to receive tongues or whatever.

And they've gone forward and they've been prayed for and nothing's happened. And the most serious people that this happens to are evangelicals. Because evangelicals love the Scripture and they are likely to pray like this.

Dear Lord, if you want me to speak in tongues, please give it to me. And then nothing happens. So they conclude, well, He doesn't want me to have this gift. Now, I don't have time to do this with you.

But all the people we pray with will always receive this gift. So, we know that when St. Paul says, you may all speak in tongues, he says, I wish you all would. This is entirely up to you if you don't want to.

You don't have to. But what people are afraid of when they pray for power is they're afraid they're going to be overtaken. And that's not the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not take away our free will.

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are operated as we bend our knee. It's, I will. I will. I will. I'm nervous and I'm embarrassed, but all right. It's a bending of the knee. Many people say, Dear Lord, if you want me to speak in tongues, make me.

They open their mouth, and they're expecting what they fear. That is, that their tongue is going to be moved. That's demonic. That's spiritist or spiritualistic. It's not Christian. Christians speak voluntarily.

Order, Self-Control, and Spiritual Gifts

And 1 Corinthians 14 says, The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, which means we can stop and start at will. Yes. The miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are in our control temporarily.

Yes, they are. We do not ever have to make an excuse in a meeting that the Holy Spirit told me to shout at the crowd in tongues. That's just bad manners. Extremely bad manners. And it's out of order. You may not do it.

The only way you may speak in tongues in a meeting is if you have the permission of the leaders of the meeting. Because it says, Let all things be done in order. And if you do it without the permission of the leader of the meeting, everybody listening is confused and worried.

If you do it with his permission, it opens a door for everyone to understand and listen. Now, gifts of the Spirit can be controlled. We used to have a guy who came every Sunday to our meetings, and he got frightfully excited about tongues.

And in the middle of the meeting, he'd stand up and go, and he'd collapse because he hadn't learnt that you could breathe. So I would go up to him and say, You do know you can breathe, don't you? Why don't you practice speaking in tongues at home?

Have you done this? He said, No, I only do it on Sundays. Okay, well, I would like you to practice at home. You really can breathe. Because he hyperventilated, you see. He used up all his air, and then he writhed on the floor.

No wonder people are afraid of the Holy Spirit. He was just a naughty guy, you know. He just didn't practice at home. So after a few weeks of this, not the Holy Spirit's fault, goodness, I said to him, Okay, sorry, no more Sundays.

You're just not allowed to. Until you've practiced speaking in tongues at home, then you've found out that you can speak slowly, loudly, quickly, just like you can speak in Chinese, slowly, quickly, loudly.

You can choose. And you find out that you can use this gift under control. When you've learnt that, you can do it in your house group. When your house group says that you're doing it very nicely, then you can do it on Sundays.

But he left us saying we were quenching the Spirit. So there you are. This happens. You see the gifts of the Spirit and the power of the Spirit when we receive. We can learn then how to walk it out and practice.

Prophecy and the Discernment of Spiritual Words

Prophecy is the same, and some of you will receive prophetic gifts in a minute. How do you know you've got a prophetic gift? By the way, all men may prophesy. So we'll have a little bit less of this silly prophetic gifting that goes around.

All the funny prophets in the world will get a bit healthier if you all prophesy. Then they won't be so special. Then we'll have a bit more health in the church. If there's anyone in your church who thinks he has prophetic gifting, make sure he washes up.

You may all prophesy. How do you know? How does it start? First of all, you ask for it. Lord, I've never prophesied, but I'd like to because I hear it builds up the church. Wait. After you've asked and a scripture might come into your mind, a picture might come into your mind, or just a word.

We had a guy once that had a word, my child, and he sat on it for ten minutes. My child? My child? Well, finally he said it. My child. And somebody dissolved into tears. It was the right word. That was all.

So it doesn't have to be a long, great thing. Just a word. In fact, one word from God is better than an hour from your own experience. So, you start, and if you say, my child, you might find that God is giving you one more word like, or one more phrase like, I love you.

And as you say that, you may get one more. This is how it comes. This is how interpretation of tongues comes. When somebody has spoken in tongues, you're all supposed to say, all of you, dear Lord, please give me the interpretation.

Most people say, dear Lord, please don't. Please give it to someone else first, so I can check, you know. Now, if you're not sure if the words you've got are you or God, you have to speak them. This is why you're supposed to practice in a group.

Because you'll never be sure until you've spoken them. And if you speak them, it's quite likely that at the end of the meeting, someone will come up and say, thank you, that was just what I needed. And when you've heard that, you'll be a little bit surer, not completely sure, but a little bit surer the next time.

And you can always, what do we say? You can always, dambo, what's dambo? You can, what's the word? Dambo. Insure yourself, yeah. You can always insure yourself by saying, I don't know if this is me or God.

And then you're covered, right? And so if it's not God, it doesn't matter. Because you don't mean to do wrong, we know this. Nobody who wants to learn to use spiritual means to get it wrong. But you have to start.

Otherwise you won't learn how. And hopefully the members of your group are going to be helpful and kind. Now, in the Acts, if we read through, there are five occasions in the Acts of the Apostles when people received the Holy Spirit as they became Christians, or after they'd known Jesus, but had not received the power of the Holy Spirit.

Receiving the Spirit in the Book of Acts

So for some people it was all in one, and for some people it was a two thing. In the case of Cornelius, the centurion, he spoke in tongues, and Peter used that as the proof that he was converted. Because he said, how could we stop him being baptized in water, for he received the Holy Spirit the same as we did.

For we saw him speaking in tongues and prophesying. Now, in the five occasions in the Acts, they didn't all speak in tongues, or at least it's not recorded. The 120 did at Pentecost. At Ephesus we don't know.

Sorry, it was in Samaria we didn't know. In Samaria a sorcerer wanted to buy the power, and he says that when I lay hands on people, they receive the power of the Holy Spirit. It doesn't say they spoke in tongues, but he obviously saw power, because he was a sorcerer.

Saul, who later became Saint Paul, it doesn't say he spoke in tongues when he believed, but later on in 1 Corinthians it says, I thank God I speak in tongues more than you all. So we know that he became the king tongue speaker, privately by the way.

He said I'd rather do it in secret. He says that when I'm with you, I have one word that helps you, rather than 10 ,000 which don't. Ephesus, they spoke in tongues and prophesied. So we've got five occasions here.

We know that four out of the five at some time spoke in tongues and prophesied. The fifth we don't know. Can we conclude that when we pray for you to receive the power of the Spirit, you must speak in tongues?

Of course we can't. No. I do however believe you may, if you would like to. But we can't make a case from Scripture that you must. But we can say that in every case when they received the power of the Spirit, a miracle happened.

Power was evident. This is how we're going to pray for you. When Peter was sitting in the boat, and he saw Jesus walking on the water, he said, bid me come, and Jesus said, come. Now, Peter could have sat in the boat and said, alright Lord, if you want me to walk on the water, make me.

Faith Acts Before the Miracle

Well, it's not fair. Want, and use spiritual language. You see, when Peter was bid to walk on the water, it was going to be a miracle. Well, how did he start? He walked before there was a miracle. He must have taken two or three steps.

He took the edge of the boat, put his leg over, and other disciples said, what are you doing? I'm going to Jesus on the water. No miracle yet. Peter's been walking since a baby, and he walks now physically.

No miracle to walk. But as he looks at Jesus, he walks on the water. That's the miracle. Got it? That's it. It wasn't that when he said, Jesus bid me come, Jesus suddenly went, you know, and he did a sort of Chinese electronic move across the water.

He wasn't sucked out. Now, lots of people think the power of the Holy Spirit is like that. You know, I'm going to go off in tongues. Well, you're not. You can choose. Every single miracle there is, which involves God and man, every single one, you can check them all out, involves man doing something ordinary and simple and usually foolish, and God doing something miraculous and heavenly and sublime.

When they poured the wine out, the water out at the wedding, Jesus said to the disciples, pour it out. They poured out what they knew was water. They poured it out while it was still water. They poured it out of feet-washing pots.

They poured it out physically. They poured it out in obedience. No miracle, but as they poured it out, it was wine. It wasn't that they looked at it and they said, oh look, it's wine, and then poured it out.

When you pray for the power of the Spirit, you're going to start to walk in obedience, before anything's happened, and God honors you simultaneously. The people of Israel walked and the sea parted. Not the sea parted and they walked.

Got it? So when we pray for you, if you would like a prayer language, and you've never received one, what are you going to do? This is the bit I don't want spectators for. Okay, you're going to speak.

How do you begin? You begin like a baby. Before a baby has learned to say, Mommy, I'm hungry, or I'm wet. Before it's learned to speak English, the baby goes, meh! And the mother says, oh, he's hungry.

She understands. So you give your voice to God. What do you think about? You think about him in English or whatever language you think about. Your mind should not be blank. You think about how he loves you.

But temporarily don't speak in English, okay, because you can't do two at once. And if people say, oh, dear Lord, you know I'm unworthy. Oh, dear Lord, oh, dear Lord, oh, dear Lord. I usually stop them and say, okay, that's fine.

Do the dear Lords inside. And give your voice. This is like walking before there's a miracle. Now, serious Christians say, but that's me doing it. Yes, it is. God isn't going to speak in tongues. You are.

And it will not be a miracle that you speak. It will be a miracle that as you do, he uses what you begin with to make into a new language. And you won't understand it. And by the way, it won't sound like a language at the beginning.

If our brothers here received, let's say, English. Supposing God gave them our father, which art in heaven. Supposing they say, our father. That wasn't tongues. Our father. Our father. Our father is not a language.

No, it isn't. So as you give your voice and you speak words, go on and more comes. Please stand. Okay. Now, if you have ever prayed for the power of the Holy Spirit to do the works of God and preach the gospel, you should know whether you have or not.

Have you healed the sick? Have you prophesied? Have you spoken in tongues? Not did you fall down. We won't accept that. Not did you feel full of joy. We won't accept that. That's wonderful. But that's not the power to walk it out.

Practical Instructions for Receiving and Ministering

Okay. If you've already received, you're going to pray for other people. If you're not on the ministry team, please join somebody with a ministry team badge and you can do it together, including you can join one of our people.

If you would like to pray for the power of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel, do the works of God, heal the sick. And you would like to receive a prayer language, people will pray with you to receive.

And if you speak, you will speak. If you don't speak, you don't speak. Okay. That's up to you. But let me tell you, it won't be easier after 10 minutes. It's easier as soon as somebody puts their hand on you to start.

By the way, if you're praying with somebody, please speak in a voice. No spitting in tongues, please. It's very putting off. And it's very hard for people to join in when you're doing all this sort of hissing sounds.

Please give voice to your language. They are languages. Okay. If you have already prophesied and you want a prayer language, please receive prayer. If you've received a prayer language and you've never prophesied, expect that when you pray for somebody to receive the power of the Spirit, God will start to give you words.

Step forth in faith. Don't say, this is what God is saying. But say, I've got these words. I wonder if they're helpful. That would be a good way to start, wouldn't it? And then at the end, they can say, well, no, that didn't mean anything to me at all.

Or they might say, that was extraordinary. You got it really right. And in that way, we learn. All right? Now, we have to do this very quickly, which is very good that it's a promise from God, isn't it?

And not a maybe. So, we would like all of those who are going to receive prayer to move out of a row now and stand in a middle section or at the front quickly. By the way, you're supposed to know Jesus to receive the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, if you don't, quickly invite Him into your heart. Ask Him to forgive your sins. Okay? And it's done. Okay. The easiest people to receive are new Christians, by the way. So, when you lead people to Christ, pray for them on the spot.

Then they don't have to have ten years of waiting. Okay, now, everyone else here, all the section that thinks they'll watch, you're going to slip out quietly. And all the people who are standing there are going to join in praying somehow.

So, will you shut your eyes, people in the middle? Open your hands. And we, the other people, you can keep your eyes open. Open your hands, all who are going to receive prayer. Now, we ask that the promise of the Father will come upon all of you, and there will be signs of power, foretastes of the working out of the anointing, which will come upon you now.

And we also pray, Holy Spirit, dear Lord Jesus, that everyone else who is going to pray for them will have sensitivity, courage, gentleness, and use their authority and the power you've given them to pray for these, to receive the power of the Spirit and any other healings or words that they need.

Okay, now, this is what I want you to do, Mohoiti. I want everybody who has not come, not opening their hands, to ask God to show you who to pray for. If you don't have a badge, join someone with one.

Go now, but don't start praying. Quick! You don't need to lift your hands in the air, by the way, if you're receiving. If it's an Alleluia, I have received, fine.