(The Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts): The Holy Spirit and the Christian Witness — A.W. Tozer

The Spirit’s Power and the Christian Witness

Verse 8 and 9, verses 8 and 9, "...that ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.". Now, ye shall receive power. I think every Bible teacher everywhere would agree with me that this, if read like this, would give it the real meaning, but ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you.

Not ye shall receive power after, but the Spirit is the power. Tonight I want to talk about the Holy Spirit and the Christian witness. And I'm very conscious as I begin my talk that a certain false cult has risen in the latter days that have taken this word witness and put a copyright on it before the Christian public and before the world.

But I refuse to admit the validity of their claim or the rightness of their use of the term witness or witnesses. I want to use it in its biblical sense. And in the sense that it is used here. Now, our Lord said, ye shall be witnesses unto me.

And it is a touching and solemn thing that in the time of the exile of our Lord Jesus and the extreme unpopularity of God, for don't you fool yourself for a minute, everybody's talking about God, but God is extremely unpopular.

As long as God is around to help us when we need him, we'll talk about him and even pray to him in the world and in the popular church. As long as he keeps his place and doesn't intrude upon our plans, we're very God-conscious these days.

Radio, television, newspapers, magazines, politicians, everywhere, God's in this and God's in that, everywhere from being a co-pilot, which means second from the top, the pilot's first, the co-pilot's second.

On the up and down the scale, God is talked about, but that's the God who minds his own business, except when you're in trouble. God is like the doctor that lives across the street. As long as he lets you alone, he's all right, except when you get sick and then you send for him.

Now, that's the God that men talk about today, and his son Jesus Christ in exile. He said that when he sent the Holy Spirit, the Spirit would witness to righteousness because he went unto the Father. And it is a touching and solemn thing, I say, that in an hour like this, it is yet possible for some people to have the high honor of speaking for him among his enemies.

Witnessing What God Has Revealed

Now, he says he shall be witnesses, and I want to talk a little about what it means, this witness. A witness is one who tells. He's not repeating stories, and he's not presenting philosophical concepts.

He is witnessing, he is telling something that he has seen or heard or experienced in some way. Isaiah witnessed by saying, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. And Ezekiel witnessed by saying that he saw one sitting on a throne.

And Peter witnessed by saying in the tenth of Acts that the Lord had come back from the dead and that God had anointed him with the Holy Ghost and power before his crucifixion. Then he had come back from the dead, and now he forgave whoever believed on him.

John witnessed, and there were about 500 brethren at once, Paul said, who saw Jesus after his resurrection, and they witnessed. All of them told what they'd seen and heard. Now, these tell what they've seen and heard or what they've experienced.

And sometimes these are the same. You'll notice Paul's testimony had to do with what he had experienced. And the historic testimony given by the word witness is that the witnesses so often died for their witness that they were called martyrs, because the Greek word witness is the word martyrs where we get our word witnesses.

So that because they witnessed and were killed for their witness so often, they said their witness was a martyr, and a martyr was a witness. It was the same thing. However, not all witnesses have died for their faith, but because so many did, the word witness and the word martyr has come to be very much the same.

And as Brother Newell knows, it's very much the same, is the same thing in the Greek language. Now, he says, I want you to notice this very clearly, that ye shall be witnesses unto me. Now, this is the substance of the apostolic witness.

The apostles and those early Christians, and always wherever there is anything of revival in the church, wherever the church is moving, she never moves by heavy theology, although theology must be there as the basic groundwork for a witness.

But she witnesses not to ideas. It's entirely possible to spend our lifetime playing with ideas and never give a witness unto him. He says that we are to witness unto him. They went forth and they talked about a man who was also God.

It wasn't an idea and it wasn't even truth, primarily, but it was the man who was truth, and because he was the word, he was the idea of God incarnated in human flesh. And they went forth declaring that they had seen a man and that there were certain things true about that man.

Peter told about it in Acts 2 at length. He told about it more in Acts 10. And they said that this witness concerned him, this man who was also God. They said he was God and they said he was the redeeming God and there wasn't any hope for anybody apart from him.

And they said he saves by dying for men and rising again. And they focused the attention of people upon the man. I think John the Baptist was a good witness and a good illustration of what I'm trying to say.

John pointed to Jesus and said, Behold the man, behold the Lamb of God, the Lamb of God. Now that Lamb of God, that man, was the Lamb. And he called attention to him and then faded out. For the witness is not so important, but the one about whom he witnesses is all important.

The Danger of Witness Without the Holy Spirit

This witness that the Church gave was the shell for its power. And here is the tragic thing, and I'm sorry about it. That it's entirely possible to give a Christian witness without power, as seen in some denominations today, they're sound in theology but worldly in conduct and carnal in heart and earthly in spirit.

Because there's no Holy Spirit in their witness, they are far worse than if they did not witness at all. They said in old days, they said they once saw a man dressed in the habit of a monastery and they heard him preaching the gospel.

And they looked a little closer and they found it was the devil. And the devil had the religious habit on. And somebody went to the devil and said, Why do you preach the gospel? You're out there preaching the truth.

You, the devil, that hates truth. Why should you preach the truth? And he said, The truth preached by a bad man is worse than error. And he may be entirely right about it. I don't know if the devil ever said that, but I think it's a good idea.

And I want to pass it on. That truth that is simply given because it's logically accepted and traditionally believed may do more harm than good. He said, Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and ye shall be witnesses unto me.

For remember one thing, the Holy Spirit is the only effective witness. You and I can talk till we're blue in the face and get no results at all. But it is the Holy Spirit that is the only effective witness.

It is a most significant, it's a solemn thing, that everybody that's ever been converted to Christ soundly in the world was converted by the Holy Ghost. Nobody was ever able to convert anybody else. That is, you can turn them around and get them going another direction, you can get them to adopt another creed, you can get them to believe another set of truths, you can get them to join another church, your church, but you can't regenerate them and you can't make Christians out of them.

Only the Holy Spirit can make a Christian out of a sinner. Only the Holy Spirit. And when Jesus, our Lord, said, when the Holy Spirit is come he shall testify of me, and we have the word again. So that what we have before us here is the teaching of our Lord himself.

And it's substantiated by the rest of the scriptures that God means a people to go forth into a world that's hostile but badly in need of the testimony. Those people are to go forth testifying that God sent his Son and he died for men and they rose from the dead and he's coming again and the kings of the earth shall wail because of him and that he will be in charge of the world and the Lord God omnipotent will reign.

They are to go forth telling this and their witness is to be about him, not arguing modes of baptism, not giving forth profound ideas, but telling about a man, the man who is God. Now only the Holy Ghost can give this testimony.

The scripture says the Spirit shall witness, he shall testify of me. But Christian witness without power, I say, it's not only inadequate, but it can be altogether injurious if we don't look out. There must be a power and dude witness and nothing can stand before a power and dude witness.

Every Believer’s Responsibility to Witness

You see, in the day in which we live, here's the way we do it. Christians lie around and give no witness at all, but they are willing to pay certain gifted men to witness for them. That's why we have evangelists and men of big name who can get crowds to hear them.

They give the witness that we should be giving. They should be giving theirs, too, but the individual should be giving theirs. But instead of letting an evangelist supplement the witness of the individual Christian, the individual Christian puts the bill and pays and lets the other man be his proxy.

And that's the trouble in the world now. A church will sit around and give no witness at all for a generation, but call a man in once a year to give their witness for them. And usually he gives it to the same ones who have heard it before.

We'll send men out, widely known men like Billy Graham or Billy Sunday or some other man known around the world, and they go giving the witness that we should be giving. And if the Christian individuals were giving a witness, their witness would be more powerful.

And there would be more Christians everywhere because a thousand individuals giving their witness in the Holy Ghost are more powerful under God in the winning of converts than any evangelist that ever lived from St. Paul to the present hour.

This is not to speak against the evangelists or to slight them in any way. It is to say they have their place in the church and the whole pattern of God, but the church should be the witness. This church, you, you who love our Lord, should give the witness.

And he says, "...Ye shall receive the power of the Spirit and ye shall be my witnesses, for it is he that is witnessing in you. So he shall testify of me and bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have told you.".

The Holy Spirit’s Witness in Acts

Now, the work of the witness you will find elsewhere. You shall receive power. And then in the 5th chapter of Acts, in verses 31 and 32, we read these words. "...Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior.

For to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things. And so also is the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him. They were the audible witnesses, but the Holy Ghost whom God had given to them that obey him, was within them the true witness giving the power.".

And in Acts 4 .33, notice what it says there, in the 4th of Acts, 31 and 33. "...And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness, and with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

And great grace was upon them all.". Now, that was in the early days of the Church of Christ. The work of the witness, then, is not the same as the work of the teacher. It isn't to cry down the teacher.

You see, we have a habit of what the philosophers call the either-or. We either have this, or else we have it out and we have this. We forget that you can have not either-or, but both-and. And when I say that everybody ought to be a witness, I say that the witness is different from the teacher.

That is not to speak against the teacher, for teachers are needed, too. The teachers say in the Bible's college out here at Regina, they are not witnesses, they are teachers. In another capacity they may be witnesses.

They may be witnesses to the man next door to them, they may be witnesses where they meet other men in the educational fields. But in their capacity as teachers, they are not witnesses, they are teachers.

So a teacher can teach theory, and he can spend his lifetime teaching theory. But a witness doesn't talk about theory at all. A witness says, I saw and I heard, and here is what God did for me, and this has happened to me.

Seeking God Beyond Denominational Boundaries

And I am most delighted to find, and I say this with a considerable sorrow and shame, and I don't know whether I should be sorry about it at all or not, but I find that among the denominations that in the Alliance we tend to rule out and call them old-line denominations, as if that was bad.

But I find that there are a lot of people seeking God in those denominations. I told you last Sunday night, there was a man who was going to come to see me when I got to Philadelphia. He was one of the editors of the magazine of one of the largest denominations, if not the largest in the United States, and decided to beliberal that denomination.

Well, this man wanted to see me, and when I got to the hotel, there was a note there saying he'd already been there and gone, but he was coming back in half an hour. So I got upstairs, just got my suit out and hung up, hung the wrinkles out of it, as they always do first thing.

And there the phone rang and said, This is so-and-so, I'm down in the lobby, I want to come up. Well, I confess I stalled a little bit because I was terribly tired. I'd had a hard week, as they say, and I wanted a little rest before I went that night, but I'd promised to see him.

So I said, All right, come up. I hoped that he wouldn't stay too long. He stayed exactly two hours. And it was nearly time for me to grab a bite to eat and rush off to the church service. He stayed two hours.

Now, this man, an editor of one of their national magazines in a liberal denomination, nevertheless had met God with a wonderful filling of the Holy Ghost that had transformed his ministry and his life.

Then I went to the church, connected with Temple University, the Temple Baptist Church. And I didn't know what to think, what to expect of the doctor who was the pastor of the church. And he came to the hotel for me.

And we hadn't gotten away from the hotel toward the church until he began to give me his testimony. God had done something new for him in the last year. Middle-aged man. But God had done something new for him.

The Holy Spirit had come to him and was teaching him. He was as evangelical as possible for a man to be. And sick me on to pour the truth out, all that I knew. Well, the Lord is saying this. Now, what I say I'm sorry about is, why isn't this happening inside our denomination, and why isn't it happening around here?

Why is it having to happen among the people? You know what I should tell this, or not? But I got a long-distance phone call last night from the Middle West, in the U .S. And it was a call to come and preach on the spirit-filled life in the convention next July.

And who do you suppose it was from? The Lutherans. Well, sir, I wonder if God isn't going to have to go outside of us smug, neat people who are so smug and so neat. I just want to read you something here.

It's amusing, but it's also terrible. It's a terrible indictment. A man writes me a letter on a letterhead of a company in the city of Glendale, California. And he says, dear Joseph, Orthodox evangelical Christianity would say I belong to a fine church.

And then he names it, but I won't. He says, yet 95 of the members of my church, 95 of its team goes up to blow the whistle. Committees, suppers, services, special speakers, camps, and with these activities, the church membership and the finances keeping up and all, pastors and officers as well as memberships seem happy and sleepy.

In a church of some 500 members, it's difficult to get 20 out once a month to do calling. The church is out of joint with the army of the Lord, he says, quite content to sit in the pew or to spend most of its efforts in dress rehearsal or in polishing its weapons or attending the social functions within the fort.

And the aggressiveness is left to the Seventh Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Mormons. And yet we often speak of this poor, lost, dying world. I wrote that man and said, please write me an article and say the same thing.

I want to publish it. But he wrote back and said he couldn't possibly write, he was no writer. But I think he said something there, brother. I think he said something. That we, the soldiers of the Lord, spend most of our time sitting out the war.

We're sitting out the war. The fight is on and we're taking our girl to the function one night and going to the men's group the next night and to a camp week in the summer and off here somewhere. We're praying instead of fighting.

We are sitting about instead of getting up and being witnesses. Ye are witnesses, he said, and ye are to be witnesses unto me. Now, the witness testifies. He testifies to what is true factually, the resurrection of the dead.

Even though his eyes didn't see it, he knows it's true. He testifies to what he has experienced personally, what he has seen and heard and felt by the witness. I often think of the dear old brother who believed in the, the only thing of the Holy Ghost, call it what you will, baptism, fullness of the Holy Spirit.

And he was taken one night by a man who didn't believe it to hear a man lecture. And the man lecturer was going to prove that there wasn't any such thing as the Holy Spirit coming on a man and making him a strong witness.

He said there wasn't anything to it. So he gave a very powerful lecture and proved that it just wasn't so, but nothing to it. And on the way out, the brother who had invited his friend took ahold of his arm and with some triumph in his voice, he said, All right, what do you get to say now?

He said, Wasn't that powerful? He said, I'll admit that was powerful, all right. But the trouble is I heard it 25 years too late. He said, 25 years ago, God did for me what this man tonight proved couldn't be done.

There's your answer, sir. A witness is a man who says God did it, and then he smiles while somebody proves it can't be done. It's like the cartoon I saw. A fellow was in jail looking out through the bars and said, You can't put me in jail.

He was in jail all right. And at least they said, but I've had them write to me, You can't, Mr. Toad, you're wrong. Well, wrong or no wrong, I know what God's done for my soul. The witness is one who testifies what's happened to him in God through the scriptures and through prayer and faith.

The Apostolic Pattern of Personal Testimony

Now there's an illuminating passage in the 22nd chapter of Acts, 14 and 15. The details vary, but the law is revealed here, that is, the way God does it is revealed. It says, The God of our fathers has chosen thee, that's Paul, that thou shouldest know his will and see the just one, the righteous one, and should hear the voice of his mouth and be his witnesses unto all men of what thou hast seen and what thou hast heard.

Now somebody, if you're hostile, and I don't think anybody's here hostile toward me, but if you should be, somebody might say, Well, you mean that you've seen visions and that you've seen angels? No, I've never seen an angel.

I'd like to, but I've never seen an angel. I'm talking about what your heart has seen and what your ears have heard within you. You have a set of ears and eyes inside of you, and a heart that's just as sensitive as your external eyes are sensitive to the light of the sun.

Now, how this operates in time is found in Acts. Christ promised his people, When the Comforter comes, he shall testify of me, and he also shall bear witness. And Mark 16 says, The Lord was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.

And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, confirming the word with signs following. Once I heard a great missionary explain this. I heard a great missionary who had just come back from China.

That was before the Communists took over and the work in China was moving along. And he told in a fast-moving, dramatic way how of his experiences and what God had done in China. And said, The Lord working with them, confirming the word, confirming the word all the way through.

The Lord was confirming the word with signs following. By signs following I do not mean in any sense of the word, I do not mean the cheap trumpery that men and women and historical and neurotic people drag in.

I mean God doing his great deeds in the Holy Ghost. When God converts a man, when God saves a man, when God raises a man up from the brink of death, when God changes the mind of a politician or a ruler so the church is allowed in.

And that kind of wonderful miracle God is still doing for his people. Hebrews 2. Salvation spoken by the Lord, confirmed by the testimony of the Apostles, witnessed to by the Holy Ghost in signs and wonders and divers, miracles.

That's quotation, quoting phrases from Hebrews 2. Now, my dear friends, I believe, and I don't hope that this will get across tonight, that is, I don't think that this sounds so radical and out in left field that I don't suppose very many people will know quite what I mean or in a general way will be sympathetic.

But do you know something? I believe that if we were to become spirit-filled witnesses and realize that you have just as much burden lying on you to be a witness as Billy Graham has or Charles Kinney had or as any other of the more celebrated leaders have had, you have that burden resting on you and it's not only an obligation, it's a wonderful, wonderful privilege.

Are you ashamed when you travel abroad to say I'm a Canadian? Are you ashamed? No, you're not ashamed, if you are, you ought to be ashamed. Am I ashamed, wherever I may be, to say I'm an American? No.

Americans do things I'm ashamed of, but the human race does that. But I'm not ashamed of my citizenship and I am not ashamed of being a Christian. Not ashamed of being a Christian. On the plane yesterday, coming up from New York, I sat beside a man, a very inquisitive fellow, asking me questions and I answered his questions and we talked about books and writings and publishers and so on.

He had studied physics and mathematics and now is with Prudential Life Insurance Company. And we went on a while and finally I said to him, I'm a minister, would you know it? He said, no, I'd never known to administer it.

Well, I like that part. He said, no, I wouldn't know it. And then we began to talk about religion and then we began to talk about the Lord converting people. He was an elder in a certain church. But if I had been a ham, I'd have been a smoked ham because he tried to smoke me all the way up.

And I finally said to him, well, I take religion seriously and things of God seriously. And before we were through, he even talked on to we were getting through, going through customs. And even after he'd waved to his friends who were meeting him, some of his sisters up here, he was still talking to me.

And you know, he said, we have a budget of $110 ,000 in our church and plenty of some that goes for missions. I said, I'm ashamed of that. And I told him about this church, $50 ,000 last year for missions.

But Alliance churches everywhere give as much as 50 to 60 of their total budget for missions. He said, well, listen, when you have a pastor who doesn't believe in missions, what do you do? I said, you laymen who know God, put the hooks in him.

That's what we do. He said, well, I'm glad to hear you say it. I wanted some help, that poor pastor. But he said, I said, put the hooks in him. He has no right to sit. And he said, he sits down on our missionary activities, sits down on it.

Well, the fellow's confused a little bit and mixed up and rather smoky. But brothers and sisters, witnessing is an easy and wonderful thing. And I didn't come right out and get him born again as some of my eager brethren sometimes do in five minutes.

But when he left me, he left me knowing he'd been talking to a Christian. We shall be witnesses. Qualified persons are the only persons that can be witnesses. They must have been chosen by the Lord. They must know God's will, according to the texts I've been reading.

And they must have seen and heard the Holy One that is in the heart by experience. Isn't there such a thing as knowing the Lord Jesus by spiritual experience to a point where he's as real to you as your friends, as real as the experiences around about you?

I think there is such a thing. And the real Christian witness. And he must bear a two-fold witness to Christ. He must, to the unconverted, bear the witness that Christ is the true Savior and Lord and that he, the witness, has experienced this truth for himself.

And to the Christian believers, he must witness to the glory of the separated life and the reality of the victorious life and the certainty and possibility of the spiritual life. Now, to do this will require, of course, that we exemplify the life we witness to.

Christian Witness Requires a Consistent Life

It's a terrible thing to witness to Jesus Christ and not be yourself right. A terrible thing. I was very closely related to the Christian Businessmen's Committee. You have something like it here also and in Oshawa where I spoke to them and in Stouffville.

Well, this Christian Businessmen's Committee is composed of, not of preachers, but of laymen businessmen. And there's one very active man in that group, very active man. Tremendously so. But he was a notorious church splitter.

A notorious church splitter. A man came to me one time and said, Mr. Tozer, and I knew who he was and who he was, a fine Christian. He said so-and-so and he named this man. He said he's cheated me out of even $1 ,500.

You think I should do something about it? You think I should sue him? And I said, listen, you lost $1 ,500 because a Christian is crooked. But I said, now listen, you can sue him and get your $1 ,500 back, but it'll be tried before a court of law.

Unbelieving, cynical lawyers will smile while two Christians have it out, ham and tongue, before the courts. And I said, you can well afford to lose $1 ,500 to keep your testimony clean. He thanked me and went away.

Next Sunday, his wife came to me crying. You know what you would ordinarily expect. You'd think, well, I don't get that for a coat. But instead of that, she came to me with tears, literally crying, and said, oh, how I thank you for the advice given to Charlie.

Well, Charlie went right on. Pretty soon he opened up an affair, what do they call it, a division. They buy a property and then put streets down it and lay it out in lots and so on, and sell it, build houses on it.

And he did that, and he must have been making money hand in fist. So one day he came to me and said, do you know that I'd like to have an Alliance Church down here in this section, Dalton? He said, I'd like to have an Alliance Church down here.

And he said here, and he laid out his lots, his, whatever you call the thing, blueprint. And he said, now here, I'll give this to the Christian Missionary Alliance if you'll build a church on it. Well, I wasn't in the church building business, and so I said, all right, Charlie, I'll take it to the board.

So I took it to the board, and finally they took it to the district, and they said, we'll build a church on it. And now there's an Alliance Church on that lot, in a new area where there are thousands and tens of thousands of people who were cow pasturing five years ago.

Now there's a city growing up there, and an Alliance Church popped right in the middle of it, waiting for customers. And they're coming. Brother, if this man, he was a Christian businessman and a witness, these brethren are trying to do what I'm talking about and do it in some measure.

If he'd gone into court and fought this man, he'd have lost his testimony, they'd never have been in the Alliance Church down there. Now you say, what happened to the other man? He went bad, began to drink, and died.

You handle that future, I won't do it. I don't know where he is. He went bad, drank, and died. But the man who didn't sue him is going big yet over near Chicago. I mention this to show you that this is not theory, ladies and gentlemen, this is not theory.

This is reality. If your Christian witness is going to mean anything, you're going to have to live right and exemplify the life you're talking about. Moody told humorously of the man who staggered down the street and recognized Moody.

And he came up to him wheezing back and forth as if he was on a ship deck in a storm and grabbed Moody's hand and said, Mr. Moody, I'm one of your converts. Moody said, you look like one of mine. If God had converted you, you'd be walking straight up instead of staggering.

He said, I must have made you a convert because God never did. He's right. That fella's no witness. What kind of witness could he give? I am a convert to Christ. A drunk man a convert to the Holy Lord Jesus who says he gives men sound minds?

No. Well, we're ready to suffer. Now, what about it? You see, we need the Blessed Holy Spirit. And we need to witness. But don't think for a second that you're to be influenced by what I've said about witnessing tonight and determine, well, starting Monday I'll be a witness.

It doesn't work that way. Peter tried that one time. The Lord said, no, tarry ye until you be endued with power from on high. Then you'll be a witness. Because only the Holy Ghost can witness. You can give your testimony.

You can talk. You can let him have you. And he can clothe himself with you as he did with Gideon. And you can testify and witness. But it's the Holy Ghost in you or it's no witness at all. So when I preach about the necessity for Christians to be Spirit-filled Christians, it's not a theory that I'm giving you.

It is not attempting to bring people into conformity to a certain interpretation of Scripture. It is an imperative that will not be denied. Every individual here should be a witness, a testifier, somebody who goes to others and tells them that the Lord is risen indeed and has appeared unto Peter and that that risen Lord has converted you.

But you can't do it by yourself. No books on how to win souls are any good. Don't buy them. Don't buy them. The Holy Ghost is the best soul winner there is in all the wide world. And if he comes in and takes over, he'll make you want to tell what has happened to you.

The Privilege and Necessity of Spirit-Filled Testimony

You shall receive power. Now the question is, have we and do we? I don't think so in any large measure nor in very many people because if we had received power and the Spirit of power rested upon us, we would be witnesses.

We would feel within us an urge, an urge to tell it. Somebody wants to know how you get called to preach. I suppose it varies. The psychological processes vary with different men. But after I got converted and sought the Lord, I began to feel a sense of a desire to witness so powerful and strong that I could have no more resisted it than I could have resisted God in combat.

I had to preach. It was a necessity laid upon me. Some people say to me, why don't you retire? Are you going to retire? Not as long as I can stand up and talk because the woe of God is on my soul. I must tell people.

I must tell people. Well, I am through for this evening and I've simply given to you a little word about the necessity for individual witnesses to witness to Christ, to witness in the world in which you live and shown you that until the Holy Spirit has control of your life and fills your being, you can't be an effective witness.

You draw your own conclusions. Should you or should you not be a spiritual Christian? The only answer is yes, my God, I should be. I should be a spiritual Christian. This book has hardly any songs in it at all about the Holy Spirit, but there is one here, or two or three or half a dozen, I guess.

But I think that I want to do this. I enjoy hearing this young lady sing so much that I want to ask her, if she won't come up and sing for us, what number did I say? 329. And we'll just sit quietly while she sings this beautiful number.