THE FULL BLESSING OF PENTECOST Part 2 HOW IT IS TO BE TAUGHT

The wisdom of the fathers 

THE FULL BLESSING OF PENTECOST   Part 2

HOW IT IS TO BE TAUGHT

There are disciples of Christ who know little or nothing of this conscious indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is of the utmost importance to understand and hold fast this statement. The more fully we come under the conviction of its truth, the better shall we understand the condition of the Church in our times and be at last enabled to discover where we ourselves really stand. 

The condition I refer to becomes very plain to us when we consider what took place at Samaria. Philip the evangelist had preached there; many had been led to believe in Jesus and were baptized into His name; and there was great joy in that city. When the apostles heard this news, they sent down Peter and John, who, when they came to Samaria, prayed that these new converts might receive the Holy Spirit. This gift was thus something quite different from the working of the Spirit that led them to conversion and faith and joy in Jesus as a Saviour. 

It was something higher: for now from heaven, and by the glorified Lord Himself, the Holy Spirit was imparted in power with His abiding indwelling, to consecrate and fill their hearts. If this new experience had not been bestowed, the Samaritan disciples would still indeed have been Christians, but they would have remained weak, defective, and sickly; and thus it is that in our own days there is still many a Christian life that knows nothing of this bestowment of the Holy Spirit. Amidst much that is good and amiable, with even much earnestness and zeal, the life of such Christians is still hampered by weakness and stumbling and disappointment, simply because it has never been brought into vitalizing contact with power from on high, because such souls have not received the Holy Spirit as the Pentecostal gift, to be possessed, and kept, and filled by Him. Acts 8. 16, 17. 

(from "The Full Blessing of Pentecost" by Andrew Murray)