“Jesus answered them . . . ‘No one can come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me draws him . . . it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.’”
JOHN 6:44, 63
By all means, preach the truth of the Gospel. There is no nobler task and no better commission than this, but without the power of the Holy Spirit, it is reduced to mere words, facts, history and commentary. It is as useless to saving souls as a newspaper on a derailed passenger train.
TRUTH IS WONDERFUL, BUT OF ITSELF, IT IS DEAD. IT IS LIKE coal in the shed. We need more than orthodox Bible-teaching. Coal only releases its energy in combination with fire, and the fire of the Holy Spirit is needed to set truth ablaze! (Luke 24:32). Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). Baptized by the Holy Spirit, the message Jesus preached was more than mere words; it carried life and conviction, and 2,000 years later it is still changing the lives of billions of people all over the world.
The Holy Spirit powers the Gospel as electricity powers a water station. However, we do not generate Holy Spirit power by prayer, sweat, agony, time, effort, good works or anything else. The Father gives us the Spirit as a gift, not a reward or wages–something we earn.
IT IS HIGH TIME FOR US TO UNDERSTAND WHO THE HOLY Spirit is: the secret of Gospel-power. It is not a case of struggling and sweating to get the Spirit but of just letting Him come in. We do not manufacture His power or make Him effective; it is the gift of God (Luke 11:13). No good works are required. If we could make ourselves so good that we deserved the Holy Spirit, we would not need Him.
Without the power of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel is empty and ineffectual. It has a form of godliness, but it is void of its power to save and transform.
THE GOSPEL IS NOT A HUMAN INVENTION OR ASSIGNMENT. God is the Author of the Gospel, and then He commissioned humanity to tell the world. The Holy Spirit is like the hand in the glove of the preached Gospel. The Gospel must be preached under Divine unction; then, any result can be achieved. It is the power that can ensure the Great Commission is fulfilled.
The Gospel is nothing less than the voice of God. When that Gospel is preached by a Holy Spirit-filled person or in a Flame Church, people will hear. The Gospel becomes a transfer of fire from God. Without the Gospel and without fire, however clever or magnificent the setting, it leaves hearers cold and dead. Pomp is not power. The Spirit makes the Word alive (John 6:63).
THIS IS NO OLYMPIC TORCH. THIS IS THE BURNING TORCH OF the fire of the Holy Spirit passed from eternity to time and from generation to generation. The fire Moses saw now rested on the disciples; from the burning bush (Exodus 3:1, 2), it ignited the altar of Solomon (2 Chronicles 7:1) and landed at Pentecost on the disciples’ heads (Acts 2:3). The fire of God Himself, in tongues of flames now leaping on each head, not appearing as a mere spectacle or manifestation but an experience—God and man together. He is the God of fire and burning. We live in a spiritually dark and cold world. The best way to keep from freezing is to be aglow with the Holy Spirit. God will light a fire on the altar of your own heart so that you can be a firelighter.