Thoughts for Life: #105 Testimonies of the Infilling- Part 3

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel: Dwight L. Moody had already been greatly used by God in Chicago. Two humble Free Methodist women prayed faithfully for him during his Sunday services.

At the close of the service they would say to him, "We have been praying for you." "Why don't you pray for the people?" Mr. Moody would ask. "Because you need the power of the Spirit," was the reply.

"I need the power! Why," he said in relating the incident afterwards, "I thought I had power. I had the largest congregation in Chicago, and there were many conversions!" (Google image, Dwight L. Moody)

One day Moody said to them, "I wish you would tell me what you mean." And they told him about the definite infilling of the Holy Spirit. So he asked them to pray with him and not merely pray for him.

Shortly there after their prayers were suddenly answered on Wall Street in New York. Moody's co-worker Dr. F. A. Torrey described what happened.

"The power of God fell upon him as he walked up the street and he had to hurry off to the house of a friend and ask that he might have a room by himself, and in that room he stayed alone for hours; and the Holy Ghost came upon him filling his soul with such joy that at last he had to ask God to withhold His hand, lest he die on the spot from very joy. He went out from that place with the power of the Holy Ghost upon him."

Moody's own words were:

"I was crying all the time that God would fill me with His Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York—oh what a day!—I cannot describe it . . . I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again.
The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world—it would be as the small dust of the balance."

At Moody's funeral, Dr. C. I. Scofield, editor of the famed Scofield Reference Bible, gave four reasons why God used D. L. Moody. For his third reason he said, "He was baptized with the Holy Spirit and he knew that he was. It was to him as definite an experience as his conversion."

Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman was a Presbyterian evangelist, associate of Moody, and founder of the Winona Late Bible Conference. He testified regarding the change in his life and ministry through the infilling of the Spirit:

"From that moment to this [the Holy Spirit] has been a living reality. I never knew what it was to love my family before. I never knew what it was to study the Bible before. And why should I for had I not just then found the key? I never knew what it was to preach before. 'Old things have passed away' is my experience. 'Behold all things have become new.' "

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Used by permission of the author and Duewel Literature Trust, Inc., Greenwood, Indiana. Creative reading style by Jean.

Ablaze for God
#105 Testimonies of the Infilling- Part 3
by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel
(pp. 302-304) ZondervanPublishingHouse

Let's pray-

Father, let our desire be, that we will be so filled with Your Holy Spirit, we will have a definite affect on others we come in contact with on a daily basis, as happened to Dwight L. Moody.
As with the Presbyterian evangelist, Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, may our experience be that Your Spirit's infilling makes serious changes in what we say, do and think.
Help folks realize that this blessing is for those of us who are desperate for the infilling You promised through Peter in Acts 2:38.
Draw us ever closer to You, changing us from glory to glory.
We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Today's Bible verses-

Acts 2:38, 39 (NKJV) "Then Peter said to them, 'Repent,
and let every one of you be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (v. 39) For the promise
is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off,
as many as the Lord our God will call.' "

Acts 11:15-17 (NKJV) "And as I [Peter] began to speak, the
Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning.
(v. 16) Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how
He said, 'John indeed baptized with water, but you
shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.' (v. 17) If therefore
God gave them the same gift as He gave us when we
believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could
withstand God?" [See Acts 15:8, 9 - Acts 10:47]

Today's quotes-

~Samuel Chadwick- "The presence of the Spirit is vital and central to the work of the church. Nothing else avails. Apart from Him wisdom becomes folly, and strength weakness. Scholarship is blind to spiritual truth till He reveals. Worship is idolatry till He inspires. Preaching is powerless if it be not a demonstration of His power. Prayer is vain unless He energizes."

[Taken from Herald of His Coming newspaper, November 2016, p.7, Used by permission.]

~ Max Lucado- Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David probably wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalms 32:3-4 NLT).

As the apostle Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation is available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11,15 MSG).

Prov. 12:25, 26 (NKJV) "Anxiety in the heart of man

causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.

(v. 26) The righteous should choose his friends carefully,
for the way of the wicked leads them astray."

Today's guest post-

It's Warmer Nearer the Heat Source

Nate Stevens- "I would love it if my morning coffee stayed hot. Or at least until I drank it.

The facts of life (and the laws of thermodynamics) tend to agree that we cannot heat something enough for it to stay hot. If someone could invent such a reality, he would be wealthy in an instant—and I would be grateful as I sip my morning coffee without having to rewarm it. But as every morning-hot-coffee-drinker knows, heat dissipates upon removal from the source of heat."

List of recent sermons of CFC ministers

Upcoming posts-

#106 Testimonies of the Infilling- Part 4
6th- Thursday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel

In Progress or Completed?
8th- Saturday's post by Adam Holz

#107 How to be Filled with the Spirit
11th- Tuesday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel

#108 Simple Steps to be Filled with the Spirit
13th- Thursday's post by Dr. Wesley L. Duewel