Power from on High

But 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 Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. ACTS 1:8

By 1871 Moody was already a successful Christian worker. He had a large Sunday school, a church, a leading place in the Chicago YMCA, and a name for tireless energy. Then two women on the front bench told him they were praying that he would receive the power of the Holy Spirit. He was annoyed. He thought he had power. The story of how that annoyance turned to hunger, and the hunger was answered on a street in New York, is told in the chapter on his life. This chapter is about what he taught afterwards.

The same sermons, a different result

Moody rarely described what happened to him, and never made it a pattern for others to copy. What he did describe was the difference it made. He went back to preaching, he said, and the sermons were not different, and he did not present any new truths; yet where before a handful had been converted, now they came by the hundreds. He would not, he said, be placed back where he was before for all the world.

The lesson he drew was not that he had become a better man, but that there is a difference between working for God in one’s own strength and working in the power of the Spirit. He never tired of saying that sermons alone would not reach the masses. In Prevailing Prayer he puts it plainly: the reason we so often fail to move people is that we try to win them without first getting power with God.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. ZECHARIAH 4:6

In and upon

Moody set out his teaching on the Spirit in a book called Secret Power, and its central distinction is simple. He believed that every true Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling within him; no one is born again without the Spirit, and whoever has not the Spirit of Christ is none of His. But he also believed there is a further gift of the Spirit coming upon a believer for service, which not every Christian has sought or received. The Spirit within is for life and holiness. The Spirit upon is for witness.

Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. ROMANS 8:9

He found this distinction in the difference between the disciples on the evening of the resurrection, when Jesus breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, and the same disciples at Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon them with power and three thousand were converted. He found it too in the Lord’s command to the apostles to wait in Jerusalem.

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. LUKE 24:49

The life of the Spirit, on this view, is not a reservoir to be kept but a stream to be passed on. The Lord Himself promised that it would flow outward from those who believe.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. JOHN 7:38

Power for others

The most important thing about Moody’s teaching on the Spirit is its direction. The power he sought was not a private blessing to be enjoyed, still less a badge of superior holiness. It was power to reach others. That is why the promise in Acts 1:8 ends with witnesses to the uttermost part of the earth. The Spirit comes upon people so that they may speak of Christ with effect.

For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. 1 THESSALONIANS 1:5

This gives his teaching a healthy practicality. Moody did not encourage people to chase sensations. He encouraged them to be useful. The test of the Spirit’s power, for him, was not how a person felt but whether anyone was being brought to Christ.

How it comes

How is this power received? Moody’s answer, drawn from his own experience and from Scripture, was by asking, earnestly and persistently.

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? LUKE 11:13

He added the conditions that run through all his teaching on prayer: a heart emptied of known sin and self, a willingness to be used, and a desire for God’s glory rather than our own reputation. The women who prayed for him in 1871 had seen that he was ambitious, busy and successful, and that something was missing. The power came when he stopped wanting to be a great man and wanted only God.

A caution

Moody’s distinction between the Spirit within and the Spirit upon was taken up by his friend and colleague R. A. Torrey, who taught it as a definite baptism with the Holy Spirit to be sought after conversion. The language has been much debated since, and the reader should hold it with care. Many careful Christians believe that the New Testament speaks of one baptism of the Spirit at conversion, followed by many fillings. The danger in Moody’s way of speaking is that it can divide Christians into two classes, the ordinary and the empowered, and send the ordinary looking anxiously for an experience.

Moody himself guarded against much of this by his reticence. He did not tell people to seek what he had felt. He told them to seek power for service, and he spoke far more about the fruit than the experience. That is the right emphasis, whatever terms one prefers. Every believer has the Spirit. Every believer is commanded to be filled with the Spirit. And every believer who is honest will admit that there is more power available than he has yet known.

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. EPHESIANS 5:18

The women on the front row are perhaps the best lesson in the whole story. They did not preach to Moody. They prayed for him, told him so, and kept praying.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Is your work for God — at home, at church, at work — done mainly in your own strength? Where do you most sense the lack of power?

2. Read Acts 1–2 and notice what the Spirit was given for. Ask for that power, for that purpose.

3. What in your heart might be hindering the Spirit’s work: known sin, ambition, a desire for your own reputation? Confess it.

4. Pray daily this month, by name, for someone who preaches or teaches, that they would be filled with the Spirit — and tell them you are doing it.

5. Look for Moody’s Secret Power, and read it alongside Acts.

A PRAYER

Holy Spirit, I thank You that You dwell in every child of God, and that You dwell in me.

Forgive me for working so much in my own strength, and praying so little for Yours.

I ask the Father, as He has promised, to give me the Holy Spirit in power — not for my name, but that others may hear of Christ.

Empty me of self, fill me with Yourself, and let rivers of living water flow out to the people You have put around me. Amen.