Introduction

God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? NUMBERS 23:19

Reuben Archer Torrey was one of the best-known Christian teachers in the English-speaking world at the turn of the twentieth century, and one of the least colourful. He had none of D. L. Moody’s warmth of anecdote or Spurgeon’s wit. He was a bearded, precise man from a wealthy family, educated at Yale and in Germany, who was content to be told he was no orator. And yet crowds of many thousands came to hear him on four continents, a generation of Bible-school students learned their trade from him, and his small handbooks on prayer, the Holy Spirit and personal evangelism have never quite gone out of print.

One conviction beneath the others

The reason is not hard to find. Torrey believed, with a completeness that is rare, that God has spoken plainly and means exactly what He says. That was the whole of him.

For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven. PSALM 119:89

Almost everything Torrey taught follows from this one habit of mind. Is a believer unsure whether he is saved? Show him what God says in John 3:36, and let him believe God rather than his feelings. Has a worker no power in his service? The Father has promised the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; let him ask, and believe that he has received. Is a Christian weak and defeated? God has provided a risen Saviour and an indwelling Spirit; let him look to them. Is a man careless of his soul? God has spoken of judgement; let him be told, plainly and in love. The phrase that recurs through his books is some form of because God says so. That is the thread through every chapter of this volume.

Why he still matters

Torrey is worth reading for at least two reasons.

The first is that he made the Holy Spirit personal to a great many Christians who had thought of Him as an influence, a vague warmth or a force to be harnessed. His insistence that the Spirit is a Person, who knows, wills, loves and can be grieved, is one of the most useful things any teacher has said to the ordinary believer.

The second is that he was relentlessly practical. His books tell you what to do: how long to read your Bible each day, what to pray for in the morning and what to confess at night, what passage to open when a friend says he is too great a sinner to be saved. There is very little vague spirituality in him. He believed that ordinary Christians could be taught to pray, to study and to lead others to Christ, and he spent his life teaching them.

How this book is arranged

After a chapter on his life, eighteen short chapters set out his teaching. The first five concern the Holy Spirit: His personality, the baptism with the Spirit, how that blessing is sought, how power is renewed and lost, and the Spirit’s work in setting the believer free. Then come prayer, praying in the Spirit, Bible study and the difficulties of the Bible. Four chapters follow on the fundamentals he defended — the deity of Christ, the atonement, justification and the new birth, and assurance. Three concern the Christian’s life and witness: beginning right, bringing others to Christ, and preaching the uplifted Christ. The last two take up the resurrection and the return of the Lord, and the hardest subject of all, everlasting punishment.

Each chapter ends with application points and a prayer. Torrey would have approved. He had little patience for truth that did not issue in action, and he closed nearly every sermon with a direct call to do something now.

Where he must be read with care

This is not a book of hero-worship, and it is better to say plainly at the start where Torrey must be weighed rather than simply received.

First, his best-known teaching, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is a definite experience distinct from and subsequent to regeneration, is disputed by many careful students of the same Scriptures, who read 1 Corinthians 12:13 as teaching that every believer is baptised by the Spirit at conversion, and who prefer to speak of repeated fillings rather than a second blessing. Torrey’s teaching has blessed many and troubled some. Chapters four to six set it out as he gave it and say where it needs qualification.

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:13

Second, Torrey’s certainty could become bluntness, and his bluntness could become harshness. He wrote that any Christian worker who had not received the baptism with the Spirit ought to stop work at once; he offered seven steps which, taken, would lead with absolute certainty into the blessing; he spoke of his opponents in terms no gentle reader will enjoy. His confidence was often a gift. It could also crush the tender conscience and flatten real complexity.

Third, he argued in the manner of his time. His apologetics lean heavily on the rational force of evidence, and some of his arguments and illustrations have dated. The truths he defended have not dated, but the reader should not assume that every argument he used for them is the best one.

And fourth, on eternal punishment and the return of Christ he spoke with a directness that may shock a modern reader. This book does not soften what he taught, but it tries to hold it as Scripture does: soberly, and with tears.

Why read him, then? Because on the central matter he was right. God does mean what He says. The counsel of this book is the counsel of Scripture: Prove all things; hold fast that which is good (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Where Torrey is faithful, and he usually is, take God at His word as he did. Where he presses further than the text, set that aside and lose nothing.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name one promise of God that you believe in principle but do not act upon. Write it down and keep it where you will see it while you read this book.

2. Ask yourself honestly whether you trust your feelings or God’s word more when the two disagree.

3. Choose a pace for this book — a chapter a day or one a week — and decide now when you will read it.

4. Resolve to check every claim in these pages, and every claim of Torrey’s, against the Bible itself.

5. Ask God to use this book not to make you admire a teacher but to make you pray, study and speak for Christ.

A PRAYER

Faithful God, You are not a man that You should lie. What You have said, You will do, and what You have spoken, You will make good.

Forgive me for the promises I have admired and never believed, and the commands I have honoured and never obeyed.

As I read of Your servant Reuben Torrey, teach me to take You at Your word as he did, and keep me from his faults as well as from my own.

Send me not to him but to Christ, and to the Scriptures, and to my knees. Amen.