How Much More Shall Your Father Give

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

Having persuaded his readers that they needed the power of the Spirit, Torrey did what he always did. He told them how to get it. The third chapter of Baptism with the Holy Spirit sets out seven steps, all of them found or implied, he said, in Peter’s answer on the day of Pentecost.

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. ACTS 2:38

It is characteristic Torrey: definite, numbered, practical and supremely confident. He believed that whoever took these steps would with absolute certainty enter the blessing, because the Word of God was equally positive. We will follow the steps first and weigh the confidence afterwards.

Turning to Christ and from sin

The first two steps are found in the word repent. Torrey took repentance to mean a change of mind, and first of all a change of mind about Jesus. Peter’s hearers had crucified the One whom God had made both Lord and Christ. To repent was to accept Him as Lord and Christ. So the first step is to accept Jesus as Christ and Lord.

The second step is a change of mind about sin: to renounce it, all of it. Torrey thought this the commonest hindrance of all. Something is held on to that we feel, more or less definitely, does not please God. We cannot search our own hearts thoroughly enough, he said; God must do it. So we should go alone with Him and ask Him to search us, and wait for Him to bring to light whatever is wrong, and put it away at once.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. PSALM 139:23–24

Confession and surrender

The third step is open confession. Peter said, be baptised. Torrey saw in Christ’s own baptism, after which the Spirit descended on Him, a pattern: humbling oneself to take the sinner’s place openly. The Spirit is not for the secret disciple but for the one who confesses Christ publicly. He acknowledged exceptions, such as Cornelius’s household, and he did not deny that Christians who do not practise water baptism have known the Spirit’s power, but he held that the passage gives the normal order.

The fourth step is obedience, and here Torrey meant something deep.

And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. ACTS 5:32

Obedience, he said, is not doing some or most of the things God asks. It is an attitude of the will lying behind all particular acts — a total surrender of oneself to God, to go anywhere and do anything. One man wants power to preach in Boston when God wants him in Bombay. Another wants to preach to large audiences when God wants him among the poor. Torrey told of a young woman at a convention who longed for the baptism with the Spirit but would not consent to go home and be a servant girl if that were God’s will. When she confessed she could not lay her will down, he asked whether she was willing for God to lay it down for her. She was, and she asked Him to, and the struggle was over.

Desire, asking and faith

The fifth step is real desire. The asking Jesus speaks of in Luke 11 comes straight after the parable of the friend at midnight, and it is not the asking of a passing wish. Torrey turned to Isaiah’s promise of water on the thirsty. When a man is really thirsty, he said, he has only one cry.

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring. ISAIAH 44:3

As long as someone thinks he can get along without the Spirit, trusting to education or clever methods, he will not receive. And the desire must be for God’s glory, not our own. Torrey warned that one of the subtlest traps is to seek the Spirit in order to be a great preacher or a famous worker — the sin of Simon Magus, who wanted the power of God for his own ends.

The sixth step is simply to ask. Some in his day argued that since the Spirit was given at Pentecost, Christians should not pray for Him. Torrey answered with the words of Jesus in Luke 11:13 and with Acts 4:31 and Acts 8, both after Pentecost, in which believers prayed and the Spirit came.

The seventh step is faith. Here Torrey drew on two texts that shaped his whole doctrine of prayer.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. MARK 11:24

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. 1 JOHN 5:14–15

His reasoning was straightforward. The gift of the Spirit is plainly promised, so to ask for it is to ask according to God’s will. Such a prayer is heard. If it is heard, we have what we asked. So the one who has met the conditions and asked may rise from his knees and say, on the authority of God’s Word, that he has received, and go to his work expecting the power. Torrey compared it to a deed to property, which is yours when it is recorded even before you move in. He knew people would ask whether they must not feel it first. His answer was typical: “I would believe God’s word before my feelings any day.”

Weighing the steps

There is a great deal here that every Christian needs. Christ must be Lord. Sin must be dealt with honestly. The will must be surrendered. Desire must be real and motives pure. God does give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, and faith does rest on His word rather than on feelings. A reader could take any one of these steps this week and be the better for it.

The danger lies in the certainty of the formula. Torrey wrote as though anyone who had met seven conditions could know, as surely as a sum adds up, that he had received a specific experience. That can help a timid believer to trust God’s promise. It can also turn the gift of God into a technique, and send a sensitive conscience round and round the list asking which step it has failed. Scripture does not give us seven steps. It gives us promises, and a Father who is freer and wiser than any method.

It is worth noticing, too, that Torrey himself insisted that the power would show itself in service, not necessarily in feelings, and he warned against expecting the ecstasies some famous Christians have described. That is a healthy check on his own formula. The test is not whether we can say the right words after praying, but whether, over time, our witness bears the marks of a power not our own.

So take the steps as a searching of the heart, not as a combination lock. Accept Christ as Lord. Put away what grieves Him. Confess Him openly. Surrender. Desire. Ask. Trust. And then leave the manner and the timing to the Spirit Himself.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Take time alone this week to pray Psalm 139:23–24 and wait for God to show you anything that stands between you and Him. Put it away at once.

2. Ask whether there is a place, a people or a kind of work you would refuse if God asked it of you. Ask God to lay down your will if you cannot.

3. Examine your motives: why do you want the Spirit’s power? Confess any desire for your own reputation.

4. Ask your heavenly Father plainly, in your own words, for the Holy Spirit, and thank Him that He has promised to give.

5. Over the coming months, look for the evidence not in your feelings but in your witness and service.

A PRAYER

Heavenly Father, You have said that You will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask You. I believe You mean it.

Search me and know my heart, and show me anything I am holding back. I give You my will, and if I cannot lay it down, I ask You to lay it down for me.

Cleanse my desire of all selfishness. I want Your power not for my name but for Christ’s.

I ask now for the fulness of Your Spirit, and I thank You that You hear me. Let the fruit of it be seen in my service, in Your time and in Your way. Amen.