Fresh Fillings and Lost Power

And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. ACTS 4:31

Torrey’s teaching on the baptism with the Spirit is often remembered as if it described a single event that settles everything. He did not teach that. The last two chapters of Baptism with the Holy Spirit are among the most sober things he wrote. One is about the need to be filled again and again. The other is about how spiritual power is lost. Taken together they correct any idea that one experience, however real, can carry a believer through a lifetime.

Peter, filled three times

Torrey noticed something about Peter. He was among those filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. Shortly afterwards, standing before the rulers, he was filled again.

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel. ACTS 4:8

And a little later, when the believers prayed after the apostles were released, the place was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost — Peter among them. Three fillings in a few chapters.

From this Torrey drew a plain lesson: “As new emergencies of service arise, there must be new fillings with the Spirit.” He thought that a failure to grasp this explained a sad sight he had seen many times — men who had once plainly worked in the Spirit’s power and now showed little sign of it, because they were trying to live on an experience from years before. For each new day, each new piece of service, each person to be dealt with, he urged believers to ask definitely for a fresh filling.

He was careful with words here. Since Scripture uses the phrase baptised with the Holy Spirit only of the first experience, and since the word baptism itself suggests a beginning, he thought it wisest to speak of later experiences as fillings rather than fresh baptisms. Those who disagree with his view of a second blessing will find this chapter the place where they agree with him most. Whatever the first experience is called, the command of Scripture is continuous.

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

How power is lost

The last chapter of the book opens with Samson. Time and again the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and then came the terrible verse.

And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him. JUDGES 16:20

Torrey thought there had been many Samsons, and would be many more: people whom God had once used and then had to lay aside. He named seven ways in which power is lost, and they are worth setting out plainly.

The first is going back on one’s separation to God. Samson’s uncut hair was the sign of his vow. When it was shorn, his separation was gone, and his strength with it. So a Christian who once turned his back on the world and gave himself wholly to God may let the world win his heart again, and the power goes. The remedy, Torrey said, is to let the hair grow again: renew the dedication.

The second is the incoming of sin. Saul began with the Spirit of God upon him and a great victory, and ended in ruin because he disobeyed.

But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him. 1 SAMUEL 16:14

The one who would keep God’s power, Torrey wrote, must walk very softly before Him and respond promptly to His slightest whisper. He recommended going alone with God at the close of each day to ask whether anything displeasing had crept in, and confessing it then and there. David sinned grievously, and when he confessed, he knew the Spirit’s power again.

The third is self-indulgence. There are things not sinful in themselves that dull spirituality and rob men of power. Torrey did not believe anyone could live luxuriously, indulge his appetites freely and know the fulness of God’s power. He saw it happen to preachers: popularity brought comfort, comfort brought luxury, and the Spirit’s power went out as the luxury came in. “I frankly confess I am afraid of luxury,” he wrote; “not as afraid of it as I am of sin, but it comes next as an object of dread.”

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 2 TIMOTHY 2:3

The fourth is greed for money. It was the love of accumulating that got into the heart of Judas. Torrey observed that a poor man can be as absorbed in the desire for wealth as any millionaire.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. LUKE 12:15

The fifth, and he thought the most deceptive and dangerous of all, is pride. Men who have never gone back on their dedication, never let conscious sin in, never grown luxurious or greedy, fail at last because God has used them and they have become proud of it. God cannot use a proud man, Torrey said, and God resists the proud. Even Moses, the meekest of men, failed here at the rock. If God is using us at all, let us get down very low before Him.

Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. 1 PETER 5:5

The sixth is neglect of prayer, and the seventh is neglect of the Word. Power flows out in service and must be renewed in prayer. It comes through meditation on Scripture, and when business and even Christian duties crowd the Word out, many a man has run dry.

Fear and assurance

The chapter ends with one of Torrey’s most personal passages. “If there is one fear that comes to me more frequently than any other,” he wrote, “it is that of losing the power of God.” He could not imagine anything worse than to have been used by God and then laid aside, to see a perishing world and know there was no power in one’s words to save.

But in the same breath he drew a distinction that is vital. “I have little fear of losing eternal life,” he wrote. Every believer has that already, held in the hand of Christ and of the Father. What may be lost is not salvation but usefulness.

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. JOHN 10:28

It must also be said that not every loss of fruitfulness is a sign of hidden sin. There are seasons when God sends His servants into hidden places, into sickness, obscurity or apparent failure, for reasons He does not explain. Torrey’s list is a searching mirror to hold up in prayer, but it is not a rule for judging others whose ministry has dimmed.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Before your next piece of service — a conversation, a lesson, a hard task at home — ask God specifically to fill you with His Spirit for it.

2. Go through Torrey’s seven ways in which power is lost. Mark the one you are most in danger of, and bring it honestly to God.

3. Establish a short time at the end of each day to ask God to show you anything displeasing to Him, and to confess it.

4. Look at your spending and comforts this month. Is there any area of luxury that is dulling your spiritual life?

5. If God has used you in any way recently, thank Him for it, and ask Him to keep you from pride.

A PRAYER

Lord, I do not want to live on yesterday’s blessing. Fill me with Your Spirit today, and again tomorrow, and for every task You give me.

Keep me from the things that make You withdraw Your hand: from going back on my dedication, from sin, from luxury, from greed, from pride, and from neglect of prayer and of Your Word.

If You have used me, keep me low before You. If I have grown careless, bring me back.

And thank You that, whatever my usefulness, I am held in the hand of Christ, and no one can take me out of it. Amen.