“If we think of the Holy Spirit as so many do as merely a power or influence, our constant thought will be, ‘How can I get more of the Holy Spirit,’ but if we think of Him in the biblical way as a Divine Person, our thought will rather be, ‘How can the Holy Spirit have more of me?’ The conception of the Holy Spirit as a divine influence or power that we are somehow to get a hold of and use, leads to self-exaltation and self-sufficiency. One who so thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitably be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some superior order of Christians.”[21] R.A. Torrey
[1] Jim Cymbala, Spirit Rising (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2012), 17.
[2] Adolph Saphir, The Lord’s Prayer, (Waikato, New Zealand: Titus Books, 2013 – Kindle Edition), Location 1567 of 3793.
[3] Michael Green, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 11.
[4] Michael Horton, Rediscovering the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 251.
[5] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Unknown God: 25 Sermons on the Subject of the Holy Spirit (LOCATION: Fox River Press, 2003).
[6] Robert P. Lightner, Speaking in Tongues and Divine Healing (Des Plains, Ill.: Regular Baptist, 1965) 7.
[7] Francis Chan, Forgotten God (Colorado Springs, CO, David C. Cook, 2009), 46.
[8]Andrew Murray, The Spirit of Christ (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1979), 57.
[9] A. B. Simpson, When the Comforter Came (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Christian Publications, Inc, 1911), 4.
[10] Jim Cymbala, Spirit Rising: Tapping into the Power of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 57.
[11] Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrix son publishers, 1994), 157-158.
[13] A.W. Tozer, Alive in the Spirit (Minneapolis, Bethany House: 2016), 111.
[15] Carl B. Hoch, Jr., All Things New (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995), 116.
[16] Andrew Murray, The Two Covenants (Wellington, South Africa: Andrew Murray, 1898), 10-11.
[17] D.A. Carson, Worship by the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 37.
[18] Bruce Walke, “Evangelical Spirituality: A Biblical Scholar’s Perspective,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (March, 1988), 21.
[19] Cymbala, Spirit Rising, 157.
[21] R.A. Torrey, The R.A. Torrey Collection, Kindle Edition, Loc 143 of 25738.
This article originally appeared here.
