The importance of the Holy Spirit is pointed out by Samuel Chadwick
In this
article from the book The Way to Pentecost, Samuel Chadwick, takes on the ways
of the church in his day and of the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life
of the follower of Jesus. Chadwick (1860-1932)
was a Wesleyan Methodist minister in northern England and in Scotland. He ended his career as Principal of Cliff
College where famed evangelist Leonard Ravenhill was trained.
His family
were devoted Christians. His father
worked at the cotton mill, and at age 8 young Samuel joined him working twelve
hour shifts. At age 21 Chadwick became a
lay preacher, but it was later in his 20s that the experience of God so shook
him that he was aflame with passion for Him.
The book from which this portion is taken was being printed as Samuel
lay dying in 1932. He has a lot to say
to us in our day about being aflame for God.
Here are a couple of noted quotes by Samuel Chadwick:
The soul's
safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion,
ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. Destitute of the Fire of
God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.
The one
concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from
prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our
toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.
I hope you
are blessed with the insights and instruction of Samuel Chadwick:
The Apostles' Creed contains ten articles on the Person and Work of Christ, and only one on the Holy Spirit. The proportion of ten to one about represents the interest in the doctrine of the Spirit in the history of Christian thought. No doctrine of the Christian faith has been so neglected.
Sermons and hymns are singularly barren on this subject, and
the last great book on the Spirit was written in 1674. This is all the more
remarkable when we remember that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate fact of
Revelation and the unique force in Redemption. No other religion has anything corresponding
to the Christian doctrine of the Spirit, and in the Christian religion there is
nothing so vital, pervasive, and effective. John Owen speaks of it as the
touchstone of faith; the one article by which the Church stands or falls.
Thomas Arnold said it is "the very main thing of all. We are living under
the dispensation of the Spirit; in that character God now reveals Himself to
His people. He who does not know God the Holy Ghost cannot know God at
all."
The Holy Scriptures declare Him to be the revealer of all
truth, the active agent in all works of redemption, and from first to last the
instrument of Grace in the experience of salvation. In Him, and through Him,
and by Him, is the power that saves. Illumination and Conviction, Repentance
and Regeneration, Assurance and Sanctification, are all the work of God the
eternal Spirit. To the Church He is the Source and Supply of wisdom and power.
The Church is the Body of Christ, indwelt and controlled by the Spirit. He
directs, energizes, and controls. From first to last this Dispensation is the
Dispensation of the Spirit.
The Fruit of Neglect
The Church affirms its faith in the Holy Ghost every time it
repeats its Creed, but does the Church really believe its belief? Modern
writers are contending that the name is nothing more than a figure of speech
for spiritual atmosphere. They regard it as one of the misfortunes of the Christian
religion that Personality has been claimed for the Spirit. The life of the
Church witnesses to the same attitude. The things of the Spirit are ignored as
of no account. Atmosphere is valued.
Religious assemblies of a certain order give a large place
to silent pauses which produce emotional excitement. When our fathers glowed with fires kindled in
the soul, they gave vent in noise. The modern way is to be still. Spirituality
and silence are as wedded as were revivalism and rowdiness. Both types are
emotional, but revivalists did believe their work was of the Spirit; the
Quietists cultivate psychological influence. They speak of the Spirit with a
different content from that of the Creeds.
The blunders and disasters of the Church are largely, if not
entirely, accounted for by the neglect of the Spirit's Ministry and Mission.
The morass of speculation about the Bible takes no account of the Holy Spirit.
It regards inspiration as negligible, and insists upon interpreting Revealed
Truth by no standards save those of history and literature. Miracles are
condemned without trial. Prophesy is dismissed without inquiry. Revelation is
ignored without reason. Under the plea of breadth, all truth is thrust into
uniform ruts. Our Lord spoke of the Spirit as the Spirit of Truth, and promised
that He would guide His people into all Truth. He spoke by the Prophets.
There were many writers, but He is the Author, and the Bible
can neither be accounted for nor interpreted but by His guidance, He holds the
key; He is the Key. Revealed Truth can be known only through the Revealer. Ignoring this, scholars and historians,
grammarians and antiquarians, critics and agnostics, are blind in the midst of
light. The same result is seen in the belief about our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Experience of Grace, and the Doctrine of the Church. No man can say Jesus is
Lord save by the Holy Ghost, but men are seeking to interpret the Christ in
terms of reason, history, and philosophy. The Christian religion begins in a
New Birth in the power of the Spirit. It is developed under His guidance, and
sustained by His presence; but ignoring the Spirit, it becomes a matter of
education and evolution. The Church is the Body of Christ begotten, unified, and
indwelt by the Spirit, but forgetting the Spirit, men wrangle over limbs, functions,
and orders. The Christian religion is hopeless without the Holy Ghost.
The Problems of the Church
As in truth, so it is in service. The Church is helpless
without the presence and power of the Spirit. The Church never talked so much
about itself and its problems. That is always a bad sign. The lust for talk
about work increases as the power for work declines. Conferences multiply when
work fails. The problems of the Church are never solved by talking about them.
The problems arise out of failures.
There is no need to discuss the problem of reaching the
masses, so long as the masses are being reached. There is no problem of empty
churches, so long as churches are full. There is no class-meeting question, as
long as the class meeting throbs with life and ministers to the manifold needs
of heart and life. The power to attract is in attractiveness, and it is useless
to advertise the banquet if there is nothing to eat.
We are acting as
though the only remedy for decline were method, organization, and compromise.
The Church is failing to meet modern needs, grip the modern mind, and save
modern life. The saints are the ordained rulers of the earth, but they do not
rule; indeed, they have dropped the scepter and repudiated the responsibility.
The helplessness of the Church is pathetic and tragic. There might be no such
Person as the Holy Ghost.
Believers Without the Holy Ghost
The Church knows quite well both the reason and the remedy
for failure. The human resources of the Church were never so great. The
opportunities of the Church were never so glorious. The need for the work of
the Church was never so urgent. The crisis is momentous; and the Church
staggers helplessly amid it all. When the ancient Church reproached God with
sleeping at the post of duty, God charged His people with being staggering
drunk. The Church knows perfectly well what is the matter. It is sheer cant to
seek the explanation in changed conditions. (cant: British term for humbug; statements, especially on religious
or moral subjects, that are not sincerely believed by the person making them)
When were conditions ever anything else? The Church has lost
the note of authority, the secret of wisdom, and the gift of power, through
persistent and willful neglect of the Holy Spirit of God. Confusion and
impotence are inevitable when the wisdom and resources of the world are substituted
for the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Proofs abound.
The New Testament furnishes examples of Churches filled with
the Spirit and Churches without the Spirit. The differences are obvious. The
Church of which Apollos was minister had not so much as heard that the Spirit
was given. The Church in our day has no such excuse. Ours is the sin of denial.
He has been shut out from the province in which He is indispensable. Religion
has been reconstructed without Him. There is no denial of the supernatural, but
it is insisted that the supernatural must conform to natural law. It is
admitted that truth is inspired, but its inspiration must develop along the
lines of natural selection and growth.
Religion cannot be allowed to have come upon any other lines
than those of literature, philosophy, and ethics. The Christian religion has
simply the honor of being less faulty than the rest. Jesus Christ must be
accounted for in the same way. He is simply the crown and consummation of a progressive
humanity. The emphasis is upon the Man, and in that emphasis there is reason to
rejoice but the strange thing is that in the intense interest in Jesus the
certainties about Him that come through the Spirit have been lost.
Doctrine Without Experience
The Church still has a theology of the Holy Ghost, but it
has no living consciousness of His presence and power. Theology without
experience is like faith without works: it is dead. The signs of death abound.
Prayer-meetings have died out because men did not believe in the Holy Ghost. The
liberty of prophesying has gone because men believe in investigation and not in
inspiration. There is a dearth of conversions because faith about the New Birth
as a creative act of the Holy Ghost has lost its grip on intellect and heart.
The experience of the Second Gift of Grace is no longer preached and testified,
because Christian experience, though it may have to begin in the Spirit, must
be perfected in the wisdom of the flesh and the culture of the schools.
Confusion and impotence are the inevitable results when the wisdom and
resources of the world are substituted for the presence and power of the
Spirit.
The rebound from materialism is seen in such movements as
Christian Science, Spiritualism, and Theosophy. It is the truth in these things
that gives them their power, and it is useless to denounce them. They are the
reaction of the spirit against the bondage of the flesh and of the mind. The
cravings they represent must be met by the experience of Pentecost. Modernism
and Mysticism are also the products of a religion that is not baptized of the
Holy Ghost. Sacerdotalism is another. (Sacerdotalism:
tradition, beliefs in the authority of priests to bridge the gap between God
and His people) These things flourish on
impoverished soil and dunghills. They are the works of the flesh, and the
product of spiritual death. The remedy for them is not in reproach and
bitterness, but in floods and rivers, winds and sun. The answer is in the
demonstration of a supernatural religion, and the only way to a supernatural
religion is in the abiding presence of the Spirit of God.
-Samuel Chadwick, The
Way to Pentecost
