There is a Bible qualification for effective witnessing. What is it? I am persuaded many have missed what the Scriptures actually say at this point. We have not carefully taught the close relation of the Holy Spirit’s enduement to power in witnessing. Many have sought the Holy Spirit for cleansing, for purity and for fullness. Few have sought the Holy Spirit for the express purpose of being of witness for Christ. We have emphasized the inner provision in the belief that the call to witness would take care of itself. But the call to witness has not taken care of itself. Saving contacts of Christians with unbelievers are at an all time low today. Something like a “no-man’s land” exists between those who know Christ and those who know Him not. Purifying of the heart and power in service are both important. Both must expressly be sought.
Take our Lord’s example. How faithfully He recognized the Holy Spirit in His own mission. The Christ who received the baptism of the Spirit at Jordan, who was led of the Spirit into temptation, clearly moved into Galilee in the power of the Spirit. He began His discourse in the synagogue at Nazareth with the words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” Consider John’s explanation of the power of Christ’s words in the phrase, “for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.”
When the Master was preparing His disciples to preach repentance and remission of sins among all nations, He urged them to delay any beginning of this work until “ye be endued with power from on high.”
Look at the familiar promise in Acts 1:8. The very first reference to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles is a reference to His power to make us witnesses. The promise does not say “ye shall receive purity.” Important and basic as that is, but “ye shall receive power … and ye shall be witnesses!”
And everywhere the power of the Holy Spirit in the believer is associated with witnessing. Not power for miracles or wondrous works; not power to be clever and to be idealized of men; not power that will change you from a one-talent to a ten-talent person; but power that will take your tongue and your lips, your hands and your feet, your mind and your heart, and set your whole being aglow as a witness to Christ. This power will not make you spectacular, or popular. Rather it may make you unpopular, but zealous for the praise of Christ.
Trace the same thought in the Epistles. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, “Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance.”
Paul’s statement to the Corinthians was similar: “My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
Paul never forgot what happened when Ananias laid hands on him in Damascus. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. After that Paul was forever preaching, “Be filled with the Spirit.” Let us not become so engaged in remembering what happened to Paul near Damascus that we overlook what happened to Paul in Damascus. You simply cannot go over the pages of the New Testament carefully and not be impressed with the fact that the first century Christians were filled with the Holy Spirit in a way more glorious and more powerful than we generally see about us today. Moreover, this fullness of the Spirit was the secret of their power of witnessing.
Let us have it forever settled that the energy of God which came to the disciples at Pentecost is quite different from the best human effort to be good Christians. The enduement with power must come. And it is as necessary and possible today as it was the First Century.
There is not space here to analyze the elements of this powerful witness. Certainly there is the reality of a personal experience of God’s saving power. There is the overwhelming certainty of faith. There is also the deep inner conviction of the rightness of God’s way. The Spirit of God can come to a man’s life and flood his being with such a self-evidencing sense of His presence that one can at last say “This is He, this is He, there is no other.” And out of such conviction springs a great boldness—a sturdy winsomeness. Our witness is made winning and compelling.
Have you sought the Spirit’s enduement with power? Have you seen this enabling as the answer to your feebleness and failure in witnessing? Will you wait for His promised power as God’s answer in making you an apostolic witness? Will you seek Him earnestly in prayer with this end in view? Christians are to be witnesses. That is commanded. How? By the power of the Holy spirit who is given “to those who obey Him.”
--General Superintendent H. K. Sheets
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