Praying for an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
Summer 2024
“…times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.” Acts 3:19
In October 1992, there was a very special move of God’s Spirit in our Cloverdale church, while our ministers and students met for prayer. The solemnity and sweetness of the Spirit of God coming amongst us was better felt than “telt.” Every man knew that he had met with God and every man longed for more. No man dared to stop praying for God’s Spirit to be poured out upon us.
Let me encourage you to pray for a definite and powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon your life and upon the Lord’s church. Praise God, there is always potential for a new beginning for the work of God.
The argument for this is very simple. Just as it is right to pray for the ordinary work of the Spirit in the life and ministry of the church, it is also right to pray for an extraordinary outpouring of the Spirit because we are asking for the same operation of the Spirit to be powerfully intensified. It is not asking for something different or new. To pray for an outpouring is to pray for the same operations of the Spirit, but we are asking for a greater measure of the Spirit’s power resulting in greater numbers of transformed converts. This is revival, especially when it impacts whole communities.
It is the Holy Spirit’s work to give spiritual life. The Lord Jesus taught, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life”(John 6:63).This is the work of regeneration, or the recreation of God’s life in the soul of man. Souls that are spiritually dead in sin need to be given new spiritual life. No one can be brought into the Christian life without this quickening work of the Holy Spirit. This is a must. The Lord preached so clearly that all men must be born again and went on to show how this is distinctly the Spirit’s work, when he said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit”(John 3:8). Without this miraculous life-giving operation of the Holy Spirit, no one is brought into union with Christ. The apostle Paul stated, “Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8:9).
It is only right that we pray for this work of the Spirit in the church, and therefore, to pray for an outpouring of the Spirit in revival blessing. It is asking God for the same converting work of the Spirit to be demonstrated, but in much greater power. It is to ask for sudden and multiple conversions so that congregations are blessed with many new converts who show forth new life in Christ. This leads to wonderful joy and rejoicing among God’s people.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to illuminate darkened hearts and minds, so they understand the gospel. The unconverted are blind to the truths of the gospel of Christ. They must be spiritually taught these great truths. Speaking of this work of illumination, Edwin H. Palmer wrote:
“To have true knowledge then, it is not enough to have God’s clear revelation; man must also be able to see. And it is exactly at this point that the Holy Spirit enters in, too. He gives man not only an infallible book, but also eyes so that he can read that book” [The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit. Edwin H. Palmer, Baker Book House, pg. 57].
A verse of Scripture that was impressed upon us students on this vital subject by Rev. John Douglas in the Whitefield College of the Bible still comes to my mind. He often referred to the words of 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I can still recall the clear ascending ring of his voice clinching the argument on this text, “Man doesn’t need a new Bible, he needs a new heart!” It doesn’t matter what education a man has, nor his IQ level, without the work of the Spirit the way to heaven by a crucified Savior is foolishness to him. Going back to verse twelve of that same chapter, the apostle Paul declared, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God” (1 Corinthians 2:12). In this work of illumination, the Spirit of God removes the natural blindness from our hearts and minds to shine in the light of the knowledge of God. It is a miracle, for it is solely God’s work. Not one soul can ever be converted, no matter how powerfully the gospel is presented, without the Holy Spirit shining the light of the gospel into the heart.
This is so in the ordinary work of the Spirit, and in revival when God grants an outpouring of His Spirit; this miracle of salvation is granted to many souls and to great sinners with powerful conviction. Many lost souls who are so far from God, so deep in sin, and so blind to gospel truth are suddenly and powerfully converted though they hear the same gospel. They may receive the same kind of gospel tract or are spoken to by the same personal witness as before, but they are converted by the sudden work of the Holy Spirit applying the grace of Christ to their hearts. Our Shorter Catechism teaches this:
Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.
Eph. 1:13–14; John 6:37, 39; Eph. 2:8; Eph. 3:17; 1 Cor. 1:9.
Surely it is right to pray for an outpouring of the Spirit to see this illuminating work multiplied in the salvation of many souls. If this is true, and it has been the blessed experience of the church at different times and places, then it would be very wrong not to seek this outpouring of the Spirit from God. It would be a dreadful loss of vision of what God can do through the ministry of the gospel which He has committed unto us.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to give converts an unshakeable personal assurance of their salvation. Of converts in Corinth the apostle Paul stated, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). The Holy Spirit worked powerfully and personally in the hearts of Paul’s hearers at Corinth. They were convicted of sin and convinced of their need of Christ by the operation of the Spirit of God as Paul preached the gospel unto them. Paul did not attribute the effective application of the gospel to his own words. He went on to say it was necessary for the Spirit to work in them so that their faith would stand on the power of God, not on man. We see this again in the believers at Thessalonica. Paul said, “For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake” (1 Thessalonians 1:5).
This assurance was the result of the Holy Spirit powerfully convincing them of the truth of the gospel. This confidence is also the theme of the apostle John. He wrote of the unction of the Spirit that confirms the believer in the gospel of Christ. “Ye have an unction from the holy One, and ye know all things” (1John 2:20). This operation of the Spirit bestows an irresistible conviction in the believer’s soul. It is a compulsive conviction through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit that fills the believer with assurance that the gospel is the truth of God.
So, as this is the ordinary and necessary work of the Spirit in a believer’s soul, it is right to pray for the same work of the Holy Spirit to convert many to a bold life of faith in Christ that will glorify the goodness and grace of God. It is a genuine revival when the same work of the Spirit that saves one soul is suddenly demonstrated in the conversion and transformation of many. We know that the outpouring of the Spirit is a sovereign work. It is in God’s hands and is granted in God’s time. We cannot work it up. We must pray it down.
Rev. Ian Goligher | Retired Minister