Your prayer stirs the soul, for it thirsts for that which alone can bring in the harvest, the power of the Holy Spirit. Apart from Him, the laborers are nothing. Has it not always been so? All the spiritual life which exists in this world is the creation of the Holy Spirit. The quickening of dead souls to life, the enlightening of darkened minds, these are His peculiar offices. You cry for workers, and rightly so, for the harvest is plenteous, but mark this: the most thoroughly equipped evangelist, armed with passport and provision, is but sounding brass without the Holy Spirit resting upon him. There is no power in man so fallen but that the Holy Spirit can raise it up, yet there is no power in the most zealous worker except the Holy Spirit be his fire.
You ask for love in the heart, for open heavens, for protection from the evil one. These are the very things the Spirit grants. Your new-born spirit has a certain degree of power, but the power is never fully manifested except when the Spirit of God quickens it. And you plead for families, for unity, that the gospel may go forth with good consciences. How needfully you touch upon this, for when we walk not according to the Gospel, when unbelief creeps in, the Holy Spirit is grieved. A little narrow heart is His palace, and He will not pour out His fullness where strife and carelessness quench His sacred flame. Cry mightily, then, for an abundance of His indwelling, that the workers sent may be men and women full of the Holy Ghost.
Do not imagine that the mere gathering of means, though God uses means, constitutes the sending. How many modern churches seem as though they have not so much as heard whether there is any Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must rest upon your preachers and laborers. Let every worker confess entire dependence upon Him. The promise is sure, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you. This is the great need, the pressing, urgent need. Today, the Spirit says today, seek the salvation of men. The acceptable time is now precisely because the Spirit strives now. Night hastens when no man can work, when the Spiritās influences are withdrawn. Let this urgency, which is born of the Spiritās own yearning, consume all who would enter the harvest field.
Therefore, join to your petition this searching inquiry: Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? Are you yourself being filled with His forces? For the only way to be kept from going back, and the only power to bring others in, is the continued possession of that same Divine Spirit. He takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us, that we may show Christ to the world. Follow the Spirit in dealing with the things of Christ, His person, His blood, His righteousness. The Spirit glorifies Jesus, and a message that does not center on Christ, however eloquent, is not born of Him. Seek, then, the Spiritās anointing without measure upon every worker, that in their weakness His omnipotence may be displayed, and sinners may be brought to love the God they once hated. This will bring more passports stamped in heaven and more open doors than all earthly planning, for where the Spirit is, there is liberty and there is power. Grieve Him not by looking to an arm of flesh; honor Him by a bold, believing reliance, and the laborers shall come forth.