Authority of the Holy Spirit

In the fall of 1957 'the doctor' spoke to a group of students in Ontario Canada on 'Authority' what it means, what it is, and what it comes from. Here he is ending his message on the authority of God the Holy Spirit.

“What conclusion do we arrive at as the result of all this? Let us go on with our practical efforts and let us go on with our study, but God forbid that we should rely upon them. Let equip ourselves as best as we can. We shall never be as able and as learned as the apostle Paul, St. Augustine, Luther or Calvin. They were men of great learning and giant intellects. That is the kind of man God seems to use when He does His greatest things in the history of the Church. Let us go on, however, and seek knowledge and equip ourselves as perfectly as possible. But, in the name of God, let us not stop at that. Let us realize that even that, without the authority and the power of the Spirit, is of no value at all. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love (a product of the work of the Spirit), I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal’ (1 Corinthians xiii.1). It does not matter who I am or what I may do: it will get me nowhere. It is the authority of the Spirit that alone avails.
Now this is what grieves me. I very rarely hear any Christians today, even Evangelicals, praying for revival. What do they pray for? They pray for their own organized efforts, either at home or in various other lands. In a typical prayer meeting this is what happens. ‘First of all let us have the reports’, says the chairman. Having heard them, he adds, ‘Let us go to prayer about it. You have heard the facts; let us pray about them.’ We pray only for blessing on our own efforts, whether it be a great evangelistic campaign, or work in the foreign field. That is quire right, of course, and we should do that. But the trouble is that we always start with ourselves and our efforts and ask God to bless them. When did you last hear anyone praying for revival, praying that God might open the windows of Heaven and pour out His Spirit? When did you last pray for that yourself? I suggest seriously that we are neglecting this almost entirely. We are guilty of forgetting the authority of the Holy Spirit. We are so interested in ourselves and in our won activities that we have forgotten the one thing that can make us effective. By all means let us continue to pray for the particular efforts, for the minister, and his preaching every Sunday, for all essential organizations and for evangelistic campaigns, if we feel led to have them. But before it all, and after it all, let us pray and plead for revival. When God sends revival He can do more in a single day that in fifty years of all our organization. That is the verdict of sheer history which emerges clearly from the long story of the Church.
This is the greatest need today, indeed it is the only hope. Let us therefore decide that day by day, and many times during the day, we will spend our time before God pleading for revival. But foolish as we are, we will never do so until we have come to the end of ourselves and of our own resources. We will do so only when everything else has failed, and we have realized our utter bankruptcy and impotence, and we have come to see that our Lord spoke the simple truth when He said ‘Without me ye can do nothing’ (John xv. 5).
Let us remind ourselves that God who in the past has come suddenly and unexpectedly upon the dying Church and has raised her to a new period of life and victory can do the same still, that His arm is not shortened, no His power in any sense diminished. Let us wait upon Him, let us plead with Him, let us learn to agonize in prayer and let our one prayer be:

Revive Thy work, O Lord,
Thy mighty arm make bare;
Speak wit the voice that wakes the dead,
And make Thy people hear.

‘O Lord, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make known; in wrath remember mercy’ (Habakkuk iii. 2).” -D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones