How to Stir Spiritual Hunger

In John 7:37 Jesus spoke those words which God is using to bring many of us into real blessing these days: “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.” In many Christians today the Spirit of God has created a deep thirst which often has not been fulfilled. In some cases he has worked through frustration, in others through problems besetting our Christian Life, or through a sense of barrenness and dryness. This phenomenon of course, is no new thing. We can see in the life of Elisha for example, how God called, equipped, and then used a young man. And particularly in the last journey together of Elisha and Elijah we see all the great principles of life in the Spirit being brought out, right up until Elijah was taken and Elisha remained ready to move into the great work God had called him to do.

There is a double application to this scripture however. It applies there, to those Christians who have barriers which prevent their taking hold of the things of God; like the little boy at Christmas time, looking through shop windows at the beautiful toys he longs for. As he stretches out his hand, he finds that something comes between him and the toys in the window. There is an invisible barrier that prevents his taking hold of and apprehending what he sees. Then there are Christians who, having tasted of the riches of God’s grace in the Life in the Spirit, have hangups and problems in their personal lives, which have colored and changed the work of God—they are not seeing the realities of God’s blessings in the way they had hoped, when they sought the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Now let me encourage you if this is how it is with you. Let me say quite emphatically that the Holy Spirit has created a thirst in you; it is neither of the flesh nor of the devil. This is His work in your heart. And just as surely as He has created the thirst, He will satisfy it. He is waiting and longing to bring you into a fuller and more satisfying experience of Himself.

THIRST - COME - DRINK

“If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.” Have you noticed there are three verbs in that statement by Jesus which contain the secret of entering in; they indicate the three things we have to do. In the Christian life it is so important that we don’t make the mistake of asking God to do what He tells us to do, and that we don’t try to do what He has promised to do for us. We need to recognize our part, and to acknowledge the part He alone can play in the work of the Spirit.

The first thing we have to do is THIRST. For many, the lack of thirsting is the one reason why God cannot meet their need. But even if we thirst it is not sufficient to look at brother or sister so and so and say he or she has a wonderful experience, I would like to have an experience exactly like that for myself. Indeed, we may thirst, but God has an entirely different, and entirely unique and equally blessed experience for each one of us. We need not covet the experience of others.

On the other hand, when the Spirit of God creates in my heart a thirst for something that is promised in the Word of God, I can look at others and say, “Lord, you did it for him, you did it for her, and it is a promise for me too; it is there in your Word.” This is claiming the promise of the Word.

The second thing we have to do is give that THIRST action, by COMING. “If any man thirst, let him come to Me…” But why to Jesus? Because He is a real part of the transaction; He alone is the baptizer in the Holy Spirit. “Come to Me,” He says, and we come in exactly the same way as we come for salvation or any other blessing: through prayer. We express our desire in prayer, because that is how the Holy Spirit is received. He is given to those who ask. So THIRST and COME.

Many Christians come to me after meetings and say, “Brother Wallis, I want you to help me. I have been seeking this baptism in the Holy Spirit that you have been talking about. I have been asking God, I have been praying, I have been fasting, I have been doing this and that and the other.” After speaking to them for awhile it has occurred to me that they have been thirsting and coming, thirsting and coming, thirsting and coming. What they have not been doing is DRINKING.

Jesus said THIRST, COME and then DRINK. For a long time I thought drinking was automatic. I thought when the Lord poured water over us we drink. Not so. I began to see that in most cases I have to take another step, to reach out in faith and appropriate what the Lord has been longing to bestow. Drinking, then, is actually appropriating by faith. From that moment on I began to drink. I said, “Lord, I spent too much time thirsting and coming. It is time I took hold of your offering.” When I did this, something really happened.

THE RELEASE OF THE SPIRIT

Jesus says in John 7:38, “He that believes, (goes on believing) on Me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” This word “believes” is in the present tense, wherever you find a present tense in the New Testament it always emphasizes continuous action. Here is the other aspect of the glorious infilling of the Holy Spirit, the overflow or release. At first there is an essentially subjective experience deep within me, and for the moment apparently affecting no one else, as I thirst, I come and I drink. It is purely subjective and personal. But there is something sadly missing, if what is subjective and personal does not become objective, affecting others. So there must follow the release and the outpouring of God’s blessing, through us, as rivers of living water. It is in fact the Love of God being bestowed on us, so that we in turn might love others in a needy world. This is equally true of all the blessings of the Spirit.

So many earnest Christians have a genuine experience in the subjective realm. They thirst, they come, and they drink, but somehow get hung-up between John 7:37 and 7:38. The continued believing, until the release of the Spirit is realized in rivers of living water, has not been fully experienced. There may have been some measure of release, but not as the Lord intends. I pray that in these days God will bring us into the full release of the Holy Spirit, for that is surely God’s desire for each one of us!

THE CALLING OF ELISHA

Returning to Elisha we note that in his heart there was this deep thirst. You recall how this farm boy was plowing in the field with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah, the great prophet of fire, passed by. As Elisha laid over the rich brown earth in straight crumbling furrows, Elijah unbuttoned his mantle and cast it upon Elisha. From that moment on Elisha was conscious of being a man of destiny, a man on whom the hand of God rested for a particular ministry. But Elisha hesitated and Elijah shrewdly observed the inward battle. “Go back again,” he said, “What have I done to you?” In this principle threaded throughout the narrative of the two men. If we want a fulfillment of the blessing of God, it is in a close relationship with the Master. The whole Christian life is summed up in the words of Jesus, “Follow Me.” It is so simple to say it and even to sing it, the difficulty is to carry it through—“Follow Me.”

The Psalmist says, “My soul followeth hard after thee.” Is that the cry of your spirit? Are you following hard after Him? If so, I want to tell you something, and I don’t need to be a prophet to tell you, God has a great blessing for you.

Elisha had plenty of opportunity to stop by the way, because as the narrative unfolds, you will see the repetition of this same incident at Bethel and Jericho. He could with truth have said, “I have come a long way, I have made a lot of progress.” And as that feeling of pride grew say, “I am really doing quite well.” But had he settled down there, that is as far as he would have gone, and just at that point he would have missed the full blessing of the Lord.

The scripture says they went down to Bethel; it was a journey down hill. Later they went down to Jericho; that too was down hill. From Jericho they went down to the Jordan, which as you know is almost the lowest part on the surface of the earth; many hundreds of feet below sea level; the pathway to power is a journey downhill. A well-known American preacher was once addressing an English Keswick Convention, and began his address with these rather striking words, “The world says that the way up is up; the Word of God teaches us that the way up is down.”

Jesus humbled himself, “Therefore God hath highly exalted Him. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The pathway to power is the path of self-humbling—the pathway that Jesus took. Perhaps in seeking power and blessing you have been moving in the wrong direction, trying to move up hill, to be somebody, to do something big for God, to achieve self-significance. In that case the Lord is saying to your heart as you read, “My child, turn around and start going down hill with me.” It is the quickest way, the other way will lead you into frustration, disappointment, maybe even to despair. The way up is down.

THE PLACE OF TRANSFORMATION

They went down to Bethel. This is a significant geographical place in the history of the children of God, it was specially revered because of its close association with the patriarch Jacob. Jacob, the younger boy, was a lad who was tied to his mother’s apron strings. He never had a girlfriend; a plain man dwelling in tents, not the out-of-doors sporty type like Esau, but God loved Jacob and hated Esau. A harsh term perhaps, but that is how the Bible describes God’s attitude. Nevertheless, God had some deep things to do in this young man Jacob’s heart, because he had a twist in his personality. He had a deep love of number one; he suffered from that very common human disease associated with the perpendicular personal pronoun ‘I’; the very prevalent cult of ‘Me’. He didn’t care about the other man, so long as Jacob got what he wanted. He was quite happy to ride rough-shod over other people, so long as Jacob’s aims and objectives were accomplished. And yet, amazing and wonderful as it is, God loved Jacob in spite of Jacob. Isn’t it wonderful that God loves you in spite of you?

Why did God love Jacob? Certainly not because of what Jacob was or what he did. So that when we look at this great mystery we are prompted to ask, "Lord, why do you love me?" And His Word gives us the answer, "I love you because I love you." And there He leaves us shrouded in mystery. He loves me in spite of myself. God loved Jacob, and I am certain He knew what Jacob was. But he knew too what His grace and His power could make out of Jacob, to fit him for a task.

Time and again, God is significantly called not only the God of Israel, but also the God of Jacob. So the day came for Jacob when, because of his own sin and selfishness, he had to leave home. He had to kiss his mother goodbye, and set off on a journey. We think of him as the boy, the younger son, but he was 77 years of age at this point; he was ninety-one when Joseph was born. But God took him at 77 years of age and used him beyond his wildest dreams. Are you a senior citizen? Do you feel as though your day is done; that you have missed your opportunity? I want to tell you God can take you where you are, and remold you, even restore to you the years the locusts have eaten. That is the kind of God we have!

Right where Jacob rested with a stone for his pillow, God broke into his life. In his sleep he dreamed of a ladder stretched up to heaven with the angels of God ascending and descending; and at the top was God, who spoke and revealed Himself to Jacob. In the morning when Jacob awoke he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. How dreadful is this place; this is none other than the House of God; this is the Gate of Heaven." So he turned the stone up on its end making it into a pillar, and poured oil upon it; it became the scene of his devotion, of his worship to God; Bethel, the House of God.

Have you ever come to Bethel? "Oh, yes!" you say, "I go to church every week." That is not what I mean. I mean is there really a Bethel in your life? There are so many people who go regularly to church, but have never come to Bethel. They don’t know what it is to have a devotional life with God. God said, concerning His House, "My House should be called of all nations a House of prayer." But they are much too busy to pray, to spend time enjoying the Lord, in listening to what the Lord would say to them in the depths of their hearts, in the quietness of the sanctuary. We shall never go far with God if there isn’t a Bethel in our lives.

Though the Lord may have filled me with His Holy Spirit, I shall see little of the outpouring of that blessing unless I realize the blessing obtained must be maintained. Maintenance involves a diligent life of communion and fellowship with God. There must be a Bethel! Did you hear about the man who used to come every week to church prayer meeting, and always prayed the same prayer, "Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit! I want to be filled with your Spirit." There was a dear sister there who knew that brother; knew what kind of a man he was. One prayer meeting she just couldn’t help bursting out, "Lord, don’t fill him! He leaks."

Are you a leaky vessel? Here is one way I believe we relate to the blessing - by having a Bethel in our lives. I know a business man in the north of England in Lancashire, who owns a cotton factory. He has a busy life and great responsibility, but when he gets to the office in the morning, he just drops the latch of the office door, and the telephone operator of the factory knows that no calls go through to the managing director for the first quarter of an hour. There he gets on his knees and turns that office into a Bethel. He communes with the Lord; commits the business of the day to God, that he might conduct it to God’s glory. "Bless my employees, bless the people I have to speak to today. Use this factory for your glory, Lord." No wonder God blesses him and uses him, he’s got a Bethel in his life. Have you? A Bethel in your bedroom, a Bethel in the office, a Bethel in the factory, a Bethel in school, college, hospital; wherever it is you find yourself day by day? Even a Christian sailor I once heard about, often found it difficult to find time for God in the midst of the rush and bustle on ship. He used to throw his wide sailor’s collar over his head and be alone with God, to commune with and praise Him, to have a Bethel between decks, or on the mess deck, or wherever he was.

A Bethel for God is a wonderful thing. And so it was at Bethel that Elijah turned to Elisha and said, "Elisha, you have come a long way, you have come all the way from Gilgal. It’s been a long journey to Bethel, surely you have come far enough. We have such great fellowship here at Bethel, so why don’t you remain here?" But he replied, "Master, if you are moving on, then I’m moving on with you. If you are pressing on, then I’m pressing on, because I know that there is more to come."

POWER CONTROL

Just as they were about to move on however, the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came to Elisha, took him aside and began to whisper things in his ear. They said, "Elisha, do you know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?" But he answered brusquely, "Yes I know all about that. Hold your peace."

These sons of the prophets are the type of people who have a lot to teach us, but rather by warning, than by example. Here was a company of people who knew the Lord; they had in measure experienced the Spirit. How did they know God was going to take Elijah away that day? They knew by the Spirit; they too had revelation; the Spirit of the Lord had come upon them. Yet it seems to me these men cut a sorry picture, they belonged to those who go so far and stop short. They belonged to "the might have been." The trouble was, that what they did have, went to their heads. The Word of God specifically says in I Corinthians 6, "Knowledge puffeth up, love buildeth up." Knowledge can be dangerous; power can be dangerous - if there isn’t love and humility.

It is not by accident, that God guided Paul by the Spirit to give us that wonderful spiritual sandwich of I Corinthians 12, 13, 14; 12 and 14 are the bread and 13 is the filling, the real meat. As long as love is central, then the gifts in 12 and 14 will be in their right place. As long as love fills my heart, the Lord will be able to entrust me with any gift or any manifestation, and it will be used unto edification and to the glory of His Name. Love is paramount. Knowledge without love will simply make me swollen-headed. So I believe these sons of the prophets had been given a revelation; they had something from God, but they just couldn’t keep it to themselves, they had to make everybody else aware that they were ‘in the know’.

Be careful how you talk about what God has revealed to you in the sanctuary; in the secret place. If you are the kind of person that can’t be trusted with God’s secrets, He will stop sharing them with you. There are times when we are free to share and God gives us revelation in order that we may share; that is certainly quite true with the revelation gifts of the Spirit. But sometimes there are things that perhaps we are to translate into prayer and intercession. Often we defeat the Lord’s purpose; we frustrate His grace, and play into the hands of the devil when we indiscriminately go babbling what God has said to us. If you do not have God’s green light, don’t talk about it - utter it not! ‘See that you tell no man.’

So let us be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as to when to speak and when to be silent. Elisha had the very same revelation as the sons of the prophets; they weren’t telling him anything new, but he knew how to hold his peace. This is an important lesson for us to learn, how to restrain these lips, to control this unruly member, the tongue. The Word of God says, "If you can control the tongue, you can control the whole body." So it was with Elisha, this revelation was something too precious to be talked about, so much was at stake, so much was involved. He said, "Yes, I know it, hold you peace, hold your peace."

If these men had been experiencing with Elisha a great yearning in the heart, a sense of compulsion, a pursuing after the master to appropriate what the master had, they wouldn’t have talked in that manner. They would have been on their faces, or at least on their knees talking to the Lord. So often we spend time talking to each other, when we ought to be talking to Him. Do you recall the old negro spiritual? "You can talk about me as much as you please, I’ll talk about you down on my knees." That’s good! That’s great! Elisha was determined to go through with God; a man prepared to pay the price, a man who obtained what he saw, then used what he had been given in such a wonderful ministry in the Spirit, that it left a chain of blessings behind him.

The pathway to power is down hill, as much for us, as for Elisha. Down hill from Bethel and ultimately to the Living Waters which are to flow through us to a needy world.