Aflame for God 6 – God’s Knighthood for the Soldier-Preacher

by Matt Bullen April 19, 2011

“When the Spirit was outpoured the disciples were all filled with power from on high, the most unlettered tongue could silence gainsayers, and with its new fire burn its way through obstacles as flames fanned by mighty winds sweep through forests.”- Arthur T. Pierson

Read the beginning of the series HERE

I arrived at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri in August of 1984. I was beyond excited and a little scared about being away from home for the first time in my life. The first day I signed up for classes and then I found out that Baptist Temple, one of the churches in the city, was having a two night conference to welcome the students for the new year and Dr. Jack Hyles was preaching! I couldn’t believe it! I was so excited. I went to the meeting that night and my world was wrecked. Dr. Hyles preached on Meet The Holy Spirit and he made the sweet third person of the Trinity seem so wonderful that I wanted to know Him more than anything in the world. I remember walking around the campus until curfew crying out to the Lord to let me know Him like that. The next night Dr. Hyles devastated me with a sermon called The Fullness of the Holy Spirit. He preached about how the power of Luke 24:47 and Acts 1:8 was for today and was for me. He told stories about men like Wesley, Spurgeon, Whitefield, Evans, Finney, Moody, and others who had counted on and depended on an anointing of the Holy Spirit to do their work and of the miraculous results they had experienced as a result. My heart burned as I listened and hot tears rolled down my face. I felt that I would die if I couldn’t have that power from on high to win souls for Christ. I bought both tapes of the messages before I left that night and over the next several weeks I listened to them scores of times until I literally memorized every word. I got a job at night about 5 miles from the school and I would walk to work and listen to those sermons over and over again and cry and pray and beg God to let me know His power like that. I eventually wore them out to where they wouldn’t play in my walkman cassette player anymore.

I began getting up every morning at 5:00 am and I would run to Doling Park and spend a couple of hours in prayer before going to class. I would walk the campus at night and pray until curfew. Then I would sneak out of my bed and steal down to the laundry room after curfew and pray sometimes all night begging God to use me, to make me a preacher, to let me in on a mighty work, to give me souls for His kingdom. I began to fast for days at a time. I lost a lot of weight (and I didn’t have any to lose back then). I was doing well in school and loving what I was studying but I couldn’t get those stories of Holy Spirit anointing on the preachers of old out of my head. I wanted to be used of God or die. It was a sweet time as I got to know the Lord in a deeper way. I had stumbled across Psalm 63 and it became and remains to this day the prayer of my heart.

[quote]Psa. 63:1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. 3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. 4 So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. 5 My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. 6 When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, 7 For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. 8 My soul follows hard after You; Your right hand upholds me.[/quote]

I have prayed that prayer or a portion of it nearly every day of my life since. It truly expresses the cry of my soul.

I began going to the college bookstore and looking for books that would tell me more about power from on high and being used of God in mighty ways. The first two I found wrecked my world worse than I could have imagined. They were both written by Oswald J. Smith, world renowned pastor and missionary statesman, and they were entitled A Passion For Souls and The Man God Uses. Oh my soul! My eyes are welling up with tears as I try to type the titles. Here is an excerpt from the book A Passion For Souls to give you a taste of what God was searing into my soul,

[quote]”But oh, to realize and know that souls, precious, never dying souls are perishing all around us, going out into the blackness of darkness and despair, eternally lost, and yet to feel no anguish, shed no tears, know no travail! How cold our hearts are! How little we know of the compassion of Jesus! And yet God can give us this, and the fault is ours if we do not have it. Who is really travailing in prayer? How many, even of our most spiritual Christian leaders are content to spend a few minutes a day on their knees, and then pride themselves on the time they have given to God! We expect extraordinary results, and extraordinary results are quite possible; signs and wonders will follow, but only through extraordinary efforts in the spiritual realm. Hence, nothing short of continuous, agonizing pleading for souls, hours upon hours, days and nights of prayer, will ever avail.”[/quote]

I can’t describe to you how my heart burned to have the anointing of the Spirit and see His power and His glory. I went back and re-read Leonard Ravenhill’s Why Revival Tarries and I saw that the first chapter was With All Thy Getting, Get Unction, unction being another biblical word for Holy Spirit power. How my heart burned as I read,

[quote]”Unction cannot be learned, only earned by prayer. Unction is God’s knighthood for the soldier-preacher who has wrestled in prayer and gained the victory. Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet; it is won or lost before the preacher’s foot enters the pulpit. Unction is like dynamite.”[/quote]

I was so desperate to be used of God. I started a journal to track my progress and keep me accountable to my times with God. I also recorded my impressions from God and many, many specific answers to prayer. Going back and reading those journals today I ache for the young man who wrote those words and at the same time my heart is stirred to regain some of that youthful passion and pursuit of God’s power for His glory.

I had been at Bible college for about 3 months and I was very homesick and so was my roommate whose girlfriend was from my church back home so we devised a plan to leave right after classes on Friday and drive the 850 miles home, see our families, go to church on Sunday morning, leave after church and drive back in time to go to classes on Monday morning and this we did. It was a crazy trip but the life changing thing for me was that while I was home for those 30 hours or so someone handed me a cassette of a sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles entitled Fresh Oil and it was about the anointing of the Holy Spirit for power in ministry. It was like pouring gas on a bonfire. I once again wore this tape out over the next few months.

I have always been grateful that God wouldn’t let me go about this. I am grateful that He created a hunger in me for Him that, though at times of discouragement has sometimes waned, has never never left me. He created a fire in my heart and a radical passion to see His power and glory that has never been quenched.

It wasn’t all reading, fasting, and praying though. I had developed a group of friends who were passionate about Christ and we enjoyed many activities together all centered around church of course. Springfield, Missouri is the world headquarters of my denomination at the time, Baptist Bible Fellowship International, and the world headquarters of The Assemblies of God denomination and there were 4 Christian colleges in this relatively small town so needless to say, there was some kind of Christian concert, revival, Bible conference, Christian film series, etc. going on every week and we enjoyed many of them. Every day we had chapel and the college would bring in a different preacher from around the country and the huge college choir would boom out hymns and it was amazing. I’ll never forget them singing The Solid Rock like every day. It quickly became my favorite hymn. I would sing out at the top of my voice,

[quote]”My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”[/quote]