Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

J. Lee Grady is an author, award-winning journalist and ordained minister. He serves as contributing editor for Charisma magazine, one of America's most widely distributed evangelical Christian publications.. His Fire in My Bones column is distributed to thousands around the world. Author of three books including The Holy Spirit is Not for Sale and Fearless Daughters of the Bible, Lee is also the founder of The Mordecai Project, a ministry aimed at confronting the abuse of women around the world. His preaching ministry has taken him to 24 nations. He and his wife, Deborah, have four daughters.

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THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT FOR SALE

Chosen Books

Contents

Foreword by R. T. Kendall......................................13Preface........................................................17Introduction: Rekindling the Fire..............................251 Hot Coals from Heaven's Altar................................372 The Fire of Supernatural Anointing...........................513 The Fire of Boldness.........................................694 The Fire of Purity...........................................815 The Fire of Integrity........................................996 The Fire of Humility.........................................1137 The Fire of Truth............................................1318 The Fire of Justice..........................................1499 The Fire of Spiritual Liberty................................16710 The Fire of Prayer..........................................18111 The Fire of Genuine Love....................................19912 How to Have Your Own Personal Pentecost.....................211How to Be Baptized in the Holy Spirit..........................223Notes..........................................................227Index..........................................................231

Chapter One

Moriah Chapel in Loughor, Wales, is not a fancy building. Constructed in 1898 and surrounded by crumbling tombstones, the church is plain and uninviting except for a monument near the front door that might be mistaken for a war memorial. It is, in fact, one of the few tributes to Evan Roberts, the young Welshman who preached in the chapel in the fall of 1904 and triggered one of the greatest Christian revivals in modern history.

In the fall of 2008 I stood inside the chapel and studied its plain walls and the rickety stairs leading up to the narrow balcony. I got behind the wooden pulpit and looked over the empty pews, some carved with initials. I stood beside Roberts's modest grave, which was in a small, crowded cemetery behind the chapel. I was reminded that God uses the weak things of the world to confound the wise.

There was nothing outwardly remarkable about Roberts or the place his ministry began. He was the simple son of a coal miner. He worked as a blacksmith yet aspired to be a minister. After he uttered his famous prayer, "Lord, bend me," at a conference in nearby Blaenannerch, he felt overwhelmed by a burden for Welsh souls. His first revival service at Moriah Chapel touched only a handful of people. But crowds began to pour into the church from nearby villages after the Holy Spirit fell on the place in November 1904.

Within a year it was estimated that 100,000 people had come to Christ. Hardened men who normally spent their families' incomes on liquor suddenly were running into the churches and repenting. Coal miners stopped cursing. Teenagers gathered at train stations and sang hymns or testified publicly of their conversions. Crime stopped.

Wales was transformed.

To be fair, it's important to note that the Welsh revival did not revolve around Roberts, at least not in its early days. It was not a man-centered movement-even though newspaper reporters tried to place all the attention on the young preacher. Years before the revival erupted at Moriah Chapel, spiritual birth pangs were felt in other towns in Wales in meetings led by nameless Presbyterian and Salvation Army evangelists who never appeared in newspaper articles. In short, the fervor had been building. An altar had been prepared, and dry wood was waiting for a spark.

That spark happened when Roberts visited Blaenannerch. God took a hot coal from His altar and touched Roberts at age 26. Roberts was gloriously baptized in the Holy Spirit there while others watched him kneeling in a pew. By his own account, he wept so much that three women came over to console him and to wipe the perspiration from his face. The love of God, he said, was boiling inside him.

Roberts described the experience this way: "After many had prayed I felt some living energy or force entering my bosom; it held my breath; my legs trembled terribly; this living energy increased and increased as one after the other prayed until it nearly burst me.... I cried-'Bend me, bend me, bend me; Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!' ... What came to mind after this was, the bending in the day of judgment. Then I was filled with sympathy for the people who will have to bend in judgment day, and I wept. Afterwards the salvation of souls weighed heavily on me. I felt on fire for going through the whole of Wales to tell the people about the Saviour."

Two profound characteristics marked the Welsh revival. First, waves of conviction drew people to repentance. Often sinners wandered into the meetings and immediately knelt at the altars. Second, Christians felt an urgency to share Christ with everyone around them because of the reality of hell and God's judgment. They seemed almost possessed by the love of God for the unconverted.

In his meetings Roberts often shared a four-point plan for living the Christian life: (1) confess all known sin, (2) deal with and get rid of anything "doubtful" in your life, (3) be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly and (4) confess Christ publicly.

After visiting Moriah Chapel and rereading the accounts of the Welsh revival, I also long for an authentic move of God. I want what Evan Roberts felt in his soul. Yet as I think of what so much of today's movements in the church are known for, I become weary-weary of the fake and the fabricated. We think we have true power. We boast about the size of our crowds. We brag about supposed miracles, though many are not substantiated. We are ready to declare a revival if Christians swoon under the influence of a preacher or give big offerings. But when the music stops, the TV cameras are turned off and the money is counted, what do we have?

Where is the God of Evan Roberts? Where is the true power of God, which can sweep over a city and bring backslidden Christians to repentance and hardened sinners to experience the greatest miracle of all-the miracle of new birth?

We Need the Fire Again

The Bible is full of accounts of people who encountered God's holy fire. When the Lord visited Abram and promised him an heir, "a smoking oven and a flaming torch" appeared (Genesis 15:17). Before Gideon could enter battle, the angel of the Lord appeared to him and consumed the sacrifice with a burning fire (Judges 6:21). Before Elisha began his miraculous ministry, he watched his mentor Elijah rise to heaven amid "a chariot of fire and horses of fire" (2 Kings 2:11). And Isaiah's commissioning occurred after an angelic creature touched his lips with a burning coal from heaven's altar. The prophet's speech was forever transformed.

This is heaven's pattern. God's fire always precedes power. Spiritual revival cannot be generated by man's clever intellect, inspired talent or personal charisma. This is why Jesus told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49). The early Church needed a baptism in the Holy Ghost, even though they had been with Jesus for years, memorized His sermons and witnessed His miracles. That was not enough. They needed more than just a touch on the lips-they needed flames of fire on their heads and a total infilling of dunamis power.

No Christian should view the baptism of the Holy...