G.K. Wallace
Pastor A. G. Ward, in telling what the Baptism of the Holy Spirit did for him, says, “Another blessed result of the coming of the Comforter to my heart has been that I have learned to cultivate the faculty of sacred imagination and to realize the unseen.”
We are of the opinion that the gentleman is right in one respect, and that is about his imagination. However, it is not the Spirit that creates this imagination but his imagination creates in his mind and heart what he believes to be the Baptism of the Spirit. Since the Bible plainly teaches that the Baptism of the Spirit was for a specific purpose and that purpose having been fulfilled, it of necessity ceased, we know then that the gentleman is overworking his imagination.
To further show you that this is a matter of perverted brain, you will please notice. the following:
Joseph Smith, the father of Mormonism, got the Holy Spirit and “imagined” the angel Moroni gave him some plates on which was written the book of Mormon.
The Spiritualists claim they talk to the dead by the power of the Spirit. The dead are called up and with them they converse face to face. It looks as if some one’s imagination is working overtime here.
Mr. Nazarene gets the Holy Spirit and jumps and shouts but can’t talk in tongues. He has the same Holy Spirit that Mr. Pentecostal has but no tongues. He also says that Mr. Pentecostal cannot talk in tongues.
Mr. Quaker gets the Holy Spirit and neither jumps nor shouts but only sits quietly. He says all the noise and talking in tongues is not of the Holy Spirit.
Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, through what she claims was the Spirit of God, gave to the world Christian Science. This so-called science denies that there is anything that is material. Sickness and death, it says, do not exist. This is all an illusion. It seems that when folk get their imagination started there is no end to what they may say and do.
Charles T. Russell imagined he was called of God to give us his materialistic doctrine.
R. H. Boll, Charles M. Neal, et. al., imagined this was all true and have taken up with the same. Jorgenson, Boll, and others say that their theory is not that of Russell but we are prepared to show that their theories are as much alike as two boys born of the same mother. The theories are that close akin. Only their fathers can tell them apart.
Mrs. White says she was called of God by the Spirit, to give us Adventism.
But, alas, our missionaries begin to work their imagination. Virgil Smith. after using his imagination as to what the Bible teaches on the question of the Holy Spirit, got one of his converts—namely Joano Nunes—to the point where he imagined he had the Spirit. This unusual occurrence came after they had spent some time in repeating, “The Lord is good—the Lord is good.” Then some of them talked in tongues. We wish some of these fellows who have such good imagination would show us the scriptures where God ever authorized anyone to agonize in prayer for the Holy Spirit. Where is an example of anyone getting down and crying, “The Lord is good—the Lord is good” or as the Pentecostals do, “Thank you, Jesus, Thank you, Jesus.”
All the above testimonies of the Holy Ghost folk contradict and yet each can prove his point, because he has the witness within himself. He feels it, therefore he knows it.
Well, somehow we believe the pastor mentioned above, is right. It is a work of imagination.
God destroyed the antediluvians for a too free use of their imaginations. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
Moral: Stick to the work of God and quit following your imagination.
