How can we be filled with the Triune God? We can be filled with the Triune God through thorough prayer and confession. When you began the Full-Time Training, you renewed your consecration. This is good, but you also have to find some time in your busy schedule to kneel down before the Lord by yourself and to thoroughly pray and confess. This is most precious. At the beginning of this time, you may tell the Lord, “O Lord, forgive me. Although You have forgiven me of all my sins, I have never had a thorough confession and a thorough dealing. Today I would like to confess all of my sins thoroughly before You. Please shine on me!”
When you pray in this way, do not seek for feeling. You have to believe that the Lord’s Spirit is with you. You also do not need to confess according to a sequence. Simply confess according to what you sense within and according to what you remember. Confess your sins to the Lord one by one until, according to your inner sense and your memory, you have nothing more to confess. Once you have done this, you should simply believe that you have been filled in your spirit with the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Every Christian should have one time in which he thoroughly confesses in this way. In medical science this is equivalent to changing the blood cells in your entire body in order to cleanse away all the germs and filthiness from your system for the sake of your health. Every one of you needs to be filled with the Spirit in this way.
How much the Spirit can fill you within depends on how much room you give Him. The more room you give Him, the more He fills you. Similarly, the amount of air that fills a bottle depends on how much space there is in the bottle. If half of the bottle is filled with soil, air can fill only half of the bottle. The more the soil is removed from the bottle, however, the more the air will fill it. In the same way, the more you remove the defilement of sin and the filthiness that is within you, the more the Holy Spirit will be able to fill you. As you empty out, the Spirit will fill you. When you have completely emptied yourself of all filthiness, then you will also be completely filled with the Spirit.
When you have a time with the Lord to confess, do not seek any feeling; just confess and pray thoroughly. To confess is to empty yourself out, and to pray is to receive the Lord into you. Hence, confession plus prayer is a breathing out and a breathing in. We breathe out our sins and breathe in God Himself. A. B. Simpson wrote a hymn that says, “I am breathing out my sorrow, / Breathing out my sin; / I am breathing, breathing, breathing, / All Thy fulness in” (Hymns, #255). Through continuous confession we breathe out our filthiness until all of our uncleanness is gone, and as we breathe out, we also breathe in. As we breathe out our sins, we breathe in God Himself. Thank and praise the Lord that although we are still filthy, He comes to us with His blood as the Lamb-God, the redeeming God. As soon as I breathe out, my sins are gone, and as soon as I breathe in, God comes in. This does not take any effort. As long as I breathe out a little of my sins, I immediately breathe in a little of God. When I confess my sins a little, God comes in to fill me a little. When I have completely breathed out all of my sins, I will be completely filled with God within, completely filled inwardly with the life-giving Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God.
I am not boasting of my seniority, but I have studied this matter for more than fifty years. In the message titled, “The Work of the Holy Spirit in the Believers,” I pointed out that the work of the Holy Spirit is first to regenerate us and then to fill us. When I went to the United States, I saw that the Pentecostal movement was very prevailing there. Although the Pentecostals were very prevailing, when I stood up and trumpeted this word concerning the filling of the Spirit, no one was able to say anything to refute me. The truth is with the Lord’s recovery. When we put forth the truth of the Bible, no one can refute it.
Both our actual experience and the truth of the Bible give us a clear picture of the inward filling of the Spirit. Those in the Pentecostal movement also talk about confession, but they wrongly teach people that confession must be accompanied by speaking in tongues. The Bible never says that we must speak in tongues to be filled with the Spirit. Today people are hungry and thirsty for God. Thus, those in the Pentecostal movement use tongue-speaking to attract them. Because the Pentecostals lack the truth, they encourage people to pursue after tongue-speaking. Actually, in many cases their so-called speaking in tongues is not genuine. They simply ask people to roll their tongue and speak out anything that comes to their mind. As a result of this practice, they are not filled with the Holy Spirit. They are not even filled with the evil spirits. They are filled only with themselves.
Those in the Pentecostal movement uplift speaking in tongues and encourage those who are hungry and thirsty for God to make speaking in tongues their goal. Actually, their kind of tongue-speaking is often a fraud. I have collected many materials in order to study the matter of tongue-speaking. These materials prove that an ancient form of tongue-speaking has existed in China, Egypt, and Japan. The tongue-speaking practiced by the Corinthians was also prevalent in the Gentile region of Asia Minor. Later this practice spread to the Greek peninsula. A brother from Ghana, Africa told me that when he was around ten years old, he saw a priest of the native religion of his own country also speak in tongues. Therefore, those who have discernment know that the tongue-speaking practiced among the Pentecostals is often not genuine and not according to the truth.
On the one hand, this fellowship is meant to help you by giving you the proper way to pursue the filling of the Spirit. On the other hand, it is meant to give you an inoculation. When you speak to people concerning the filling of the Spirit, they may say, “We also talk about the filling of the Spirit” and may ask you, “Do you speak in tongues?” If you do not know how to answer them, you will be poisoned by them. You must be clear that the filling of the Spirit has two aspects—an outward aspect and an inward aspect. The outward aspect is mentioned only in Acts, but in the Epistles from Romans to Revelation, the inward filling is emphasized because it is the more important aspect.
When we are filled inwardly, what are we filled with? We are filled with the Spirit of life, the essential Spirit, the life-giving Spirit, the Triune God who has been processed and consummated through death and resurrection. When we were saved, the Spirit entered into us. However, there are still many things within us that are not of Him, things that have not been dealt with and are filthy and sinful. Hence, if we want to be filled with the Spirit, we need to go before the Lord to repent, confess, and pray. Through repenting, confessing, and praying, we will breathe out our sins and breathe in God Himself as the life-giving Spirit. Through this breathing out and breathing in, we will be filled with the Spirit.
Acts 5:32b says, “The Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” This verse reveals that when we breathe in God and are filled with God as the life-giving Spirit, we need to closely follow and obey the Spirit. Obedience is both the way and the requirement for us to receive and enjoy the Spirit of God. Today we must pass through the crisis of being filled with the Spirit. This filling is the inward filling (pleroo), but it is also accompanied by the outward filling (pletho), because once you are filled inwardly, you will overflow outwardly. If we practice “encompassing the water with the skin” every morning—being filled inwardly in our morning revival, in our prayer, and in our walking according to the Spirit—then we will spontaneously experience the “water encompassing the skin”—the outward filling of the Spirit in our living and work. This is the normal Christian life.