Are Your Words Loaded With the Spirit?

There is an indescribable quality about words, even when they are
printed, but more so when they are spoken. Words are chariots in which
the quality of the heart and mind ride forth to other souls.

The dominant heart-quality of a person will possess and
accompany his words with absolute precision. If the spirit of a man is
superficial, or narrow, or timeserving, or selfish, or trifling, these
qualities will pervade his words, in spite of all the seriousness or
sanctity he may try to put into them.

If, on the other hand, his heart is large and filled with the broad,
tender love of Jesus and compassion for others, then the simplest
expressions, which may seem commonplace, will be freighted with these
qualities. All words are loaded with the quality of the soul out of
which they proceed.

It is eternally impossible for God to utter one word that
is not loaded with divinity; it is equally impossible for the devil to
utter one word which does not, in some way, contain a lie.

Words are like eyes. Some eyes are inquisitive; others are
pleading; others are brave; others are searching; others are mild and
tender; and still others are low and mean. There is an invisible stream
of soul-quality that flows out from people’s eyes, and there is no way
in the world to change the quality of that stream except by changing the
eye, and the only way to change the eye is to change the immortal
spirit that looks out through the eye.

This same thing is true of words. Our words are the eyeballs of the heart, in which others see the quality of our minds.

The apostle Paul speaks of our words being seasoned with
salt (see Col. 4:6), and Jesus tells us that we must “have salt in
[our]selves” (Mark 9:50, KJV). Salt is a type of the indwelling Christ;
and it is when we are salted through and through with the blessed Holy
Spirit that our words will be seasoned with the real Christ-life.

Our words cannot be loaded with the Holy Spirit after they
leave our lips. If God is in them, they must proceed out of a Holy
Spirit element in us. The drops of blood or the tears that you may shed
all contain salt; but that salt is in the stomach and the heart before
it is in the blood-drops or the teardrops.

In like manner, if our words have a savor of life and
power in them, they must get that quality from the inner depths of our
spirits before they drop from our lips or our pens. Jesus teaches that
our words reveal our heart-character and says: “By thy words thou shalt
be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:37).

There are several characteristics that can be attributed to “loaded” words:

1. Words spoken or written by the Holy Spirit will be loaded with light.
There will be a transparency and straightforward simplicity in them
like that of clear glass. They will not be spoken for ostentation, or
for sound, or in guile, or with double meaning. Words spoken for such
purposes are opaque rather than clear.

Many a sermon is so preached, and many a religious book so
written, that instead of revealing the truth to the simplest
understanding, it obscures it. The only proper end of words is to make a
thought easily and perfectly intelligible, and when the Holy Spirit
inspires them, they are like balls of clear glass, in which the very
core of the thought can be known.

2. Words loaded with the Spirit have an inexpressible warmth and magnetism in them.
They seem to quiver with a heavenly electricity; they vitalize the
mind; they penetrate the understanding; there is a love-quality in them,
like the pungent, penetrating heat of sweet spices and aromatic oils. A
piece of cedarwood or sandalwood will give forth a sweet, pungent odor
for hundreds of years; and so there is a hot, burning flavor in the
words which have come from minds aflame with divine love.

It often happens that persons devoid of the interior flame
of the Holy Spirit try to put a pathos or an unction into their prayers
or sermons or conversations; but in spite of all their efforts, their
words are insipid, milk and water, chilly and powerless, because they
come not from an interior furnace but from a painted fire, which dazzles
the eye and freezes the hearer.

The Holy Spirit alone can put into our words that burning,
warming sensation that kindles other souls into fervor. Notice, when
some person speaks in a religious meeting under the melting, burning
love of Jesus, how their words strike the mind like a warm south wind in
early spring; notice how the congregation listens to catch every word;
how the fiery stream of speech will evoke a pleasant smile, or a flowing
tear, or awaken conviction, or a sense of joy; every mind in the
congregation that loves the truth will be wide awake; there is a warmth
in the expression of the people’s eyes, and if you could see into their
intellects, it would resemble a flower garden blossoming into bright and
glowing thoughts, and their affections melted into sweetness.

Those burning words are being shot like red-hot bullets
from a divine magazine of a fire-baptized heart. In comparison with such
words, all human eloquence is like cold moonbeams on a frozen sea.

3. Holy Spirit-loaded words have a divine fitness in them with regard to time and place and matter.
God often arranges to have His Spirit-led children speak words in a
particular set of circumstances, or at a particular time, and in a
particular tone of voice that were not premeditated by the speaker and
that accomplish vast and everlasting results. The people they are
directed to will later say, “You spoke a certain word to me years ago,
under such and such circumstances, that made a great change in my life.”

Take the case of a young lady physician who has packed her
trunk to leave a certain camp meeting. She is invited to lead a young
people’s meeting. An evangelist standing by, in an unpremeditated way,
simply says: “Sister, the Lord wants you here; go, unpack your trunk,
and lead that meeting.” The words are loaded; they pierce the heart. The
young lady leads the meeting, and from that time on becomes a holiness
evangelist.

A certain man is holding a meeting in North Georgia. A
brother steps up and says: “I met you 10 years ago in Augusta. When I
was seeking sanctification and walking in the street, I asked you
several questions. You simply answered me: ‘Brother, just leave yourself
in the hands of Jesus, and He will answer all your questions.’ Your
words were loaded, and in a few moments I was in spiritual liberty.”

There are millions of instances in which words have been
spoken under the guidance of the Holy Spirit just in the nick of time to
accomplish great results.

4. Loaded words are durable; they have in them the element of immortality.
Commonplace words glide away from us by the million; but certain words,
appropriate to our needs and charged with the Spirit, bury themselves
in our memories and remain fresh with us throughout life.

If we want our prayers, or sermons, or testimonies, or
written words, to abide in everlasting fruitfulness, they must be in the
order of divine will and under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Some
persons try purposely to speak wise and appropriate and powerful words.
But all such is a failure.

You can’t speak loaded words by trying to; it is only by
having the very fountains of our being so melted and filled and united
with the Holy Spirit that, without any premeditation, every stray shot
and even our ordinary conversation will be just as full of holy gravity
and fiery truth as our prayers and sermons. The power must be generic
and continually flowing through us from the indwelling Christ.

A trifling preacher during the week cannot speak fiery and
weighty words on Sunday. Let us in secret prayer bathe ourselves so
long in the bright and warm presence of Jesus that when we go forth we
shall unconsciously carry in our manners and words that imitable quality
of life and durability which can come alone from the Eternal One.

If in the past our words have been lacking in the divine
aroma of grace, let us go to the fountain and, by persevering prayer,
get in such abiding relation with the real source of all holiness as to
make our very words conductors of heavenly electricity. Our infinite,
loving God will gladly utilize any little humble one on this earth as a
channel of holy fire, if he will utterly yield himself up to His will
and the current of the Holy Spirit.

George Douglas Watson (1848-1923) was a holiness
evangelist for the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He authored of several
books, including Bridehood Saints and Soul Food, from which this excerpt was taken.