Young British Pastor Explains God’s Presence With Amazingly Simple Metaphor

Andy Croft, senior pastor at Soul Survivor Watford in the U.K., used a powerful, simple metaphor to explain the presence of God’s Spirit. He made the illustration during a sermon at Soul Survivor 2019.

“What do we mean when we say the gift of the Holy Spirit?” Croft says. “Put simply, the gift of the Holy Spirit is God’s personal presence. God is everywhere. But also what He does in the Bible is He turns up at particular places and particular occasions. The word for that is He manifests His presence. It’s a bit like oxygen is everywhere in this room, but you could still concentrate oxygen into a cylinder or a tank. So it with God. He’s everywhere, but sometimes, it’s as if He just shows up in the room.”

Croft provided this illustration during a message about being filled with the Holy Spirit. He says he first got baptized in the Holy Spirit when he was a teenager, about half a year after his initial salvation. It was at a camp where Mike Pilavachi—whom Croft now co-pastors with—was speaking.

“We stood there,” Croft says. “We invited the Holy Spirit. We waited. And then blow me down if the Holy Spirit did not just show up in the room. … It’s just like God walked into the room. It was like He showed up.”

Watch the full sermon here.