I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you
astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within
you, so you don't need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches
you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true--it is not a lie.
So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ. -- 1John 2:
26-27 (NLT)
This is Pentecost Weekend. Over
2000 years ago the disciples of Jesus Christ gathered in
That said, there is still great
confusion over this. Whenever there is confusion we should go to the Scripture
to become clear. First of all, when we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ we
have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That means the Spirit of God Himself
comes to dwell on the inside of us. The Bible teaches us that our body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit. The key verses today also reinforce that the Spirit
of God lives inside of us as believers and should be our source for all truth.
So let us not confuse the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which occurs at
salvation, with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
The other common confusion is to
mix up water baptism with Spirit baptism. The easiest way to clarify this is to
go back to the original baptizer -- John:
"I baptize with water those who repent of their sins and turn to God.
But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am--so much greater that I'm
not worthy even to be his slave and carry his sandals. He will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit and with fire. -- Matthew 3: 11 (NLT)
Water baptism is one of two
ordinances Jesus instructed us to carry out, the other being the Lord's Supper.
Water baptism is the outward expression of the inward decision to receive Jesus
into your life. It is symbolic of the burying of your old sinful man and the
resurrection of your new life in Christ. This is completely different from
Spirit baptism. For a deeper look at that we let Jesus set the stage as He
instructs the disciples after He was resurrected but before He ascended into
heaven:
Once
when he was eating with them, he commanded them, "Do not leave
There is clearly a difference Jesus is
making here between the water baptism and the Spirit baptism. A few days later
we came to the Day of Pentecost and here is how the Bible described the initial
Spirit baptism:
On
the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly,
there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it
filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of
fire appeared and settled on each of them. And
everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other
languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. -- Acts 2: 1-4 (NLT)
This is where the doctrine of
tongues being the evidence of Spirit baptism came from. There is much debate
about this today as clearly in this instance the tongues were foreign languages
not the heavenly language modern Pentecostalism has turned it into. Even at the
birth of the Assemblies of God at the turn of the Twentieth Century, we saw
missionaries go to foreign fields with no language abilities whatsoever only to
have the Spirit enable their hearers to hear them in their own languages. That
is not the purpose of this writing. The purpose here is to try and be
encouraging because I know how sometimes we can feel inadequate when we have
not received the Spirit baptism. I remember being at altar calls and watching
others receive but not me. Try as we might to not make it like this, we are
human and then there are those who are spiritually haughty who can make us feel
inferior. Let me assure you of two things. The first is that having not
received the Spirit baptism does not make you any less of a Christian. The
second is that God does everything in His own time, which is always perfect.
That said, I just want to look
quickly at some factors which might be able to help facilitate the Spirit
baptism, based solely on the Scriptures we find at Pentecost and leading up to
it. The first thing to note is that the believers set themselves apart prior to
the Spirit baptism occurring. They were in an upper room apart from everyone
else. Yesterday we looked at the act of sanctification, which is an ongoing
process following salvation. It is the process of setting oneself apart to
Christ and away from the world. It is a process that will continue until we
meet Jesus face to face. From the moment our heart is regenerated in Christ we
should be progressing to be less like the world and more like Jesus. Will we
fall? Absolutely, but we will pick ourselves up and head in the right direction
again. When I see the believers here prior to Spirit baptism, what stands out
to me is they set themselves apart. Perhaps there is something in our lives
that slows our progress of sanctification down and that is preventing the
Spirit baptism? Think of it this way -- water baptism involves us being fully
immersed in water. Well, Spirit baptism involves us being fully immersed in the
Spirit of God and He will not go where there are things that are not of Him. So
if there is secret habitual sin, unforgiveness, pride or anything else that
would hinder your relationship with God, that certainly could get in the way of
becoming fully immersed in His Spirit. The next thing I see is that they were
prayerful:
They all met together and were constantly united in prayer, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, several other women, and the brothers of Jesus. -- Acts 1: 14 (NLT)
Prayer is our lifeline to God. It
is our intimate connection. Yet so often we can ignore it or give it our
leftover time. How can we make the case to God that we want to be immersed in
His Spirit when we cannot take time out of our lives to pray? The problem is
within the churched mindset. Too often we consider our Christian involvement
the hour and a half we spend at church on Sunday. Maybe another couple of hours
at a Friday prayer meeting but the rest of our life we just cannot fit Jesus
into our schedule. Then we come to the altar and expect to be immersed in His
Spirit? Prayer needs to not only be a regular part of who we are but it needs
to be a defining part. It needs to be a persevering part.
Lastly, I see innocence in the approach of the believers. Yes they had been told to wait for the Spirit baptism but they had no idea what to expect. In fact they were simply meeting when the tongues of fire fell according to Scripture. They were just going about their business. The Bible says that we often do not get even what we pray for because we ask with the wrong motive. Our motive cannot become envy because others have received and we have not. It cannot be based on anything other than a desire to be immersed in the Spirit of God -- to be ever closer to Him. Sanctified, prayerful, and innocent in heart and motive. As always though, remember that God is sovereign and His timing is never ours. Remain in fellowship with Christ. Seek Him today to be immersed in all that He is and all He can be in you.
Rev. Anthony
