Acts: 1: 1- 8 & 2:1-4
This subject often worries people. I’ve actually had people say to me that they are scared of any moving of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because they do not understand it. But that it is the great deception of the devil. It is satan who will make us scared and sceptical of the moving of the Holy Spirit.
The Cross defeated the devil so he’s out to defeat you through his lies. The devil would render us powerless as a Church because it is the Holy Spirit that gives us the power of God to be witnesses in the earth. No Power, No witness, No Church!
Therefore, if there is no power of the Holy Spirit in the believer, there is no power of the Holy Spirit in the Church, because the Church is the people, then there is no true witness of God. Then what is left, is a form of religion without power to save and set free!
Fear is our enemy.
There is no need for us to be frightened of the things of the Holy Spirit because Jesus told us that he would send another comforter in his absence. The Holy Spirit therefore is a comforter, in fact, there are over 21 wonderful attributes, attributed to the Holy Spirit throughout Scripture for our benefit and none of them is scary. And one of those attributes is a leader and another is our guide, READ John 16:7.
The comforter READ John 14: 16-17, the one that comes along beside us. So what is there to be frightened of? It is only when we are held in ignorance of what the Holy Scriptures tell us and our imaginations run wild. All we hear stories of great excesses don’t we, and we get concerned and scared we then reject the moving of the Holy Spirit in our Church and in our life. The devil then has succeeded in his mission! And we become poorer for it. So let us now approach this with an open heart and an open mind towards the Spirit of God and what he would have us to know this morning.
First of all, let’s pray…..
Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead- nothing spooky!
First of all, we need to understand that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a greater revelation of God that was manifested in patriarchal and mosaic dispensations. In the patriarchal dispensation, we see God appearing to people at long intervals of 20 and 40 years apart. In the Mosaic dispensation, there are deeper and clearer manifestations of God. The pillar of cloud and pillar of fire. In the Tabernacle is the Shekinah glory of God that overshadowed the mercy seat which is the abiding revelation of God.
In these dispensations God appeared outside of the human being, God was doing something TO the human race, and not IN the human race. But under the Christian dispensation, the New Covenant, things are different. A New Covenant has been born which is a much deeper and personal revelation of God. God was not only doing something TO the human race, but God was living IN humankind. READ John 11:25 (KJV). READ Ephesians 2 .22 this reveals God purpose in our salvation. We must be prepared by the blood of Jesus Christ to become the habitation of God, and what an amazing privilege and opportunity this is! READ John 16: 7-15.
Unction’s of the Holy Spirit
- Born again – / Adam God breath made him alive / God breathed new birth – the new creation. (Gen 1 & 2. John 3.)
- Baptism in Holy Spirit makes us God-empowered people. (Acts 1 & 2)
- Baptism Sanctifies our language so may pray according to His will. (Jude)
- Dove. (the Ark, Gen 8.11. & Baptism of Jesus Matt 3.16)
- Wind and fire- is what the church is, sweeping through the nations empowered by God to bring the full Gospels’ light to a dark world. It’s for the Church to be the Church!
We as New Covenant people are to live in the Wind and Fire of the Spirit, speaking the truth in love. We are wise as serpents but gentle as Doves (Matt 10.16). But for some of us, we don’t get past the Dove stage. We always speak of love and peace- and so we must! But we tend to remain, creating traditions around the nature of a Dove, we become Dove people and never influence the world with Wind and Fire. And so, The Church becomes powerless in its mission.
The more we use our language in tongues, the more we pray Gods’ will to earth getting the job done. Jesus told us because he rose and ascended to heaven and so we will also, being partakers of his righteousness and his glory and of his saving power. The crucifixion was necessary and now we are children of God, we are crucified with Christ and freed from sin. Our old nature is nailed to the cross and we are dead to sin and alive to Christ and just as Christ died, he arose, he is a living Christ, not a dead God. We are baptised (fully immersed) with power (dunamis =explosive) power from on high with the Holy Spirit, the Church goes forth!
God the Holy Spirit Lives IN YOU by your resurrection into the new birth according to John chapter 3. We have left this old sinful life buried to the old nature in baptism and are partakers in the new resurrection life. The life of power (dunamis =explosive) where the exercise of the power of God is made possible TO us and IN us through the Holy Spirit. We are Wind and Fire people!
Is the baptism of the Holy Spirit for today?
Yes! There are 20 scriptures referring to this in the New Testament
The baptism is evidenced by tongues. 1 Corinthians 14: 22. Mark 16:17-18 READ
To speak with other tongues is to speak languages never learned. They are either a known human language or a heavenly one, enabled by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. ‘Initial physical evidence’ is the term used to describe the first outward sign of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is manifested in a physical way as the Spirit-filled believer’s physical voice is used. It is initial in that it comes immediately with the infilling. It is important to point out here, that there is no single declarative sentence in the Bible that states that everyone who is baptized in the Holy Spirit will speak in other tongues. Even if we had only Acts 1 and 2, we understand the doctrine, for there we have the definition of the baptism in the Spirit.
Jesus said, “Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence” (Acts 1.5) The scriptural definition of that baptism is, “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2.4). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, Luke clearly intended to define what Jesus promised. 1Corinthians 14: don’t forbid tongues when meeting together for worship.
Hope. Faith. Love. 