In Luke 3:16 John the Baptist said, "I baptize you with water, but a mightier one than I is coming and He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."
Many believers do not recognize some very key things that Jesus told His disciples in John chapters 14, 15 and 16. He knew that He was to be killed, that He would be resurrected and come back. He also knew that He would leave a second time and that He would send the Holy Spirit to take His place.
He said the following knowing they could feel fatherless if we could not experience His presence. "I will not leave you as orphans [fatherless]; I will come to you" (John 14:18).
He told His disciples before he ascended that they would be immersed into the Holy Spirit. "For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5). "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
He told them not to worry after He left. He explained that the Holy Spirit would take His place and make Him (Jesus, God) real to them. Read what Jesus told them in John 14:16-26.
Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit would make Him real to them. I believe this is the main purpose for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
"When the Counsellor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me" (John 15:26).
"But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counsellor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:7).
Jesus told His men that he would come back soon. He did! He came back in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit and Jesus are not different people, they are the same, but in different form. The Holy Spirit can actually dwell inside humans, where Jesus was restricted to one human body.
The disciples had two experiences with the Holy Spirit. The original disciples received the Holy Spirit of the resurrected Christ in John 20:22. However these same men had no visible change of character until they received the Holy Spirit of the ascended Christ on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.
A. Resurrection Sunday, John 20:22.
Resurrected Christ.
In-breathed Spirit.
Result was life.
B. Pentecost Sunday, Acts 2:4.
Ascended and Glorified Christ.
Outpoured Spirit.
Result was power.
The group of 120 in Acts chapter 2 abandoned themselves, they became lost in the presence of God. They were obedient to Jesus. They spent time and invested words for intimacy. They received power that transformed their lives, power to witness, power to have all their needs supplied, power to expand their influence in other lands and power to experience intimacy and fellowship with the Glorified Christ on a daily basis.
The disciples experienced something on the day of Pentecost that we all need to experience. When Jesus went back to Heaven the second time in Acts chapter 1, He took a new position as the ascended Christ, not just the resurrected Christ. Jesus left earth in the form of a resurrected being, but He came back through the Holy Spirit as a much superior being, one who had ascended to the right hand of God and who had been glorified.
Notice, His disciples did not mourn in Acts chapters 1-3 as they did in the Book of John when He was crucified. This time, when He left, they took Him at His word of promise that He was coming back soon in another form. Not too many days after He left, He did come back as the Holy Spirit, and they were filled. Then, they proceeded to live their life in fellowship with Jesus just as if He were there with them (He was).
Baptised means to be immersed. First we are baptised with water and now with fire. The fire is His presence. When we are baptised in water we are (in type) dead, we are humiliated, but the water does not go into us and totally kill us. It is exterior. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the fire of God going inside us. It is our choice. We can choose our pride over His presence and control over us. He wants to kill our old nature by fire. God promised Noah there would be no more water, but only fire. Demons are destroyed by fire not water.
Do we need to be filled more than once? Some denominations argue about this and miss the whole point. We are not independent containers filled with an outside source, as water from a pitcher being poured into a glass. If this were true, then perhaps we would need to be filled again and again because we have the possibility of leaking.
John 15 says that we are connected to our source like a branch on a vine. It is not a matter of being re-filled, but a matter of staying connected to the vine. The sap in the vine represents the Holy Spirit, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We need to abide in the vine. Jesus says that obedience to His Word is what keeps us abiding. The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is being flooded with God when we are connected to Him as the vine and the branch. His sap flows into us, and we stay connected if we abide.
How much filling is enough? Luke 6:45b says, "for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh." Personally, I like the idea that the Holy Spirit flows out of my mouth telling me that I am full!
There has been much confusion and controversy about the Baptism in the Holy Sprit. Some talk about the gifts of the Spirit being the main issue and some talk about tongues being the main issue. Some say baptism is for service, that if we really desire to serve Jesus and witness with power, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They are not wrong, they all have merit, but I do not believe that they touch the primary purpose of the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
What about the gifts of the Spirit?
I feel that we need to leave the giving of gifts to the giver. I have personally had many of the gifts operate in my life from time to time, but not all of them.
I believe in speaking in tongues as a valuable and powerful gift and one that differs in some respects from the other gifts. God uses it not only in public ministry (which is at His pleasure and when He sees fit), but more importantly He uses it to take control of our mind for His benefit. James said that the tongue is the rudder that guides the entire ship. If you want to give Jesus the rudder of your life, you should give Him your tongue. Medical science knows that the speech center of the brain dominates the entire brain. There is a full teaching on this in the ISOB curriculum called "The Holy Spirit and the tongue."
I do not feel it is proper for people who have received the gifts to make those who have not received them feel as if there is something wrong with them. Neither is it proper for those who have not received the gifts to condemn those who have. Jesus, in Matthew 12:31, said that speaking against what the Holy Spirit is doing is a sure way to never receive those benefits in your own life. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is saying something is not of the Holy Spirit when it really is. If you are not sure, that is fine, but be careful never to speak against it unless you are truly sure and have confirmation that it is a counterfeit of Satan. It is better to be safe than sorry!
What if I have sought for this baptism or sought for speaking in tongues, and it has not manifested? Good question! I don't think that any of us understand all of the reasons for this. However, my advice is first, do not feel condemned or feel inferior or put down. God does not look at you this way. Second, don't give up! Keep asking God to show you the truth and keep seeking. Luke 11:10-13 says, "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" The word "ask" is defined as: "To ask, crave, beg, require, call for." It denotes a desperate request. It infers that "I will not let anything stand in the way."
I believe that a lot of obstructions can keep us from the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
The major obstructions are:
Pride. (James 4:6)
Religious tradition. (Mark 7:13)
Fear. (Luke 11:11-13)
Doubt. (Luke 11:9-10)
Inadequacy. (Luke 11:13)
Other big obstructions are:
Not wholly submitting your will to God.
Refusing to give up some sin in your life.
Not living in obedience to the Word of God.
Not addressing spiritual and demonic strongholds in your life.
Going to "other gods" to obtain your needs.
Ask God to show you what may apply to you.
We need to be prepared to be rejected by our family, friends or our denomination. Luke 12:49-52 says, "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three."
The Holy Spirit desires to do two fundamental things in your life:
1. To make Jesus real to you so that He (Jesus) can make you whole. He wants to set you free from past bondages and prisons. He wants to make you holy like God.
2. To make Jesus real to the world through you. In other words, to glorify or reveal God. Jesus' only body on this earth is the Church. The Church is His body. We represent Him to the world in the same way that He represented the Father to the world when He was here. You are part of His body, the Church.
1. To make Jesus real to you. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit gives us freedom from bondage.
Luke 4:17-19, KJV says, "And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."
Jesus promised to do this for all of us, but He is not here on Earth any longer. He sent another comforter, the Holy Spirit, to take His place. The Holy Spirit is the one who now administers this promise to us. We cannot partake of all of these advantages if we are not in touch with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
The Word of God will open up to you in a new way when you are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the "translator" of the mysteries of the Word. Acts 26:18 says, "in order to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the authority of Satan to God, so that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me."
We need Jesus to be real to us. We need to be vitally linked with Him in order to experience all that is promised in Isaiah 61. When things are going bad in our lives, if we can hear Jesus speak to us, everything will be all right!
Ephesians 3:18-19 says, "That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints, the experience of that love, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it, That you may really come to know practically, through experience for yourselves, the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience: that you may be filled through all your being unto all the fullness of God, may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself."
Jesus came into my life, I was truly a spiritual prisoner. There were demons controlling my life. When I saw Jesus in the Book of Revelation as the ascended Christ, the victor and deliverer, I became a man wholly filled with the Holy Spirit. This occurred on the 23rd day of August, 1979. Jesus became as real to me as the man next door. He spoke to me and listened to me. He was with me in my pain and troubles. When people made fun of me, He comforted me. When people tried to keep me captive, He would teach me truths that set me free. Pretty soon, as Isaiah in chapter 10:27 puts it, the anointing made my "neck" so thick that the yoke of oppression could no longer fit on me.
Little by little, Jesus not only set me free from the demons that were influencing me and holding me, but also from the demons that had gained a "home" in me. As I would fellowship with Jesus in the Word and prayer, I would cry uncontrollably, and masses of water and mucus would come out of my head. Luke 11:24 says that the demons come out of a man and wander in dry places, wanting to gain entry in the "wet" place again. The wet place, their original home, is man who is made up mostly of water. This deliverance continued weekly over a period of several months, maybe years, I cannot remember.
As time went on, I became free from the demons that used to hold me captive. My character began conforming to the image of Jesus. My needs began to be provided for. God gave me His choice for a wife and family.
After many years of discipline, He has made me a minister of God, as is promised in Isaiah 61. The agency that God used in this transformation was the Holy Spirit, who made Jesus real to me. Jesus did the work, the Holy Spirit was the agent inside me driving out everything not of God.
2. To make Jesus real to the world. We are to enjoy His Presence and bear fruit through the Holy Spirit.
After freedom from slavery, God wants us to experience His presence and His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit makes the Kingdom of God real to us in this life. Jesus said in John Chapter 15 that when we bear fruit for the Kingdom of God, then we glorify God. Jesus spoke more about the Kingdom of God than most believers realize. His desire is for us to bring Heaven to earth.
Read Hebrews 12:18-29. You are come (past tense) to Mt. Zion, a spiritual kingdom, The Kingdom of God. It is in the now, not only in the hereafter. God wants us to live in the heavenly realm, right now, while we are still on Earth. We can actually live in the "next age," the Kingdom Age (Hebrews 6:5), but we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to experience this.
When you see "Mt. Zion" in the Old Testament, especially the Psalms, it represents where God dwells, or His presence. One place to examine the benefits of "Mt. Zion" is in Psalms 102:12-28.
Receiving the Holy Spirit's fullness.
The Holy Spirit always honors repentance. He seems to show up when we turn from our sin, the ways of the world, our pride and our laziness. Acts 2:38, says, "Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
The Holy Spirit honors obedience. Acts 5:32, says, "And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him."
We receive the Holy Spirit by faith. Faith in what? Jesus spoke about the fullness of the Holy Spirit in John 7:38-39, "He who believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.' (But He spoke this about the Spirit, which they who believed on Him should receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified)."
How do we receive this faith? Faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
Acts 1:5 "for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
Acts 1:8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
Acts 2:4 "And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."
Acts 2:33 "Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear
Acts 4:31 "And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."
Acts 8:15 "who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit."
Acts 8:17 "Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit."
Acts 8:18 "And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money."
Acts 9:17 "And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
Acts 10:44 "While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word."
Acts 10:45 "And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also."
Acts 10:47 "Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?"
Acts 11:15 "And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning."
Acts 11:16 "Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how He said, 'John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Acts 19:2 he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" So they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit."
Acts 19:6 "And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied."
This baptism is God's job. Jesus will baptize you. You don't do it. Your job is to seek and believe, to be obedience, to repent from your old belief systems, and to hear the Word so that faith comes.
Jesus will glorify Himself to you.
Part of the Scripture we quoted above from John chapter 7 said, "But He spoke this about the Spirit, which they who believed on Him should receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
So Jesus needed to be glorified before we can have faith in receiving the Holy Spirit as an overflow of living water. What does glorified mean? Glorify is a word that means for the true thing to be revealed and disclosed. It is like someone taking a drape off of a new statue and revealing it for the first time.
In John 17:4-5 Jesus was praying to the Father and He said, "I have glorified You upon the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now Father, glorify Me with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was." Jesus revealed the Father to the people with whom He came into contact. Now it was the Father's turn to show who Jesus really was.
How was Jesus glorified? Remember, glorified means to show the true identity of the person or object. In Luke 24:13-27 Jesus is talking to the two men on the road to Emmaus. He said, "'Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:26,27).
Then these two men got so excited that they found the 11 disciples and they began to tell them what Jesus had just revealed. All of the sudden the resurrected Jesus showed up at this meeting and took over. "He said to them, 'This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.' Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day'" (Luke 24:44-46).
He gave them revelation or glorified Himself in Moses, Psalms and the Prophets. It says in verse 45 in the Amplified version, "He thoroughly opened up their minds to the Scriptures." He was speaking about the five books of Moses, the Books of the Prophets and the Psalms.
Shortly after this, Pentecost took place and they were baptised in the Holy Spirit and fire!
He glorified Himself in Moses:
In Genesis as the creator and the seed of woman. He showed Himself to be the propagator of a new race through a blood covenant to replace the fallen race of Adam.
In Exodus, He showed Himself as the lawgiver and as the Passover Lamb for the broken law. He is the one who splits the Red Seas of our lives freeing us from the bondages of the world.
In Leviticus, He is the maker of the blood covenant, and the one who asks that we take up our cross and live in holiness.
In Numbers, He is our provider in the deserts of our life; He is our manna from Heaven and our water from the rock.
In Deuteronomy, He is the one who redeems us from the curse of the law.
He glorified Himself in The Psalms:
In Psalms, He is our shepherd and the one to whom we can pour out all of the troubles of our heart in honesty and without condemnation, like David did.
He glorified Himself in The Prophets:
In Isaiah He is the suffering Saviour who takes our sin and sickness.
In Joel, He shows the promise of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. However, before the promise in Joel chapter 2, He showed the required consecration which precedes the promise.
He also showed them what I saw when I got saved and filled at the same time in the Book of Revelation as it is foreshadowed in Ezekiel and Daniel.
In Ezekiel 37, He is the one who gives our dry bones the new birth with the Holy Spirit. In chapters 38-39, He defeats our enemies. In chapters 40-42, He shows us the temple of God so that we will know that we are invited to get into a close relationship with Him.
In Ezekiel 43, He showed them the glory of the throne and the tabernacle where God meets man as in Revelation 21. In Chapter 44-46, He asks us to consecrate ourselves so that we may be baptised in the Holy Spirit.
In Ezekiel 47, as in Revelation 22, He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit which causes the river to flow out of our innermost beings into the dead sea of humanity so that people can be made alive with God.
In Ezekiel 48:35 His name is "the Lord is there," in the heavenly Jerusalem dwelling with His people.
In Daniel chapters 1-6, He reveals Himself as the one who asks us to be in the world but not of the world. He is with us in the fiery furnaces and lion dens of our lives.
In Daniel chapter 7, He shows Himself as the Ancient of days who gave kingdom victory to the saints. In chapters 8-9 the battles are likened to the battles in Revelation.
In Daniel 10:5, He shows the ascended victorious Christ as in Revelation. Chapters 10 and 11 shows more war.
Daniel 12 tells about the need to stand, for the enemy will wear out some. Now look at Daniel 12:12. For those who stand to the end, there will be victory. This is what I saw when I got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time in 1979!
In the New Testament, Jesus truly revealed Himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He resolved the paradoxes of the Old Testament that said that God is merciful and forgives sin, yet visits the inequities upon the children of up to four generations (Exodus 34:6-7).
He revealed Himself as the Son of God, as the Word of God, as the Truth, the Life and the Way!
He revealed Himself as the Messiah who will come back a second time as a great King on the throne.
In John 14-16, He revealed Himself as the Holy Spirit who would live in His disciples.
In Luke 24 and Acts 1 Jesus told His disciples to consecrate their lives and go and tarry or wait until the promise came. This is our part: obedience, consecration and abandonment.
Prayer. Lord Jesus, the Word of God says that you have a desire to fill me with your Spirit so that You and I can be more intimate. I am hungry for you and your presence in my life. Jesus, I believe your Word. I confess to you that I want everything you have for me. Come, Jesus, baptize me with the Holy Spirit and fire. I am open and ready for the fire in my life. I renounce and repent from all sin in my life. I forgive everyone who has wronged me. I offer myself to you a living sacrifice. You are sovereign over my life. Have your way. I offer to you all of my members, my mouth, my tongue, my hands, feet, ears and eyes.
Take it all!