Then all the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the east came together and, crossing the Jordan, encamped in the Valley of Jezreel. But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with Himself and took possession of him, and he blew a trumpet, and [the clan of] Abiezer was gathered to him (Judges 6:33-34 &endash; Amplified).

Notice that right after Gideon tore down the idols of Baal, the enemies rallied for an attack and God clothed Gideon with the Holy Spirit. These two concurrent events are very like what happens today when we decide to turn from our idols. We engage in warfare and the Holy Spirit possesses us.

Baptized with fire!

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 how we 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. "When the Counselor 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 Counselor 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 persons; 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.

Many times in the Book of Acts do the Scriptures make it obvious that there is an event, an experience, whereby the Holy Spirit is poured out on believers and at the same time the Holy Spirit wells up from the inside. It is similar to the flood in Noah's day. Not only did it rain from the sky, but the springs from the earth exploded as well!

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 and they became lost in the presence of God. 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.

Jesus is no longer the man walking the Sea of Galilee, nor the man suffering on the Cross, nor the man who was simply resurrected. He is now different! No human being saw Jesus in this state, except John on the Isle of Patmos as recorded in the Book of Revelation. Look at Revelation chapter 1.

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. God uses it not only in public ministry, 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. Private praying in the Holy Spirit's language is powerful to bring God's full plan to your life and to thwart the enemy's devices. Most instances in Acts where people received the fullness of the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues was one of the first manifestations. There is a full teaching on this in the ISOB curriculum called "The Holy Spirit and the tongue."

I have many personal testimonies on how praying in the Spirit for prolonged periods have delivered me and brought God's purposes into my life and the lives of others. In the early 1980s I was truly in desperate circumstances. My business was losing more money daily that I could even count. I was living in a 9 X 9 foot room in an old broken down mobile home in rural Georgia. But I would pray in the Spirit for hours at a time and spend more countless hours just praising God. Whatever time I was not working I was in the Word. The Lord did miracles, some manifested in the natural, others in my soul!

We change when we pray in the Spirit. Our mind is renewed. We open up another huge gate from which we may hear God speaking to us.

Several times I prayed in the Spirit, actually agonized, only to find out the purposes were to deliver one person from Hell and another from drug addiction.

A Jewish friend of mine came to Mt. Paran Central with me in the early 1980s. There he heard a message in tongues. He gave his life to the Lord. Later he told me that he heard a Hebrew Scripture when the tongues were spoken and that he knew that God was speaking to him.

If you have a hunger and desire to know God on a deeper level, receive the promise that He made to us before His crucifixion. "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come" (John 16:13). Fellowship with the Holy Spirit by praying in the Spirit and you will be amazed at the truth you will receive! Not only spiritual truth but practical truths that can help you with your everyday tasks like raising your children, or taking a final math exam.

I believe that the main purpose for being baptised in the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus real to us.

God's wants to set us free from different kinds of slavery. However, the freedom is not the end purpose. The end purpose is to give us freedom so that we may enter into His presence and fellowship with Him, which will result in bearing fruit for our lives and for the Kingdom of God.

Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 in Luke 4:18 when He announced His purpose for His ministry. Isaiah 61 starts out with Jesus saying that the Spirit of the Lord has anointed Him to bring good news to the poor, afflicted and broken hearted. Jesus proclaims liberty to the captives, opens prisons for those who are bound, binds up the broken hearted and proclaims the "Acceptable year of the Lord" or "Year of Jubilee" (the time when slaves would go free). He goes on to list many other things that His ministry would accomplish.

He says that these prisoners and poor people would be changed and that they would be trees of righteousness, strong and in right standing with God. He said that they would no longer be heavy with sadness and mourning, but that they would be filled with joy.

Then He said that they would rebuild the waste places. In other words, their wasted lives would be rebuilt, like Nehemiah (whose name means the comforter or the Holy Spirit) rebuilding the broken down walls of Jerusalem. In addition, He said that all their needs would be taken care of and they would become priests of God, or His personal representatives. They would then, in turn, become deliverers and set others free.

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.

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!

If we are prisoners, if we are poor, broken hearted and beat down, we do not need to wait to go to Heaven for help; we need it NOW! We can have it now in this life, but we need to be in touch with God. He needs to be real to us. He needs to be more than a religion, more than the doctrine of our denomination, more than the words of Scripture (as important as they are). We need to be in touch with the living Jesus in the same way as His disciples were when He was on Earth, and in the same way they were after He left Earth, as in the Book of Acts.

What can we do to cooperate with God?

Can you give yourself away? I don't understand all there is to know about receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit, just that I know some do and some don't. I know that God is not a respecter of persons. I truly believe it has to do with the answer to the question, "Can you give yourself away?"

Watchman Nee wrote, "Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted ... he hath poured forth this. Acts 2:33.

How can I receive the power of the Spirit for service? Must I labor for it? Must I plead with God for it? Must I afflict my soul by fastings and self-denials to merit it? Never! That is not the teaching of Scripture. Think again: How did we receive the forgiveness of our sins? Paul tells us it was according to the riches of his grace, and that that grace was "freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." We did nothing to deserve it. We have our redemption through his blood, that is, on the basis of what he has done. What then is Scripture's basis for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? It is the exaltation of the Lord Jesus. Because Jesus died on the Cross my sins are forgiven; because he is exalted to the throne I am endued with power from on high."

We receive the Holy Spirit by faith. Faith in what? Faith that the Word of God says that we are entitled to the fullness of the Holy Spirit because of what Jesus did for us. 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)."

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 who 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 some will be worn out by the enemy. 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). This is the powerful message of the Cross spoken of by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18 which says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

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.

In Revelation He is the One clothed with the garments of war and judgment. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His voice like the sound of many waters. He is the Lamb at the Throne of God with our curse in His nail scared hand. He is the One who walks us through the tribulations of life that look like they will destroy us. He is the One who comes on His white horse to deliver us when we have stood longer than we think we could have stood. He is revealed as the Coming King, the victor over Satan and all evil. He is the One who turns every evil affliction into a blessing .

We need to be hungry for God to be real to us. The 120 in the Upper Room were just a small number of people who Jesus had revealed Himself to after the resurrection. There were at least 500. What happened to the others? Perhaps they were not hungry enough. Maybe they were too proud, or too engrossed in their work or their family. Maybe they were too worried what others would think of them. Remember the 120 were criticized and laughed at.

We have to be radical in the Word to be victorious. The blood covenant is cut not by blood but by words. The more Word you have the more blood you have, the more character of Jesus you have, the more sin He removes, the less influence demons have, and the more of the Holy Spirit you have. "For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit" (John 3:34).

We need to be open to Jesus and trust Him. Luke 11:11-12 says, "If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone, or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"

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 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."

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!

Larry Chkoreff May, 2003

Often I wonder and ask God, "Why do some people receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit and others do not? Up to this date I simply assumed that God has kept this to Himself and that it was not my business. I do not wish to stand in judgment of others because people are very complex. I never want to judge others out of my own experiences and belief system. One never really knows what is going on inside of the other person. However I feel like on the threshold of teaching this lesson on the Holy Spirit that the Lord has spoken some things that He would have published on this subject.

1. The Holy Spirit may be more readily expressed to those who are more desperate. The Scripture below is from Matthew chapter 6. It infers that there are two places where we can put our trust for earthly needs: In the system of the World such as the Gentiles do (those without a covenant), or in trusting God and His Kingdom. Mammon is anything that provides for us other than faith in God and His Word, no matter how benign and good it may look. Then it goes on to say that if you are trusting in the World system, that your body will not be full of light, or you will have great darkness and if you trusting totally in God that you will be full of light. Well, the Holy Spirit is light!

Knowing your weakness and being desperate is a welcome sign for the Holy Spirit to fall on you. It surely was in my case. That is my own testimony dating back to 1979.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3). I know so many people who have grown so much closer to the Lord through their desperation.

2. The baptism in the Holy Spirit has its source from two directions; from within and from above. The flood in Noah's day was similar, it sprang from the depths of the earth and it rained from above. Why? In order to destroy evil. It is the same with the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I need Him to come and destroy my evil!

Are you desperate for Him to come and destroy your evil?

Floods from within. "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified" (John 7:37-39).

Floods from above. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams" (Acts 2:17).

"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 2:33).

"For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 8:16).

"And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning" (Acts 11:15).

Matthew 6:19-33.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."