#140 Embracing Pentecost

Embracing Pentecost

All 4 Gospels record the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All 4 Gospels also record the baptism in the holy spirit.
When God repeats Himself 4 times He wants you to pay attention.

Matthew 3:11 “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Mark 1:8 “I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Luke 3:16 “John answered, saying to all, ‘I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.’”

John 1:33 “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’”

Acts 1:4-5 “… He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit…”

John 16:7 “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

Those who can’t accept the doctrine of the Baptism with The Holy Spirit do not have a theological problem they have a grammatical problem.
Freda pickled the cucumbers in vinegar. Jesus will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

Three Baptisms 1. Spirit baptizes the believer into Christ / Body 2. Disciple baptizes a believer in water.
3. Jesus baptizes believer in the Holy Spirit

The first command to the church is not “GO” but “WAIT”.
Luke 24:49 (NLT)“And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.”

Luke 24:45 (AMP) “Then He [thoroughly] opened up their minds to understand the Scriptures, …”
A supernatural understanding of the Scriptures was not enough to launch into ministry.
You Must Have DUNAMIS!!!

Acts 1:3 “…presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
40 — Represents Preparation 10 — Represents Testing

PENTECOST:– Fifty, compound word, a combination of the #5 and, add a zero. 50
Fifty Days after the feast of Passover.

Three Major Feasts
1. Passover — Delivered From Egypt (1st Month) 2. Pentecost — The Giving Of The Law (3rd Month)
3. Tabernacles — Harvest (7th Trumpets and Atonement)

Passover — Jesus provides His righteousness. Pentecost — Spirit empowers ministers of righteousness.
Tabernacles — Harvest – Jesus returns to gather the righteous.
The very day that Jews from around the world gather in Jerusalem to reaffirm their commitment to the Law of Moses, the Holy Spirit descends on them writing the Law on their hearts and empowering ministers.
The Law was skin deep but the Gospel of Grace goes to – core.

Contrast First Pentecost with Acts 2 Pentecost: Exodus 19-32
1.   50 Days.
2.   Flames and mountain shaking.
3.   Law given (10 Com) tablets of stone. How to live.
4.   Drunken party takes place.
5.   3000 people died.

Acts 2 Pentecost:
1. 50 Days.
2. Flames and a violent wind.
3. Spirit comes – Law on our heart – Power to live.
4. Drunken party takes place.
5. 3000 people made alive.

An Experience Beyond Being Born From Above. Acts 2:1-4
“When the Day of Pentecost had fully come,…tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…”

Acts 2:39 “…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off,(not distance but time) as many as the Lord our God will call.”
This was fulfilled and ongoing. Acts 8, 9, 10, 19 And my experience …..

The Experiences of: D.L.Moody R.A.Torrey Charles Finney Stephen Olford Billy Graham

Acts 8:18-19 “And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 19:1-6 “And finding some disciples he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? …when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied.”

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.”

1 Corinthians 2:4 “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the kingdom of God is not in word (Logus) but in power (Dunamis).”

Romans 15:18-19 ‘For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me, in word and deed, to make the Gentiles obedient— in mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.’

1. Accept the promise of the Holy Spirit. 2. Ask For The Baptism Of The Holy Spirit. 3. Confess That You Have Received the Holy Spirit 4. Act On Your Confession Of Faith.
The Experiences of:
D.L.Moody — R.A.Torrey — Charles Finney — Stephen Olford — Billy Graham

D. L. Moody
D.L. Moody was a successful minister but by his own admission later, he lacked the power in his ministry. One day two women came up to him after a service. They said,
“We have been praying for you.”
“Why don’t you pray for the people?” he asked.
“Because you need the power of the Spirit,” they said.
“I need the power! Why,” said Mr. Moody, in relating the incident years after, “I thought I had power. I had the largest congregations in Chicago, and there were many conversions.”

Moody also said that in a sense, he was satisfied. He was in a comfort zone. But these two praying women rocked the boat. They told him that they were praying for an anointing by the Holy Spirit for D.L. to have a special service to God. He could not get this off his mind and he said, “There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service”.

After the great fire of Chicago, DL was working to raise money to rebuild a tabernacle. He said his heart was not into it because he kept crying out to God to fill him. He withdrew and prayed during a visit to New York to raise money and he cried that God would fill him with His Spirit. DL describes it this way:
“Well, one day, in the city of New York — oh, what a day! — I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world — it would be as the small dust of the balance.”

R.A. Torrey gives his testimony:
The address of this afternoon, and the addresses of the days immediately to follow, are the outcome of an experience, and that experience was the outcome of a study of the Word of God. After I had been a Christian for some years, and after I had been in the ministry for some years, my attention was strongly attracted to certain phrases found in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, such as “baptized with the Holy Spirit,” “filled with the Spirit,” “the Holy Spirit fell upon them,” “the gift of the Holy Spirit,” “endued with power from on high,” and other closely allied phrases. As I studied these various phrases in their context, it became clear to me that they all stood for essentially the same experience; and it also became clear to me that God has provided for each child of His in this present dispensation that they should be thus “baptized with the Spirit,” or, “filled with the Spirit.”

As I studied the subject still further, I became convinced that they described an experience which I did not myself possess, and I went to work to secure for myself the experience thus described. I sought earnestly that I might “be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” I went at it very ignorantly. I have often wondered if anyone ever went at it any more ignorantly than I did. But while I was ignorant, I was thoroughly sincere and in earnest, and God met me, as He always meets the sincere and earnest soul, no matter how ignorant he may be; and God gave me what I sought, I was “baptized with the Holy Spirit.” And the result was a transformed Christian life and a transformed ministry.

Charles G. Finney
I was powerfully converted on the morning of the month of October, 1822. In the evening of the same day I received overwhelming baptisms of the Holy Ghost, that went through me, as it seemed to me, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer. Multitudes can attest to this. Oftentimes a word dropped without my remembering it would fasten conviction, and often result in almost immediate conversion. Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray, with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power had departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself, and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life.
—
Stephen Olford gives a similar testimony as he checked into a motel and committed to stay and pray until he was baptized by the Holy Spirit so God could empower him for service. God answered and gave him a powerful ministry reaching the world through radio during the golden radio years and he continues his ministry by teaching ministers. Billy Graham said that Stephen Olford had a powerful influence over his life. Stephen prayed with Billy until he was baptized and then God exploded Billy Graham’s evangelistic ministry.