The Baptism of Holy Spirit – Will You Seek Him and “Go There”? -
Purity 963
Purity 963 02/10/2023 Purity 963 Podcast
Purity 963 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the flock of ducks floating towards
the edge of a partially frozen lake underneath the sun setting into the trees
on the horizon comes to us from yours truly as I captured this scene during my
spontaneous visit to Green Lakes State Park in Fayetteville NY on February 8th.
I had never seen or even heard of Green Lakes State
Park before that day but when a Google search for nearby state parks told me of
its existence I decided to believe that it was real and went out to see it for
myself. Here I present some
photographic evidence of its existence and can assure you that it the state
park and lake really are there but would also suggest that you go and see it
for yourself to have an experiential knowledge of it to remove any doubts. Once
you “go there” and experience it for yourself, it is unlikely that anyone would
be able to convince you that it isn’t real and you may actually testify of its
existence and encourage others to trust you, and the other information out
there about it, and tell them to go and see it for themselves.
Well, it’s Friday, thank God, and it is my prayer
that anyone who reads or hears this message would have a great weekend and that
they would trust me when I tell them that God is real and that they should
consider seeking the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Who, Whoa, WHOA!
Easy now M.T., you are letting your charismatic craziness show a little
bit here! My Pastor tells me that ALL
Christians receive the Holy Spirit, and thus the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit”,
the moment they put their faith in Christ! I don’t need anything other than what I
received when I first believed! I have the Holy Spirit, I guess, so why would I
seek something I already have?
Well, just like I can show you photos of Green Lake
State Park, tell you about it, and you can research information about it online
to give you an intellectual understanding about Green Lake State Park, your “knowing”
Green Lake State Park would undoubtedly be increased and benefitted by actually
“going there” and visiting it for yourself.
Until then you may be a “believer” in Green Lake State Park, but your
stepping our in faith to actually go there and diving into the experience of Green
Lake State Park would make put you in a relationship with Green Lake State Park.
From the day you go to Green Lake State Park, you will have an experiential
knowledge of it and relationship to it. After your visit, you can say you spent
time there, experienced and related to it, and “know it”, because you have been
there.
And while I wholeheartedly agree with the fact that
every person who puts their faith in Jesus Christ as LORD (all caps) and Savior,
receives the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, I would have to tell you
that there is more to receive from Him and to discover what I mean requires
that you seek to develop your relationship to Him.
The Holy Spirit is a person and is perhaps the most
mysterious member of the trinity.
Acts 11:15-17 (NKJV) testifies to the
fact that Jesus spoke of those who trust in Him being baptized with the Holy
Spirit. In This passage the Apostle
Peter says:
15 And as I began to speak,
the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as upon us at the beginning.
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.'
17 If therefore God gave them
the same gift as He gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who was I that I could withstand God?"
So this confirms we receive the Holy
Spirit but other passages in the Bible indicate that there may be more to our
relationship with the Holy Spirit than just receiving His indwelling presence
on the day of our salvation.
In John 14:26 (NKJV) Jesus indicates
the Holy Spirit will teach us and cause us to remember things -
26 But
the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will
teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to
you.
Romans 8:26-27 (NKJV) indicates He helps
us by interceding for us - He prays for us. The Apostle Paul writes
26 Likewise the Spirit also
helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered.
27 Now He who searches the
hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes
intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
In Acts 1:8 (NKJV) – Jesus indicates The Holy Spirit will
give us power and boldness to share our faith – Christ said
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."
In 2 Corinthians
3:17 (NKJV) – The Apostle Paul tells us that The Holy Spirit gives us freedom. It says
17 Now the Lord is the
Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
In John 16:13-14 (NKJV) Jesus states that He will
guide us and will show us things to come.
13 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.
14 He
will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
All of these passages indicate that there is an experiential aspect to our relationship to the Holy Spirit. I can attest to the fact that The Holy Spirit is a real person who help you in your faith walk and can show up in your life in very dramatic ways. This passage in Acts indicates that the Baptism of the Holy Spirit can reveal His manifest presence.
Acts 19:1-6 (NKJV)
1 And it happened, while
Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came
to Ephesus. And finding some disciples
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."
3 And he said to them,
"Into what then were you baptized?" So they said, "Into John's
baptism."
4 Then Paul said, "John
indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they
should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus."
5 When they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid
hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and
prophesied.
The Holy Spirit showed up and stuff happened. But if you notice, these believers had to be told about Him and be willing to receive Him. Jesus indicates that we are supposed to ask for Him.
Luke 11:13 (NKJV)
13 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!"
So, have you asked for Him? Do you relate to Him? Have you experienced Him.
For most of us, we were brought into Christianity by proxy – our parents took us to church and for many of us our faith was pretty shallow.
“My parents are Christian – so I guess I’m a Christian. Sure, I believe… I guess?”
You guess!?!?
Our culture may have caused us to never genuinely to seek the Lord for ourselves. We may have never actually made Jesus the LORD (all caps – again) of our lives. We may have never received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit because we didn’t know that was a “thing” or we may have never experienced the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives because we never sought Him or asked for Him to come into our lives.
Hearing about the “Baptism of Holy Spirit” may fill us with curiosity or skepticism because we never heard of it and the people who speak about it may seem a little unbalanced because they “speak in tongues”. Believe me, I completely understand. I was extremely skeptical about anyone speaking in tongues and it was only after I got to know some of the people in my life that claimed to experience the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that I became curious enough to investigate it and seek it for myself.
I researched the Baptism of the Holy Spirit quite a bit and found all kinds of teachings about Him and how one could receive Him There are plenty Christians historically and currently who speak on the “second blessing” of the Holy Spirit’s Baptism and experiencing His manifest presence of love and joy and the sign of speaking in tongues at times. So were all of these accounts that I read about something that people just made up? Or Was it real?
Of all the lessons and “how to receive
the Holy Spirit” recipes out there, one can easily be confused or even more
skeptical about there even being a “baptism of the Holy Spirit” beyond “just
believing”. But after having experienced
His presence for myself, I can tell you that, in my case anyway, we receive Him
when we:
· Surrender to the Lord’s will
· Repent of our sins
· Pray by faith.
· Ask for Him to come.
I really believe that we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe – He is with us the moment we put our faith in Jesus, but the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit, which I would say is a maturation of our relationship with Him, and is an experience of His presence manifesting outside of the four walls of our body. The Shekinah Glory of the Lord surrounds you and pours over you giving you a supernatural experience – direct contact with the living God in the terra firma, of unbelievable joy and love – and I did speak in tongues.
I believe that the experience of the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” and “speaking in tongues” are signs to show us the experiential reality of God and is given to those seek Him to encourage them and embolden them to serve the Lord and witness of Him through the earth. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I believe, is given to us for a reason – to give us an unshakable faith that propels us to continuously speak of the Lord’s goodness and the desire to spread the good news of Jesus Christ.
The experience happened to me, and I have written about it before, so if you are curious, dive into the archives of the blog.
For those who want to research it I would recommend looking up Derek Prince, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, Perry Stone, Pastor Bob Engelhardt of the Catskill Mountain Christian Center, and maybe reading “The Holy Spirit, My Senior Partner” – By David Yongii Cho. They will all give you plenty of information about it. However, just like reading about Green Lake State Park, you won’t discover the Baptism of the Holy Spirit unless you “go there” -by believing it’s real, (you have to have faith) and by asking and seeking Him for yourself.
A great way to start the journey of receiving an experiential knowledge of our Lord is by simply walking and talking with Him. As Christ said in:
Matthew 7:8 (NKJV)
8 For
everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened.
So ask, seek, and knock if you
have too, and see what happens in your life when you “go there.”
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible
Promise Book for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verses are:
James 1:19 (NLT2)
19 Understand this, my dear
brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow
to get angry.
Today’s Bible verse is great practical advice for those who
seek to walk by faith on the path of Christian discipleship. Our faith should change us and the way it does
is by obeying the word of God. We must actually practice what the word teaches
us.
And if we want to experience the fruit of peace in our lives,
James 1:19 will certainly help us on our way.
Reactive emotions like anger are often expressed with a quick
verbal response of indignation. So,
before we “go there” with an angry outburst, the word of God directs us to slow
our roll, by being quick to listen, rather than being quick to speak.
So when we are talking to anyone about anything we should
practice active listening, where we pay close attention to what is said, and pausing
before we speak. If we listen intently
the likelihood of a misunderstanding is decreased and if we pause before we
speak the likelihood of saying anything regrettable is decreased.
So practice James 1:19, and see how paying attention to what
others say and taking the time to consider our responses can help you to avoid
anger and experience peace.
___________________________________________
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink’s “The
Sovereignty of God.”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase A.W. Pink’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
THE
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
By ARTHUR W. PINK
CHAPTER SIX
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN OPERATION
“For of Him, and through Him, and to
Him, are all things: to whom be the
glory for ever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).
Has God fore-ordained everything that comes
to pass? Has He decreed that what is, was to have been? In the final analysis
this is only another way of asking, Is God now governing the world and everyone and everything in it? If God is governing the world then is He
governing it according to a definite purpose, or aimlessly and at random? If He
is governing it according to some purpose, then when was that purpose made? Is
God continually changing His purpose and making a new one every day, or was His
purpose formed from the beginning? Are God’s actions, like ours, regulated by
the change of circumstances, or are they the outcome of His eternal purpose? If
God formed a purpose before man was created then is that purpose going to be
executed according to His original designs and is He now working toward that
end? What saith the Scriptures? They declare God is One “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will” (Eph. 1:11).
Few who read this
book are likely to call into question the statement that God knows and
foreknows all things, but perhaps
many would hesitate to go further than this. Yet is it not self-evident that if
God foreknows all things, He has also
fore-ordained all things? Is it not
clear that God foreknows what will be because
He has decreed what shall be? God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of
events, rather are events the effects of His eternal purpose. When God has
decreed a thing shall be He knows it will be. In the nature of things there
cannot be anything known as what shall be unless it is certain to be, and there is nothing certain to be unless God has ordained it shall be. Take the
Crucifixion as an illustration. On this point the teaching of Scripture is as
clear as a sunbeam. Christ as the Lamb whose blood was to be shed was
“foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. 1:20). Having then
“ordained” the slaying of the Lamb, God knew
He would be “led to the slaughter,” and therefore made it known accordingly
through Isaiah the prophet. The Lord Jesus was not “delivered” up by God
foreknowing it before it took place, but by His fixed counsel and
fore-ordination (Acts 2:23). Fore-knowledge of future events then is founded
upon God’s decrees, hence if God foreknows everything that is to be, it is
because He has determined in Himself from all eternity everything which will
be—“Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts
15:18), which shows that God has a plan,
that God did not begin His work at random or without a knowledge of how His
plan would succeed.
God created all
things. This truth no one, who bows to the testimony of Holy Writ, will
question; nor would any such be prepared to argue that the work of creation was
an accidental work. God first formed
the purpose to create, and then put forth the creative act in fulfilment of
that purpose. All real Christians will readily adopt the words of the Psalmist
and say, “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all.” Will any who endorse what we
have just said, deny that God purposed to govern
the world which He created? Surely the creation of the world was not the end of God’s purpose concerning it.
Surely He did not determine simply to create the world and place man in it, and
then leave both to their fortunes. It must be apparent that God has some great
end or ends in view worthy of His infinite perfections, and that He is now
governing the world so as to accomplish these ends—“The counsel of the Lord
standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations” (Psa. 33:11).
“Remember the former
things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is
none like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the
things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all
My pleasure” (Isa. 46:9, 10). Many other passages might be adduced to show that
God has many counsels concerning this world and concerning man, and that all
these counsels will most surely be realized. It is only when they are thus
regarded that we can intelligently appreciate the prophecies of Scripture. In
prophecy the mighty God has condescended to take us into the secret chamber of
His eternal counsels and make known to us what He has purposed to do in the
future. The hundreds of prophecies which are found in the Old and New
Testaments are not so much predictions of what will come to pass, as they are revelations
to us of what God has purposed SHALL come to pass.
What then was the
great purpose for which this world and the human race were created? The answer
of Scripture is, “The Lord hath made all things for Himself” (Prov. 16:4). And again, “Thou hast created all
things, and for Thy pleasure they are
and were created” (Rev. 4:11). The great end of creation was the manifestation
of God’s glory. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament sheweth
His handiwork”; but it was by man,
originally made in His own image and likeness, that God designed chiefly to
manifest His glory. But how was the great Creator to be glorified by man?
Before his creation, God foresaw the fall of Adam and the consequent ruin of
his race, therefore He could not have designed that man should glorify Him by
continuing in a state of innocency. Accordingly we are taught that Christ was
“fore-ordained before the foundation of the world” to be the Saviour of fallen
men. The redemption of sinners by Christ was no mere after-thought of God: it
was no expediency to meet an unlooked-for calamity. No; it was a Divine pro-vision, and therefore when man fell
he found mercy walking hand in hand with justice.
From all eternity God
designed that our world should be the stage on which He would display His
manifold grace and wisdom in the redemption of lost sinners: “To the intent
that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known
by the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according
to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph.
3:11.) For the accomplishment of this glorious design God has governed the
world from the beginning, and will continue it to the end. It has been well
said, “We can never understand the providence of God over our world, unless we
regard it as a complicated machine having ten thousand parts, directed in all
its operations to one glorious end—the
display of the manifold wisdom of God in the salvation of the Church,”
i.e., the “called out” ones. Everything else down here is subordinated to this
central purpose. It was the apprehension of this basic truth that the apostle,
moved by the only Spirit, was led to write, “Wherefore I endure all things for the elect’s sake, that they may also obtain the salvation which
is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory” (2 Tim. 2:10). What we would now
contemplate is the operation of God’s
sovereignty in the government of this world.[1]
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tomorrow------------------------
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“The views, opinions, and commentary of this
publication are those of the author, M.T. Clark, only, and do not purport to
reflect the opinions or views of any of the photographers, artists, ministries,
or other authors of the other works that may be included in this publication,
and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities the
author may represent.”
Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of
God (Swengel, PA: Bible Truth Depot, 1949), 117–120.
