“Baptized With
The Holy Ghost" – Part III
Acts 1:1-8
1)
The former
treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus
began both to do and teach,
2)
Until the day
in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given
commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
3)
To whom also
he shewed himself alive after his passion by many
infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things
pertaining to the kingdom of God:
4)
And, being
assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from
Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith
he, ye have heard of me.
5)
For John
truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not
many days hence.
6)
When they
therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at
this time restore again the kingdom to
7)
And he said
unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8)
But ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be
witnesses unto me both in
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he
promise that the apostles would be filled with the Holy Ghost was made to them
by Jesus before His ascension. Implicit in the promise was the commandment of a
job to be done. The disciples were to receive power to start a “chain reaction”
to lead the rest of mankind to Christ.
Notice
that before the apostles were sent out to be witnesses of Jesus, they had to
receive the indwelling Spirit of God. Would one be so bold to say that today,
the same is not necessary to do God’s work? I would say not, particularly with
the world in such a condition and the return of the Lord sooner than before.
But,
we have a problem, today. Far too many are claiming to represent Christ without
ever having received His Spirit on the inside. No one ever was, can be, or will
be sent out to do God’s work until he partakes of the “
Many
try to point to the Old Testament as a gauge of what is and is not necessary.
If one is sincere, he will have his excuses eliminated by understanding this:
there was no indwelling in the Old Testament, for Jesus had not yet died. Men
were operated on, that is, influenced by God from the outside under special
circumstances. Generally, once the task was completed, the operation of the
Spirit was over. This was not as it is now. There was no indwelling presence
available to provide comfort and guidance everyday, all day. Hard to imagine,
isn’t it?
It
is spoken of John (the Baptist) that he had the Holy Ghost from his mother’s
womb. We understand what this means. In that the Spirit was not yet given, John, obviously had to be operated on from the outside also.
Under
God’s plan, no one ever has or ever will be saved without the indwelling of the
Holy Ghost. Therefore, all who will be saved must come under His influence.
Doesn’t this make sense in light of the fact that the entire Christian belief
is predicated upon Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came to
destroy sin and to do this, He suffered, bled and died to pay the price for sin
and to come back to Man as the Comforter.
We
will not to be able to escape the fact that those of us with the Holy Ghost are
largely responsible for the lack of conviction of the unsaved. They see too
many of us struggling with things they judge we should not be facing. The problem? In the first place, we should not struggle with
whatever comes. Additionally, they do not know that much of what we go through
is brought on by ourselves. How can we tell this? That which we put into motion
accomplishes nothing, yet that brought about by God accomplishes the purpose of
winning souls. No matter what, we must show God is that we love Him in spite of
anything we go through.
For
everyone, this is a time of reckoning. These are the last days, like those
of