The Shocking Truth About the Spirit Part 7 Experiencing the Power
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Intro
acts 2.1-4 Many long for a similar experience of pentecost in their lives as evidence of experiencing the power of the Spirit.
Eion Giller decided to attend evangelist Benny Hinn’s healing crusade. He was overjoyed as his daughter became born again and his granddaughter was healed from her seizures.
He decided to attend evangelist Benny Hinn’s healing crusade. He was overjoyed as his daughter became born again and his granddaughter was healed from her seizures.
Later, at another Hinn crusade, he received the “baptism of fire”. At this experience he lost abilbity to focus on the sermon, and the healings going on around him. He was crying and his wife had to hold him up to walk. This lasted for two and a half hours.
Later at another pentecostal meeting, later to be called the Toronto blessing, he came to believe during a similar bodily experience that he was to convince that God was speaking to him and persuading him to lead the SDA church to join with the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement to form one new church created in Spirit and truth.
You see, Eion Giller was an SDA pastor in the SW at that time.
And although he believed he was called to convince the church, he doubted if the church would listen, follow, and join him.
The evangelist at that meeting
This led to him feeling like God was speaking to him and thus...
He felt called that the marriage would take place whereby the SDA Church would be part of the marriage of the Charismatics and the Spirit with the Evangelicals and the Gospel.
What do you think? Is the SDA church suppose to unite with Charismatics and Evangelicals to form a new church based on Spirit and truth?
Well, we have not.
The Charismatic Phenomenon
The Charismatic Phenomenon
Pastor Giller not first to be deceived by signs and wonders. More are likely to leave the church like he did in search of a more powerful experience.
For over 100 years modern revival fires have been igniting all over the the world. Azusa St. in Los Angeles to the so called Toronto Blessing. Sincere, honest, God-seeking Christians are hungering for more of the supernatural presence in their lives.
There is a movement a foot where Christians have replaced the scripture with only the Spirit.
“Christianity is undergoing a paradigm shift of major proportions - a shift from faith to feelings, from fact to fantasy, and from reason to esoteric revelation…Spasmodic jerks, signs and wonders, super apostles and prophets, and people being ‘slain in the spirit’ are pointed to as empirical evidence of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The form and function of the church is being so radically rearranged the even the secular world has taken note.” - Hank Hanegraaff, Counterfeit Revival
This movement is the last and biggest in religious history, drawing rich and poor, educated and uneducated, North, South, East, and West into a natural ecumenism that will not need any agreement on dogma to achieve oneness. Supernatural experience will suffice.
It’s the name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, confess it and possess it scheme to get everyone excited about being excited. Crowds rush to Charismatic services for Holy Spirit parties. Men and women of every culture, irrespective or religious background, ethnicity, age or educational level find themselves barking like dogs, chirping like birds, oinking like pigs, or pinned to the floor for hours on Holy Ghost glue. And the holy laughter may last for hours. People are so drunk with the spirit that they are literally unable to drive home or walk straight up for two days.
Certainly it is God’s will for his people to be filled with the spirit. Paul even likens the experience to being"drunk" with the spirit.
So be careful to live your life wisely, not foolishly. Take advantage of every opportunity because these are evil times. Because of this, don’t be ignorant, but understand the Lord’s will. Don’t get drunk on wine, which produces depravity. Instead, be filled with the Spirit in the following ways:
speak to each other with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; sing and make music to the Lord in your hearts;
His point is that just as a drunk cannot stay drunk unless he drinks again, we should make the most of our time and be filled with spirit, in order to walk wisely in the spirit.
His point is that just as a drunk cannot stay drunk unless he drinks again, we should make the most of our time and be filled with spirit, in order to walk wisely in the spirit.
Even Ellen White writes that we could "have Pentecostal seasons even now," if people would earnestly pray and believe God's promises.
How is the spirit to come into the life of the believer? What does the Bible teach?
How is the spirit to come into the life of the believer? What does the Bible teach?
How the spirit comes
The same references brought up in the last part of the series will be reviewed again today. Last time we were looking at the timing the baptism of the Spirit in conjunction with the baptism by water. I would like to go back to experience experience of The Samaritans.
The evidence of Scripture is that in some cases it happens after and in some cases concurrently, at the same time simultaneously. When it happens after, it is soon after. Not years after. But occuring afterwards is rare.
Let’s take another look at the baptism of the Samaritans, found in . This is a case where it was after water baptism.
Phillip, a deacon, went down to a city in Samaria and began to preach Christ to them. However, he had some competition. And man named Simon, was a sorcerer, and baffled everyone with his power. They called him “the power of God called Great.” However, even wonders, magic, smoke and fire are no match for God almighty. For the people of the city came to believe Philip as he simply shared Jesus and the Good News with them.
Even Simon himself came to believe and was baptized. Afterward, he became one of Philip’s supporters. As he saw firsthand the signs and great miracles that were happening, he was astonished.
Amazing. Conversions, the signs and wonders are described. No mention of speaking in tongues, or healing miracles. The signs and wonders that we know for sure here in this incident is the conversion of the hearts of these Samaritans, including that of Simon the sorcerer!
Now then, last part of this series we were examining the timing of the baptism of the Spirit.
And we noticed that these converts believed and were baptized, but did not receive the baptism of the Spirit at the exact moment of conversion or water baptism. No doubt, the Spirit was affecting their lives, for we have already examined how the Spirit is the one who converts the heart. The baptism of the Spirit is a special infilling of the Spirit in the life of the convert.
Notice...
14 When word reached the apostles in Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted God’s word, they commissioned Peter and John to go to Samaria.
15 Peter and John went down to Samaria where they prayed that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. (
16 This was because the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.)
17 So Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
acts 8.
Why the delayed baptism of the Spirit? Well the Bible doesn’t say exactly. However, we know the situation that the Apostles were not following through with the command to preach to the Gentiles, like these Samaritans. So God used a deacon, named Philip to reach these Samaritans. The Apostles were still too prejudice to believe that their efforts would work with the Samaritans. They had tremendous barriers in breaking through their own ethnocentrism to connect with the Samaritan culture. After all, it was John the beloved that wanted to send down bombs of fire from heaven to annihilate the Samaritans for not offering room and board to Jesus one time.
Furthermore, the Samaritans would not have received John and Peter very well due to years of poor treatment from the Jews.
Yet, God waited to give the Samaritans the baptism of the Spirit in this case, for a time. Several days later it happened upon the prayer and laying on of hands by Peter and John. Not years later.
Why the delay? Perhaps it was to wake up Peter and John from their stubborn prejudiced ethnocentric to the fact that they were not following God’s command to reach out to everyone. And that God is powerful enough to reach even the Samaritans whom the Jews hated for so long.
Well, Peter and John finally saw the light, as the Samaritans received the promised Holy Spirit.
So amen!! That was a quick look at the timing. Usually baptism of Spirit concurrent, but sometimes after.
That was a look at timing. Now let’s look at how will the Spirit come into the life of the believer.
How is the spirit to come into the life of the believer? What does the Bible teach?
How is the spirit to come into the life of the believer? What does the Bible teach?
We will briefly explore the same seven incidents as the last part of the series, but we will look at form not timing.
Chart of seven
We notice:
The Bible shows us that baptism by water and by the Spirit are concurrent experiences with the exception of a few instances in the Bible where the baptism of the Spirit occurred a short time after water baptism or somewhat delayed by days, but not by years.
No direct correlation between reception of Spirit and laying on of hands. The hands are not some sort of sacramental power.
Speaking in tongues is not a universal outcome of being baptized by the Spirit. It is not a universal sign and wonder.
However there is one thing that is universal in all these cases…something supernatural takes place.
As they are all recorded by Luke, he is aiming to demonstrate the power of God to inquiring Gentiles. That’s the audience he is writing too. So it’s natural for him to highlight how the promises Holy Spirit came to be in the lives of the converts.
His objective is to highlight the mighty work of the Spirit. Just as God performed mighty supernatural miracles on behalf of Israel, the early church would demonstrate the power of God through signs and wonders.
However the fact that every recorded incident of Holy Spirit outpouring is connected with the supernatural, it does not imply that the supernatural is always present or perceived.
For instance, we know that in that seven other men were “full of the Spirit”, but we are not told when or how this happened.
The same is true of Barnabas in .
Check these passages out for your end of Sabbath devotional.
Now then, it seems that these seven examples of miraculous manifestations of the Spirit have less to do with some “pentecost inducing formula” and more with the specific plans of God.
Remember God’s plan at that time? He ordered the disciples to preach to everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike. Hebrews and heathens.
The first disciples were deeply Jewish. In word, accent, culture, education. They were not well received by Gentiles. And they had their own unwillingness to rush out to reach the Gentiles.
Case in point is that it wasn’t one of the 12 Apostles that first reached the Samaritans, but one of the “seven deacons”.
Furthermore, Paul, the man of the Spirit, failed for 10 years to be obedient. This occured when the converts who became the Antioch church drew the attention of the leaders in Jerusalem. They sent Barnabas to follow up on the reports that large numbers in Antioch were converting. Barnabas found out it was true and called for Paul to help reach the Gentiles there. Paul finally accepted the call and moved to the area to work with Gentiles.
So it seems to help confirm that the Spirit was in the lives of the Gentile converts, signs and wonders occured at times in their lives. This would have been observed by the Apostles and other Jewish converts, and helped convince them that indeed, the Gentiles would also received the Gospel.
The signs and wonders, speaking in other languages, healings, etc, had a purpose to convince the stubborn ethnocentric apostles and other disciples that God was indeed pouring out His Spirit on everyone who will accept.
What is a normal experience of the power of the Spirit?
What is a normal experience of the power of the Spirit?
The bible does not provide a formula. Nothing like pray ten times, go to this location, where this garment, do this thing.
Instead being like Pentecostals and Charismatics that yearn for something tangible, like speaking in tongues or miraculous healings, we should be looking for what the Bible offers.
The Bible is clear that the Gift of the baptism of the Spirit is a Christlike life. The fruit of the Spirit and the Gifts of the Spirit are a result of the power of the Spirit in our lives. This is the tangible evidence of affect of the baptism of the Spirit. It is how we experience the power of the Spirit.
Sure, special manifestations of the spirit through signs and wonders happens as we see in these seven cases. But perhaps that type of experience was specific to the personalities involved. The specific persons.
Paul had his supernatural experience on the road to Damascus. Confronted by Jesus, Blinded for three days with scales on his eyes, and miraculously healed. Perhaps Jesus gave him this experience as a reminder of the power of God so he could refer to it whenever he was tortured and attacked as a result of preaching the Gospel. We know that after this experience his life was filled with many personal attacks.
The same it true for people today, and in recent past. Like Ellen Harmon. Who at 15, was called to share her faith. She did. So much so that people became annoyed with her constant sharing. So she became shy and hesitated to open up. She closed down.
She was also discouraged in her faith, thinking that she wasn’t seeing enough Christlike progress in her own life. She went to see Elder Levi Stockman for guidance. And he told her to pray and simply trust in Jesus.
So later that evening, at a prayer meeting, this shy 15 year old girl decided to trust in Jesus with her whole heart. And it was at that meeting that she prayed outloud in public for the first time.
She writes how as soon as she began to pray she felt a mighty baptism of the Spirit. For her it was expressed in being able to know and understand precious pearls of God’s promises like never before. All she could see and know in her mind was Jesus.
the experience was so powerful, she wasn’t able to go home that night.
this experience increased her faith and love for Christ.
True she wasn’t able to go home that night due to the manifestation of the Spirit. But that is as far as the similarities go with that of the Charismatic pentecostal experience.
For Ellen, the results of her baptism of the Spirit was a greater love for Jesus, a burden for the lost, a deeper appreciation for Grace and atonement, and a Christlike life.
In other words, as the bible shows, the universal evidence of the baptism of the Spirit will be the reception of the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this.
Fruits: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
gifts: prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, helper, wisdom, etc.
You see at this point in her life, just b
Today we long for more of God in our lives.
We want his power. All backgrounds, this is a common concern.
This is a great thing to desire. Christ wants us to have life more abundantly, and that happens with the power of the Spirit.
And it is important to search for the Spirit in our lives, homes, church.
The evidence of this needs to be from God’s perspective, not our own.
The fullness of the baptism of the Spirit will not be given to those who simply want power and miracles to wow people and captivate audiences like a great magician.
Mountain man, who felt he was called to start a church.
The fullness of God will come to those who seek him in hopes He will actually change them and give them a Christlike life. To empower them to be instruments in his hands. To accomplish his mission in the world.
Examples of Christlike lives. Youth stepping up. Patient with those who are difficult. Giving offering even if imperfect church systems are managing the funds.
Is this your desire? To be his instruments? To receive the baptism of the Spirit in order to do great things from Him?