Baptism of the Holy Spirit

I was listening to this sermon last night by Derek Prince; it was on the end times and I got all excited when he went to this topic in it (because of all the current Holy Spirit topics on SI). So I wrote this down last night while at work. My heart is not to cause more division but to help anyone seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The title of the sermon is "Days of Noah and Lot." (If there are any typo's, please share them and I'll try to straighten them out!) God bless you! Lisa
-----------------------------------------

3 Requirements for Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

With the power of evil increasing everywhere on every hand, God in His mercy is prepared to endue us with a greater power. We need a spiritual power that is greater than all the forces of darkness. Jesus said about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, “You shall receive power (dunamis) after the Holy Spirit is come upon you and you shall be my witnesses.”

You can be endued with supernatural power; God is pouring our His Spirit on all flesh. If you have never been supernaturally endued with the power of the Holy Spirit, you need it and you might as well get it. Why should you be left out?

You don’t have to become anything except to become a child of God. You don’t have to become Pentecostal, Charismatic or whatever; you just have to be committed to loving and serving the Lord Jesus and hungry and thirsty.

John 7.37-39 speaks of believers receiving the Holy Spirit: “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spoke he of the Spirit, WHICH THEY THAT BELIEVE ON HIM SHOULD RECEIVE: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

There are three requirements to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit:

1. "If any man thirst." Being thirsty is the primary requirement to want more of God than you presently have. If you “think” you’ve got it all and you’re good enough; why should God give you anymore? Have you ever been truly thirsty? I served in the desert of Egypt in WWII and sometimes we were very short of water and I’ll tell you when you are thirsty, there’s only one thing you think about and that is drinking!

2. Let him come unto Me; there is only one Baptizer of the Holy Spirit, if you want the baptism, you have to come to the Baptizer.

3. This is so simple and yet this is where people mess up… “If any man thirst let him come unto me, AND DRINK.” Nobody ever drank with their mouth closed and nobody has ever been baptized in the Holy Spirit with their mouth closed.

Drinking is receiving something within you by an act of your will and your muscles and that’s how you receive the Holy Spirit. I’ve seen thousands of people receive the Holy Spirit and I have never yet seen somebody who came to the point of drinking who failed to receive. But I have seen people who were too religious to open their moth and drink, they didn’t receive.

It is a gift, you can’t earn it, and you never have to be good enough. You don’t have to tarry for years; tarrying ended on the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was “given,” period, that’s it! And then when you drink, a miracle takes place that little mouthful turns into rivers, not “a” river but RIVERS of living water and they flow from your belly through your throat and out of your mouth.

Matthew 12.34 says, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” When your heart is filled to overflowing, the overflow valve is your mouth and when it’s a supernatural in-filling it will be a supernatural out-flowing and you will speak a language that you have never learned and you don’t understand. And maybe for the first time in your life, you’ll be using your tongue for the purpose for which God gave you a tongue which is to glorify God. And every word you speak will glorify God. So how ‘bout it? Are you thirsty?

This is by faith; you can’t earn it you just take Jesus at His word. I’m going to lead you in a very simple prayer to Jesus, the Baptizer. Thank the Lord before you receive; when you get to the end of the prayer, stop praying, just open your mouth and breathe in the Holy Spirit, forget about everything and everybody else and then just begin to speak. It says on the day of Pentecost, “THEY began to speak.” The Holy Spirit won’t do the speaking but if you’ll do the speaking He’ll give you the words. This is divine and human cooperation.

Now, don’t be embarrassed if you get a little emotional maybe you need to be emotional. If you sob and weep, I’ll tell you why it happens. There’s something inside you called your spirit that has been grieved many, many times but it’s never had an opportunity to express itself; so it’s shut up inside you and when the Holy Spirit comes, He releases that and maybe you’ll cry over things from your childhood but don’t quench the Spirit, TRUST HIM, He knows what He’s doing. I’m going to take you through the prayer of repentance first but that’s ok, it’s good to pray… let’s pray:

Lord Jesus Christ I believe that you’re the son of God and the only way to God that you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead, I’m sorry for all my sins, I turn away from all my sins and I turn to you Lord Jesus for mercy and forgiveness and I believe you do forgive me and I receive your forgiveness and now I come to you as my Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. Lord, I’m thirsty; I want to receive from you. I believe you’ll pour out your Holy Spirit on me and I open myself to receive all that you have for me. I yield my tongue to you, the unruly member which I cannot control that by your Holy Spirit you may take control of my tongue and give me a new language to worship you and glorify you. By faith I thank you for that now in the name of Jesus, amen.

Praises & thanksgiving to the Lord for the awesome Holy Spirit and this article. Lord, please help those who are seeking as we know when we seek You with our whole heart we will find You.

All glory honor and power to Your Name Lord Jesus.

also think it is worth mentioning examples when people recieved the baptisim of the spirit

regarding the apostals ,,jesus said obey me and i will send another hepler and he will teach you ect ect

so accoring to mouth of jesus ,obeying his comandments was something that had to be done first

other examples ,,,the spirit fell upon deciples who allready believed and where conciderd followers

others had showen repentance having been baptised by john ,which is another example of obeying commands

another example,was the spirit was poured out on others like cornilious who allready feared and did righeousness who where as the word said ,were aceptable to god

even the apostal paul fasted for three day and he herd from the lord himself before the spirit was givern in the form of baptism

so i believ true spirit wrougt repentance and faith ,seemed to befor spirit baptisim in many cases in the scripture

by andie72
Hi Lysa,

I am attending a Life in the Spirit seminar early next year. I would appreciate your prayers, you know they have helped before!

by andie72
I hope everything is well with you.:)

God bless you!!
Lisa

In past topics about the gifts, many people without fail always bring up those particular people who turn them off from 'the gifts,' (who have gifts but no character).

And I was listening to a sermon where the speaker does a good job explaining this and I thought this would be a good place to share this… (Again, in my transposing this to paper, there could be mistakes!!!)
----------------------------------------------------

It is important at this point to make a distinction between fruit and gifts. Many, many Christians lose what God has for them in some measure through failure to make this distinction. I’ve heard people say, “Brother, love is the best gift and that’s the one I want.” I don’t find anywhere in the Bible where love is called a gift; it is fruit, it is not a gift.

As I’ve said before, if you make love an excuse for not desiring the gifts of God, it’s a very strange form of love. Because any kind of love that I know of desires the gifts of the person who is loved.

Fruit does not come instantly. It would be absurd to expect an instant readymade orange or apple on a fruit tree. The truth about fruit is that it has to be cultivated by labor and patience and skill. This is stated by the Apostle Paul in 2nd Timothy 2.6, ‘the husbandman that laboreth must be first partaker of the fruits’ or you can translate it alternatively, ‘the husbandman or the farmer laboring first must be partaker of the fruits other words the fruits do not come forth without labor.

I think this is a fact we often overlook, we speak about fruit growing spontaneously without effort and that is perfectly true but in the markets of the world today you could not possibly market any kind of fruit that was simply left to grow by itself; all fruit requires very careful and often intensive cultivation which involves time and care and labor. And I’m persuaded the same is true about the fruit of the Spirit. No one will bring fruit to perfection who does not cultivate it. It’s a process that requires time, care and labor.

Now a gift is completely different. It takes no time, no care, and no labor to receive a gift. And the mere receiving of a gift does not in itself make the least change in a person’s character. If a person was lazy and irresponsible before he receives a gift that person will be just as lazy and just as irresponsible after receiving the gift. Of course, the exercising of the gift may produce a change in character but the actual receiving of the gift does not change a person’s character.

This is something that people must lay hold of; for instance we see a Christian who obviously has certain gifts of the Spirit and then our faith is almost struck down when we see them behave in an irresponsible and unreliable way which unfortunately happens. But we fail to realize that the gift in itself did not produce a change in their character.

On the other hand, the gift is still valuable but it is not going to be effective as it should be unless the fruit is cultivated along side of it. Some Christians and I suppose you’ve met them speak as though God is offering us two alternatives; either fruit or gifts. And the people that don’t believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit always take the attitude, ‘Brother, I’ve got the fruit and you can have the gifts.’ Well, I’ve learnt by experience to question just how much fruit that kind of person really has.

Secondly, it’s totally unscriptural because the Bible says to follow after charity AND desire spiritual gifts. Not all and one of the evidences that we are following after love is that we are desiring spiritual gifts. In fact, spiritual gifts are the tools by which love works. Love without the gifts is left largely impotent and frustrated. And as I’ve said before, imagine a mother sitting beside her sick child and saying, “honey I love you.” But doing absolutely nothing about it, neither praying nor calling for the doctor or taking any steps whatever to alleviate the child’s suffering, we would say that is a strange and unreal kind of love. And the Christian that says, “I have love, I don’t need the gifts;” is really in the same category because the gifts are the means by which love is made effective.

*** Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit series; ‘The Gift of Faith’ sermon by Derek Prince

God bless,
Lisa