On Sunday, May 20, 2018,
was Pentecost Sunday, which is approximately 1,986 years after the early
believers were first filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
languages foreign to their mother tongue.
This is 1,986 solar
years, if you believe the Lord ascended back into the eternal realm in the year
AD 32, forty days after he was raised from the dead.
We celebrated this
event on Sunday morning in our church service, with the Senior Pastor preaching
a message about the Holy Spirit descending upon the believers that were waiting
in the Upper Room, tarrying for this gift that was promised by the Father, that
they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit.
Being baptized in the
Holy Spirit is different than being baptized in water, which is also fundamental
for every believer, for being baptized in water is the immersion of the body in
water to declare your dedication to Christ, while being baptized in the Holy
Spirit is being immersed outwardly and also receiving an internal diffusion of
the power of the Spirit, hence the terminology being filled with the Holy
Spirit, even though the Spirit dwells within the believer already.
Being filled with the
Holy Spirit is the same terminology as being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
A believer receives the
Holy Spirit upon believing on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit
then immediately dwells with the spirit of the believer, which then seals the believer
to Christ as a guarantee of our inheritance—the Holy Spirit seals the believer
for the day when our redemption is completed, and that day being the rapture of
the Church.
But, it is essential
that the believer also seeks after and receives the baptism of the Spirit so
that the power of God can then reside with the believer, for even though the
Spirit dwells within every believer they still need to function in the Spirits
power, like operating in his gifts and having the power to overcome the schemes
of the evil one.
Am I saying that the
Spirit that dwells within is not efficient enough? No, I am not.
What I am saying, is
that the process of the Father is to not only have the Spirit dwell with our
spirit, but in addition, we need the infusion of his power both within and
outwardly to function as a heavenly being in a physical body; for if you are
born-again you are a new creation, spiritually you are a heavenly being, different
than the angels, but the nonetheless a spiritual being in a physical body,
which one day will be changed into a spiritual body when it is glorified, at
the completion of salvation.
If the man Jesus, who while
in his physical body was equal with God the Father, needed to be baptized in
the Holy Spirit, or rather, be filled with the Spirit, while in his human body,
than do you not think it is also important that every believer be filled with
the Holy Spirit?
Being baptized with the
Holy Spirit is a gift the Father promised to those that believe on the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Christ commanded his disciples to receive this gift.
I remember when I was
first baptized in the Holy Spirit back in 1985, which was only about two weeks after
receiving Jesus Christ as my Savior and being born-again.
I had not even found or
decided which church to go to yet, and I knew practically nothing about the
Holy Spirit and even less about the Father for that matter.
I did not know anything
about the Father until I asked Jesus who the Father was, all I knew was Jesus
as the Lord, and after asking the Lord to reveal him to me he then gave me the
knowledge of who my Eternal Father is.
Receiving the
revelation into whom the Father was came just days before the Lord baptized me
with his Spirit, and back then, when I would pray, my words were getting all
jumbled up, as if I was losing control of my tongue, it was like I was tongue tied.
I asked a friend at my
workplace, who was instrumental in me wanting to follow Jesus Christ, if he had
any idea why my tongue was acting this way while I prayed; I wondered if he had
ever experienced or heard of such a thing.
He asked me if I knew
what the baptism in the Holy Spirit was, and of course I had to confess that I
did not know.
He told me to ask Jesus
to baptize me in the Holy Spirit, so after this I did what my friend suggested.
After I asked Jesus to
baptize me in his Holy Spirit, like my friend recommended, my tongue still
acted up on me every time I prayed, until a few days later while I was out on
the job, and praising the Lord in song, another language emerged from my mouth
like water gushing out of a fireman’s hose, it was like Jesus had said, it was
like rivers of living water were coming forth from deep within me, but this
river came forth with a language I did not know.
I was actually singing
like an opera singer on stage to God, in a language not my own, for about five
minutes straight.
I was not worried if
anybody saw or heard me, I was not conscious about anyone or anything around me
but the Lord Jesus Christ.
Once I saw my friend at
work later on that day, I told him what I had experienced, and he was filled
with joy and explained to me that Jesus had baptized me in the Holy Spirit,
like God had baptized the disciples with the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, and
that the unknown language was the evidence that I had received this gift, just
as it was with the people in the Upper Room.
Since that day, the
heavenly languages that the Holy Spirit gave to me have matured and become a
considerable and expansive spiritual dialect.
The languages that the Holy
Spirit uses to pray to the Father through me are; Hebrew, Arabic, the Italian
dialect, and most times a language that is unfamiliar to me.
How do I know that the
tongues I speak have matured into a vast vocabulary, or that even Hebrew,
Arabic and Italian are the languages the Spirit of God often uses to
communicate to the Father through me?
I know because we live
in a multicultural world, and these languages and more are spoken it seems wherever
a person goes, they are spoken in malls, grocery stores and the workplace,
often heard on radio and TV, so it is not hard for a person to distinguish
which language they hear being spoken.
I have heard other
people pray in tongues, and the Holy Spirit uses the Mandarin dialect through some
of them, I have heard the Spirit use the Spanish language, German, Russian, and
other languages, and with so many people I have no clue what language the
Spirit is using to speak to the Father.
To further add, how do
I know that the tongues I speak is considerable, this knowledge comes because I
can hear the words I speak when I pray in the Spirit, many people pray in the
Spirit with a vast vocabulary, some pray in the Spirit using just one or two
phrases repeatedly, it does not matter as long as the believer prays in the Holy
Spirit and prays in the Spirit using other tongues often.
Has the Holy Spirit
ever revealed to you what he is praying while you pray in tongues? How will you
know if he does? He may reveal to you what he is praying sometimes if you let
your spirit be in union with him.
When I first received
this spiritual power, to pray in another language, I was tempted many times to
record myself when I prayed, because I was curious what he was praying, but
every time this idea came into my thoughts the Spirit would suggest to me not
to do this, so now I do not even consider it.
I remember when I was
just a little boy, I could not have been any more than seven or eight years
old, and a little girl that I have known all my life was about two years older than
me, we were at a Sunday night service on a hot summer evening.
I walked into one of
the classrooms at the back of the church and there she was, on her knees with
her hands stretched out to God and praying profusely in a language that was not
her own, her tears continuously flowed down her cheeks which drenched the front
of her dress.
The Pastor’s wife, and
another lady whom I recognized as a Sunday School teacher, was by her side
trying to figure out what language this little girl was praying in, to which
they had then concluded she was praying to God in Latin.
This little girl spoke
to God in this unknown language for about a half an hour, at least this is what
I remember from an incident that occurred about fifty years ago.
Praying in the Spirit
can also be just praying in our mother tongue, being led by the Holy Spirit
when praying, but praying in the Spirit letting the Spirit speak another
language can only come if a person is baptized in the Holy Spirit like the disciple’s
experienced in the Upper Room.
Some believers disagree
in what being baptized in the Holy Spirit is, some believe it is just receiving
the Holy Spirit at salvation, but like me and others we believe it is an
experience that comes after receiving the Holy Spirit at salvation, where now the
Holy Spirit clothes the believer with spiritual power from the eternal realm,
and the evidence of this power is being able to then speak and pray in a
language, or languages other than your mother tongue.
It is like learning a
foreign language without having to study or take a language class, but instead
it is the power of the Holy Spirit enabling the believer to speak other
languages as he empowers them to do so.
I can remember one time
at a prayer meeting, when the Lord said to pray for a certain man there to
receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I asked him if I could and he agreed, I
prayed for him but nothing happened, but the next morning at church he and his
wife came to me in a state of ecstasy, and told me that at the exact same time
I prayed for him to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit she received the
baptism and began to speak in a foreign language, while sitting at her kitchen
table talking to a friend and drinking coffee.
I have witnessed many
people receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in
foreign tongues, and contrariwise I have seen people ask to be filled with the
Spirit and not receive this power for whatever the reason.
The body of Christ
should all seek to be filled with the Spirit’s power, never give up, no matter
how long and how hard you have to believe for it.
Speaking in a foreign
tongue is the evidence that you have received and are filled with the Holy
Spirit’s power, and if Jesus instructed the Apostles to wait for this gift that
his Father promised than every believer must be baptized with the Holy Spirit
without exception.
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