Baptism with the Holy Spirit
26th November 2017
I have been a Christian for a long time and it never ceases to amaze me that I have never attended a church service, bible study or other church event where the baptism with the Holy Spirit was taught apart from one occasion. And on that one occasion the teaching was false. I’ve even heard someone preach on one of the texts about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and not even mention the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
The reason for my amazement is that this subject is one of the most important for the church and always has been. When the disciples were baptised with the Holy Spirit on that first Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus they were transformed with power and boldness to preach the gospel. Just as in those apostolic times, the church today desperately needs that same power. Without it the church is weak. For the apostles and the early church they expected as the norm that all believers should be baptised with the Holy Spirit. But today that expectation is lacking on the whole. And that is because, in my experience, very few leaders ever teach the subject properly. As a result many Christians either don’t know what it is or they are deluded into thinking that they have received it when they haven’t. And that means that so many Christians don’t even seek it.
I recently had a conversation with a Christian who said to me, “I thought all Christians were baptised with the Holy Spirit.” And I had to say that sadly this wasn’t true. All Christians have the Holy Spirit in them but not all of them are baptised with the Holy Spirit. One of the characteristics of being baptised with the Holy Spirit is that those who receive it know that it has happened. They might not understand at the time what has happened but they do know that something tangible has happened to them. If you have not had such an experience or you just want to know what the baptism with the Holy Spirit is, I would urge you to listen to the sermons of Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the subject. He preached seven sermons on the baptism with the Holy Spirit from John 1:26-33. You can find them on the MLJ Trust website entitled Baptism in the Spirit.