Why The Baptism In The Holy Spirit Is Necessary Today I Won’t Apologize

We all need a fresh immersion in the third person of the trinity in these last hours.  You would think that after three years of walking with Jesus and seeing his miracles the disciples and followers of Jesus would be ready to work for the kingdom of God. But Jesus wanted the disciples to know that the baptism in the Holy Spirit was necessary for them. In this article I will share with you why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary today.  Jesus had died, was buried, raised, showed himself alive for forty days, and he was about to ascend into heaven.  He told his disciples, You are not ready to do anything yet. Go and wait in Jerusalem and he gave this promise:

Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

This experience is known as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Every believer should be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I believe in that experience.  I believe every Christian needs the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the great baptizer!  John said, I baptize you with water, but there is one coming after me, who is mightier than I, I am not even worthy to untie his sandals, and he will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you about myself for a moment. I gave my life to Jesus Christ when I was five years old.  I went down to the front of the tent where the church my dad pastored was having a tent meeting.  That night I said the sinners prayer, and gave my life to Jesus. When I was about 9 or 10 years of age, we lived in Columbus, Ohio. My father was pioneering a church, and they had bought a house and we were meeting in the basement. During that meeting they were praying for people to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  In those days, most children went to Sunday School.  My Sunday School teacher had faithfully taught me about this experience.  God had placed a hunger in my heart.  I was watching from a distance when my mom came over and asked if I wanted to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. I said yes, and went forward. It was a powerful moment in my life. The evangelist said, “When I touch you, God is going to baptize you in the Spirit.  You are going to begin to speak in a language you do not know.”  He touched me on the head and all I can say is that I had an experience with God that I am grateful for.  I felt his power.  I felt his presence and I began to speak in other tongues.

Little did I know how I was going to come to depend upon the power of the Holy Spirit. The truth is, I need Him every day.  I need his power and anointing in my life and ministry. Now I know that there are some of you that may have questions about this, please leave them in the comment section and I will be glad to answer them.

I want to share with you on the subject,

“Why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary today”. 

There are people who apologize for believing in and walking in and living in this experience. I will not apologize. This is not some strange sacrament for just a few believers, it is essential for the church to be effective.   We need to experience the Holy Spirit and be filled with Him and immersed in His presence.  If we experience Holy Spirit power in our present world we will be effective once again.  I will give you four reasons and these reasons will show why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary  today.  The ground for this reasoning is because the scripture tells us that as we are immersed in Him we will have power to be dedicated workers in His kingdom.

In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit was poured out in Acts 2 on what is known as the day of Pentecost.  There are many people around the globe (643,661,000) who have believed in and have experienced the Baptism in the Holy Spirit just like in the book of Acts and the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Here is our basic definition of Pentecostal Christians:  Pentecostal Christians are those believers in Jesus Christ and his gospel who identify themselves in belief, experience, practice, and priority with the original church born on the Day of Pentecost and described in the New Testament.

There are a couple of fundamental thoughts I want you to consider before I explain why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary today.  First of all, the bible is the basis for all doctrine and belief in the Christian faith. Secondly, God is a Supernatural God!  Some people think it isn’t required nowadays because they use modern methods and man’s methods to bring about results.  But when we return to God’s ways we will get God’s results.  It is not just a feeling we should experience, it is a relationship with the third person of the Trinity. It is incumbent that we seek God for a renewed outpouring of this blessed empowerment.  We need to have the passion to seek this blessing because these days we need his power.

1. IT IS BIBLICAL.

It is absolutely the biblical pattern for believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit.   The ground for this is not in an experience. It is essential because it is biblical.

The day of Pentecost in A.D. 33 changed the world, for it was on that day that the church was born. On that day thousands of devoted Jews from all over the Roman Empire had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the giving of the law.   The giving of the law had happened exactly 50 days after the Jews had celebrated their deliverance from Egypt when the death angel passed over them.

The Holy Spirit fell on the fiftieth day after the Passover for a reason. The word Pentecost simply means fiftieth.  I want you to imagine with me what that day must have been like in A.D. 33. People were remembering what it was like when God spoke to Moses on the mount and gave him the law.  The law was the pinnacle of the Jewish faith. It was revered.  When it was given there were supernatural signs that accompanied it.

Exodus 19:18-19  “Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.”

So in 33 A.D. there were Jews from everywhere celebrating a supernatural God who gave them the law. Crowds of people were milling around the courtyard of the temple. Jews from everywhere.  It had been only 7 weeks since Jesus of Nazareth, who many believed was the Christ, the Messiah, was crucified, and rumors were going through the multitude and that he was the Christ and that he had risen from the dead. More than 500 people at one time had seen Jesus.  His disciples and the most committed followers he had, had spent days in prayer waiting for “the promise of the father.”  About 120 that had gathered in an area of the temple known as Solomon’s porch.  They were praying.  Just then, there was a commotion.

Luke describes it like this:  Acts 2:1-4 “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.   All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

 Speaking in other tongues is a biblical phenomenon, it is a supernatural experience. Just like the fire and smoke on Mt. Sinai witnessed by the children of Israel when God gave the law, the 120 who were present witnessed a sound –they heard it with their own ears – it was the sound of a rushing mighty wind. And they saw tongues of fire descend upon each of them. They saw these tongues of fire with their physical eyes. It was an absolutely incredible day.

Just like Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him, giving the law that would guide Israel, the 120 began to speak with other tongues as the Holy Spirit enabled them. Just like God had a message for the children of Israel from Moses on the day when the Law came. God had a message from those filled with the Holy Spirit. For they heard them declaring the in many languages the wonderful works of God.

When they heard the sound, a crowd came together, they began to hear the people speaking in their own languages. Everyone was amazed and perplexed.  Peter stood up and raised his voice and preached that day.   An important message was given that day, that the people were to turn from their sins to the Living God.  Acts 2:38-40  Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” …”With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”   That day over 3000 people accepted Christ and were added to them.  They publicly showed that by being baptized in water.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2 began a tremendous wave of Gods power.

The chapters that follow are extremely exciting:

• Demons were cast out
• Visions were seen
• People supernaturally spoke in tongues.
• People turned to God and away from their sins.
• Sorcerers who had made their living from the Black Arts burned their magic books.
• Miracles occurred.
• Lives were transformed.
• Power was in the church.
• They lined the people up in the streets so that Peter’s shadow might fall upon them.

Certainly, there was opposition, but due to the empowerment of the Holy Spirit,  nothing could stop that church from its mission. The church rose to the place where even the enemies of Jesus said, “These that have turned the world upside down have come hither also.”   Acts 17:6

This line of thinking alone shows why the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary today. Because many churches and ministries are weak and lack power.  The biblical means to this is not a slick ad campaign or some new methodology.  We need the power promised in Acts 1:8!  My prayer is that God would send another Pentecost. Yet another wave of the power of the baptism in the Holy Spirit as God empowers His people for service.

2. IT IS EFFECTIVE.

The most effective churches in the world are Pentecostal.  In our city of Houston we have some amazing mega churches. I am not going to mention them by name.  But I am here to tell you they are little churches in comparison with some of the churches that believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit.   In Korea, there is a church of over 800,000 members, in Santiago Chili there is a church of over 350,000 members. I am telling you – Biblical Christianity is effective.

However, I will not hold up these mega churches as the proof of the effectiveness of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  The baptism in the Holy Spirit is being preached and proclaimed in thousands of little out of the way places. Wide spots in the road, in small bible studies, country churches, prisons, under trees where there are no buildings and God is doing just as He said He would. He is empowering people for service.  I was a missionary in Colombia and have seen this first hand. I have preached in India and have seen it. Wherever the baptism in the Holy Spirit is proclaimed and experienced, the church becomes more effective.

For thousands of years it was a mystery how the ancient Egyptians made papyrus.  People knew they put moistened pieces of the pith of papyrus over one another and pressed or pounded them into the western world’s earliest paper, but no one had been able to duplicate the process.  Recently, the Egyptians rediscovered the procedure and now are making papyrus nearly indistinguishable from the ancient specimens that have been preserved.   When they returned to the original method they obtained original results.

Something similar happened with Biblical Christianity.   Bible readers knew that the baptism of the Holy Spirit once existed and that it was cause for the churches and ministry to be different from that of their own churches and yet nobody knew how to duplicate it.  At the turn of the 20^th Century, around 1900, spiritually hungry bible informed people rediscovered the baptism in the Holy Spirit which was the key ingredient in the revival of authentic Christianity.  When they returned to the original methods they obtained original results.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is necessary because…

It is biblical, and it is effective and…

3. IT WILL FLOW THROUGH FAMILIES

There is a powerful promise given to those who desire the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Joel the prophet said the following:

Joel 2:28 says:

“And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.”

Peter also said in Acts 2:29 “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

 Stories of miracles about in our family. My parents were Pentecostal. Both sets of my grandparents received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  It is astounding how God took our family and has used us in the ministry. I don’t credit my own self for that. I give credit to that for my grandmother on my Mother’s side.  When she was a young woman they had a tent meeting and people were receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the people in the other churches in town didn’t like what was happening so they cut down the tent and when they came out pelted them with tomatoes.  But my grandmother was filled with the Spirit.  My grandmother was used in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I can remember her sitting in her pew, with tears streaming down her face.  Among her four children, two of four had been in ministry. Among her grandchildren,  You have my cousin Randy, missionary to China and then Japan, currently pastoring in Providence Rhode Island.  You have his brother Phil who has been an associate pastor and pastor in Illinois. You have my cousin John Paul who is an AG Pastor. You have my sister Linda, who co pastors with her husband, You have myself who has been a missionary to Colombia, pastoring here and other places.  You have my brother David who is a missionary in Lithuania.

On the other side of the family, my dad’s side, you have my grandmother and grandfather.  My grandfather was very sick, they went to a church that taught. Miracles have passed away, but they listened to Brother Cadwalter (spelling?) on the radio, and God healed my grandfather.  My grandfather wanted the baptism inf the Holy Spirit so badly, that one day he pulled his car over and said, this car isn’t moving until I receive and God filled him with the Holy Spirit in the car.  My grandmother was a Spirit filled Sunday School teacher for 30 years teaching the word of God. When she died, there were four of her grandchildren in full time ministry.

What does that have to do with why we need the Baptism in the Holy Spirit today?  Wouldn’t it be great if many other family lines would see Acts 1:8 literally carried out!

Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

 All I can say is that for my family it certainly has come to pass.

Why the baptism in the Holy Spirit necessary for today? Because…

4. IT IS EXPERIENTIAL.

Notice I didn’t say it was an experience.  I said it is experiential. Why does Satan offer the supernatural experience and people think wow? But when you talk about something biblical people go whoa, that can’t be right?  We live in an age where the supernatural workings of Satan, superheroes, aliens, and all other kind of things are thought on daily.   The young people of our world have a desire to experience the supernatural. That is why God is pouring out His Spirit. Once you have tasted of the power of the Holy Spirit, you want nothing else.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…:

I thank God for the experiences I have had in my life as a pastor, as a believer. To be “filled with the Spirit”  is not a once and for all experience.  I cannot emphasize this too much. It is not an experience to be “attained.”  It is a doorway to walk through!

That is one of the biggest pitfalls of early Pentecostalism. You do not struggle and strive for “your baptism” and step up on to a super spiritual level when you receive. No sir.  We used to sing a song, “I Got it! Something about the power of the Holy Ghost. I cannot explain, it but I got it. ”  The question is not do you have it? But are you maintaining it?  It is not an experience to be “attained.” It is an experience to be maintained.  The experience I had at 10 or 11 does not give me power in my life today.  The experience of the Holy Spirit is something is something that we need every single day!  One baptism, daily fillings.

2 Corinthians 4:16 “The inward man is renewed day by day…”

Ephesians 3:16 “Strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man..”

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God bless!

Why the baptism in the Holy Spirit is necessary today