Derek Prince - Requirements For Receiving The Holy Spirit
I won’t go on to the others because I want to come to the vital part now, of this. Time is running out on me, as it usually does. Seven requirements for receiving, and I’m going to give them very briefly.
— Number one, repent. Acts 2:38, Repent, be baptized.
— Number two, be baptized. Be baptized and you’ll receive the Holy Spirit.
— Number three, be thirsty. Jesus said, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.
— Number four, you’ve got to come to Jesus. There’s only one baptizer in the Holy Spirit. If you want the baptism you have to come to the baptizer.
— Number five, you have to ask. Jesus said if you, being evil, are to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? A lot of Christians say, Well, if God wants me to have the Holy Spirit I guess He’ll give it to me. I don’t need to ask. Well, Jesus said you do need to ask. He said your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.
— And then you have to receive. Receiving is compared to drinking.
— And finally, and this is the difficult thing for some people, you have to yield the unruly member of your body, the member which you cannot control, the tongue. The control of the tongue by the Holy Spirit is God’s evidence that He’s come in to take control.
You know in the Bible the tongue is called my glory. This doesn’t come out in all translations but in Acts 16 the psalmist said, I will praise God with my glory. Peter quoted that in Acts 2:26 and he said, I will praise God with my tongue. Your tongue is your glory, did you know that? Do you know why? Do you know why you’ve been given a tongue? For one supreme purpose: to glorify God. Any use of the tongue that doesn’t glorify God is a misuse. But when the Holy Spirit comes and takes control of your tongue, everything you say and do will glorify God. That’s the first time you’ll really be using your tongue for the purpose for which God gave you a tongue in your mouth.