John Bevere - How to be EMPOWERED by the Spirit
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Acts 1:4-6: And being assembled together with them, He commanded—does not say He suggested, and it doesn’t say He recommended; He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He had said, «You have heard from Me.» For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now, Jesus looks at them and says, «Don’t start your ministry, don’t start preaching the Gospel all over the world, don’t start churches until you have been endued with power.» You have to understand something: when we are born again, the Holy Spirit comes within us; He sanctifies us, He seals us, and we are guaranteed to be children of God. But when we are baptized, we are filled and endued with power.
So, there’s a difference between position and power. Now, we’re talking about power. Are you with me? You have to understand that Jesus made a very strong statement: He said, «Hey, don’t do this.» What’s amazing is He talked to 500 people, and I believe 500 people were told to go to that upper room; you can see that in 1 Corinthians 15. But I believe 380 of them left after one day, two days, three days, four days, five days, six days, or seven days. They were like, «Let’s go back to the synagogue. Let’s start churches. Let’s do this.» But there were 120 who waited because they obeyed the Master to wait. Now, some of you are thinking, «Well, of course they needed the Holy Spirit because they didn’t have Him yet.»
Let me make a statement: in John’s Gospel, Jesus breathed on them and said, «Receive the Holy Spirit.» That Greek word «receive» means immediately, right now; it is not a forecast of what’s going to happen. Awesome! So they received, I believe, the new birth when Jesus breathed on them and said, «Receive the Holy Spirit.» This is when they were empowered to do what they were called to do. If you want to think of it like this: the Holy Spirit comes within us for relationship; He comes upon us, baptizes us, to empower us to do what we’re called to do. Are you with me? And so now, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. Suddenly, there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. It doesn’t say the Holy Spirit was a rushing mighty wind; He entered with the sound of a rushing mighty wind.
And by the way, He did that on His first entrance into the earth to fill and empower them. That was the only time He did it, but however, He can do it again if He wants, however He wants. I remember when I was in Brazil and a rushing mighty wind came in an auditorium of thousands. It was amazing, and it filled people. Actually, it impacted them for nine years afterward. It filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then, there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire. Remember, they were baptized in the Holy Ghost and fire! I don’t believe there were little tongues on top of their heads, as your Sunday school manual showed; they were literally baptized. They were immersed—that’s what baptism means; it means to be immersed. They were immersed in fire.
And so there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire; one sat upon each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Notice they were filled; they began to speak in tongues. The Holy Spirit didn’t grab their mouths and rattle them and make them speak; they began to speak in other tongues. What is a tongue? Simply put, it is a language not recognizable to your understanding. Are you with me? It’s like when I’m in Spain, and I meet somebody, and it doesn’t sound like they’re speaking in Spanish, and I say, «What is your mother tongue?» They may say, «It’s Italian.» It is still a language I don’t understand.
I don’t look at English people and say, «What’s your mother tongue?»; I know what their mother tongue is. Okay? Are you with me? All right. So there was a bunch of Jews visiting Jerusalem at this time; they were from every nation under heaven, they spoke different languages, and they were shocked. So they came running out to see what was going on. When they came out, they discovered these untrained, unlearned men speaking in their different languages and dialects perfectly, the wonderful praises of God. They were completely in awe; they said, «Whatever is this?» Peter stands up, you know the famous message that he preaches on that day. He says, «They’re not drunk because it’s 9:00 in the morning,» and he goes on to preach Jesus to them. Right?
And then he makes this statement: «This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit"—remember Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke and John, «Go and wait for the promise of the Father.» He poured—now listen carefully—He poured out this which you now see. Everybody say «see.» Everybody say «hear.» So notice «see» and «hear.» I want you to remember that. Okay, the gathered crowd then asked, «What do we do?» Acts 2:38–39: Then Peter said to them, «Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; for the promise, being the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call.»
So you can see what happened to them in Acts Chapter 2 of being baptized with the Holy Spirit was not only to them and their children, but to everybody far off down through the generations of the church, as many as the Lord our God has called. Amen. So what I want to do now, very quickly and briefly, is go through the other four accounts in the book of Acts of people being filled and baptized with the Holy Spirit. There are two things I want you to make a note of. First, in every single one of these situations, except one, it is a separate experience from them being born again. Okay? Even with the 120 on the day of Pentecost. The second thing I want you to see is bystanders would see and hear when the Spirit of God baptized people. Are you with me?
Let’s go to Acts Chapter 8. Philip goes down to a city in Samaria; he preached Christ to them. He is a classic evangelist. The Bible says the city had great joy. Why? Because demons were coming out of people that were possessed, and people that were lame and crippled were walking; there was great joy in the city. Now, listen to what Acts Chapter 8:12–13 says: When they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized in water, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized.
Now I want to make some notes here. The people believed the good news of Jesus Christ—are they born again, yes or no? Absolutely! When a person believes the Gospel, they receive Jesus Christ and are baptized in water; they are a child of God, correct? All right, so they were baptized in water, and according to the scripture, they are now reborn into the kingdom of God. But listen to what verses 14-16 say: When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God—which is another incident that we know indicates they are born again—they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, Peter and John prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Now this really gets my attention: Peter and John are in Jerusalem. I have found out from two different sources that Jerusalem is 35 to 42 miles away from Samaria. Now, they do not have automobiles; they’re not jumping in the car and getting there in 45 minutes. All right? They’ve got to walk down there, baby. You know that’s a three-day walk, or if they’ve got a camel or a donkey or a horse, it may be a little shorter; that’s a good trip. But they sent Peter and John just to get them filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s how important it was for those disciples to get filled with the Holy Spirit.