Kenneth Copeland - What Is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast.
Father, thank You today. We give You praise and we honor You for your presence. "Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world". And we boldly declare that the Greater One is helping us today, giving us revelation from heaven. And we thank You and we praise You for it. In Jesus' name, we pray, and we receive. Amen. Hallelujah.
Oh, welcome to the broadcast today. Let's go back over to Mark 11:23-24. Jesus said, "For verily"... Well, in the 22nd verse, remember He said, "Have the faith of God. For verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain". So any whosoever can use faith. Well, how do you get faith? You accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Amen. Now, let me point this out to you because we're going somewhere with this today. In the 10th chapter of Romans, "If you shall confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture says, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed".
Now then, do you know that you know? Do you have that inward witness inside you? "Yes, Brother Copeland, I'm a child of God. I'm born of God". If something were to happen to you right now, something happened and you just died right now, do you know in your heart that you'd go to heaven? "Well, I'm not quite sure". Now, all right, let's just take care of it. Do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Do you believe that? "Yes, I do". Well, if you believe that in your heart, and you just say, "Jesus, come into my heart. I confess You, I receive You as my Lord and my Savior right now". Amen.
Now, do I have the Holy Spirit? Yes, you do. You haven't been baptized with the Holy Spirit, but He is in there. The Greater One is inside you, and He's your teacher. You have the fruit of the Spirit listed in the 5th chapter of the book of Galatians; love, joy, peace, goodness, meekness, kindness, temperance. These are in there. Now, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the fullness, being filled with the Spirit of God, amen, speaking with other tongues. Now, this is important. Well, I'll tell you what. Thank You, Lord. Oh, yes, Sir.
Let's go over here to the 14th chapter of the book of John. And I want you to see something here. Verse 16, "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever". Now, Jesus is talking to the 12 disciples. He's talking to His people right here. Thank You, Lord. "Even the Spirit of truth", listen now, "whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and he shall be in you". Now, at this time, they knew the Spirit of God because they knew Jesus. And He was dwelling with them because Jesus is anointed of the Spirit of God. He said, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor", and so forth.
Now, He, Jesus, at that time, they were with Him. They were ministering under His anointing, and the Spirit of God was working with them. They knew Him. Jesus said, right here, in the 10th verse, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells within me, he does the works". Now, and they watched the Spirit of God do the work. So they knew Him. He said... let's go back here and look at this again. "I will pray the Father, he'll give you another Comforter". Jesus was their Comforter. And, "he will give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not, neither knows him: you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you".
Now, nobody could get born again until after Jesus went to the cross, until after He was raised from the dead. Now, notice this. The World can't receive Him. They don't know Him, and they can't see Him. So the Holy Spirit is not God's gift to the world. No, no, no, no, no. Jesus is God's gift to the world. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son". The Holy Spirit is God's power, God Himself gift to the Church for enduement of power to minister supernaturally, to live supernaturally, and to get and to be by Him, be able to pray in the Spirit, to go beyond your natural understanding and believe you receive and pray, the, "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaks not unto men, but unto God, how be it in the spirit he speaks mysteries". They're mysteries. One translation says, "Divine secrets known only between you and God".
See, and the devil can't even get in there. But we just read, in Mark 11:24, "Therefore, Whatsoever thing you desire, when you pray". When you pray, when you pray. He didn't say just "when you pray and when you understand what you're saying". Let's go back over there then. Don't lose your place there. And in the 14th chapter of I Corinthians, "If I pray in an unknown tongue", 14th verse, "my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the understanding also". I will. It's an act of my will. It's not some act of ecstasy or anything. It's by my will. I can pray in my understanding anytime I want to. Father, I just praise You and thank You. He said, "I will". "I will pray with my understanding". I will pray with my spirit. When I pray...
Let's go back there. "If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays". Then he said, "I will pray with the spirit, I will pray with the understanding: I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with my understanding". It's an act of my will. So, now, thank You, Lord. Yes, Sir. Okay. Yeah, we can do that. Let's go to the book of Acts, and let's look at what Jesus said here in the acts of the apostles in Verse 8 of Chapter 1. "You shall receive power", the Greek word dunamis, "after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: you shall be witnesses", supernatural witnesses, "unto to me both in Jerusalem, Judaea, and Samaria, unto the uttermost parts of the earth".
"Well, Brother Copeland, I heard all that passed away". Well, you heard something that wasn't true. And is it for all believers? Yeah, all believers for all time. Let's go back to the last chapter of the book of Mark. We started off in the 11th chapter. Go to the 16th chapter. Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned", or condemned. "And these signs shall follow them that believe", every believer; "In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they'll take up serpents; if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover". It is for every believer. Amen.
So here is not only a supernatural way to communicate with God, but a supernatural way to minister to other people. This is talking about believers. This is not talking about the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, no. I mean, all of us are believers. I stand in the office of the prophet and teacher. Well, I'm a believer first. Amen. So I just work here, you understand? Amen. But this Spirit of God is for every person. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, just like we talked there awhile ago. I receive you as my Lord and my Savior. And by faith, I know I'm born again. I know I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now, I'm a candidate to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. And I take your Word for it.
All right. Let's see what His Word is for it. Let's go over to the book of Luke in the 11th chapter. And let's look here in the 13th verse, "If you then, being evil", or you just natural men, "know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him"? Ask and believe you receive. See, that's what Jesus said. "Whatsoever thing you desire". I desire to be filled with overflowing with the Spirit of the Living God and receive power. I desire the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And I'm asking, and you said it Jesus. I believe I receive it.
"Well, now, Brother Copeland". You know, I've heard, and particularly back when Gloria and I first came into this, both of us, we got born again in 1962. And then in January '63, both of us received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Well, we were scriptural illiterates. And God just blessed us, and people prayed with us and for us and so forth. And thank God, we received. But now, I heard all the stories. And then I've had people say this to me, "Brother Kenneth, you know, I just don't want to be getting the wrong spirit here. I'm praying. I'm asking to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. But I don't want to be getting the wrong spirit".
Let me ask you again, are you a child of God? "Yeah". You know that? "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I know it in my heart". Okay, let's look at something here. In the 10th chapter of Luke's Gospel, in the 19th verse, "Behold, I give unto you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy". I want you to notice, "serpents and scorpions". Okay. Now, back to the 11th chapter where we were. Verse 11, "If a son". Are you a child of God? Okay. "If a son shall ask bread of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent", an evil spirit? "or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion"? Of course not. But I want you to notice that he's referring to evil spirits. Amen.
So if you're a child of God and you come to Him and you say, "I'm asking you for the Holy Spirit", there is no way the devil can cross that line and get inside you! You just put that out of your heart and mind and have no fear. Now, it's a very dangerous thing to take somebody that's not born again and start trying to get them baptized in the Holy Ghost because, listen, I mean, hey, they can very easily get the wrong thing. It's a very dangerous thing to do. You don't do that. If you're going to be ministering somebody to receive the Holy Spirit, you find out first if they're born again. And ask them just like I ask you, "Are you sure in your heart that you know Jesus as your Savior"? "Well, I'm not sure". Well, make sure.
"Well, no, you know, no, Brother Copeland, I've never accepted Jesus as my Lord". Well, let's don't start with the Holy Spirit. Let's start with God's gift to you, Jesus. Mm. Hallelujah. Can you see it? Now then, it's not a matter of how you feel about it. It's a matter of taking Jesus at His word. The feelings will come. "Well, you know, I'm just speaking in this language, but, you know, I don't feel like it's doing anything". I mean, you can be just as dry. You don't have to feel something to be in faith. I believe it because I know this.
You remember I told you last week about the experience that I had, that, you know, all you have to do is just read right there, Verse 4, 14th chapter of I Corinthians, "He that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself", or builds himself up. And so I said, "Well, I'm just going to pray in tongues all the way from Lubbock to Tulsa". And, you know, I'd never done this before. I'm just going to do it. And I'm just praying, driving down the highway. And my mind would kind of drift away and... Well, it will quiet your mind, but you will continue to pray in tongues, be thinking about something else. "Well, it didn't do anything". Yeah, oh, yeah.
See, it's your spirit praying, not your head. So I'm just praying. And I got home after that whole long trip there, and I've forgotten what it was, a couple hours, whatever it was. And I got home, and I thought, "Well, if I'm edified, I can't tell it. But, you know, the Word of God said I'm edified, so I'm edified". Well, it wasn't edifying my body. But then we went to prayer group that night where Tommy Tyson was speaking in that prayer group. And he taught on the name of Jesus and some other things. And he got through, he said, "Anyone in here", It was quite a large home and a number of people in there and, if they need healing. And several people raised their hand.
Well, there was a woman right there, right in one row close to us. And Tommy said, "Kenneth, you and Gloria lay hands on her". I said, "Sure". And then Gloria and I prayed for her. Man, when I laid hands on her, here it came, just came up on the inside of me, the power of God. Hallelujah. And then's when the edification hit me, when I prayed for her. And now my spirit's in action. It had been building up. It had been building up all day. It had been building up. And then the moment I released that by faith and began to minister or begin to get into spiritual activity, my spirit was primed and rested and ready. Praise God. And a great thing happened.
I wanted to point out to you, when you're receiving the Holy Spirit, you don't have to feel anything, you're going to. You don't necessarily have to feel it right then, but many of you will. "Well, I don't feel like I got anything because I didn't feel like I think I ought to". How would you know if you've never received? Well, you think you ought to. How would you know? See, all of that's flesh and all of it's... just get into the Word. Say, "Yes, Sir, I believe that". "How much more should your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him"?
All right, just do this, just follow me. "Father, I'm asking you. Jesus is my Lord and Savior, and He said I could do this. I'm asking you to fill me right now with your precious Holy Spirit. I receive right now in Jesus' name". Now watch me. "I am receiving". I am going to breath just deep as I can. "I am receiving Your Holy Spirit coming inside of me". You have to make the noise. It's your voice. "And I believe I receive". Why? Because Jesus said I would. That's the bottom line right there: He said I would. Hallelujah.
Now, just follow me again. Father, I receive in the name of Jesus. Yeah, glory to God! Go home, baby, dance all around the room. "Yeah, but I don't understand anything I'm saying". You ain't talking to yourself. You're talking to the Father! I remember when our children were little, and I'd come in there and then... I'd say, "Gloria, what did she say"? She said... ha-ha-ha. Gloria could understand her, I couldn't. But see, Gloria spent time with those children all day, every day. She understood what they said. Your heavenly Father understands if it's nothing but "da-da-da-da-da-da-da". But don't you stay at "da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da". Go ahead. Hallelujah! Move in it. Move in it. Go ahead. Hallelujah.