More proof that the baptism and the Holy Spirit is subsequent to salvation.
Hi, welcome to today's Little Lesson and thank you once again for joining me. If you're a regular
viewer, you know that we've been studying speaking in other tongues and the baptism
in the Holy Spirit. A thoroughly biblical subject, and we've made a lot of progress. This will
actually be the 10th little lesson. I hope that if you're tuning in for the first time, you just
pause and go back and watch the other nine, and that way you'll get the foundation that we've laid
to this point. But for those who are regular listeners, you know that we're currently
in the book of Acts. We're looking at every example now where the Bible talks about
Christians receiving the Holy Spirit and either being baptized in the Holy Spirit or
being filled with the Holy Spirit. These phrases are synonymous phrases. And we looked, of course,
in the day of Pentecost, everybody's spoke in tongues amongst the 120.
And nobody can argue that their baptism in the Holy Spirit was subsequent to salvation.
Now, some theologians will tell us that, well, that was a unique experience for the early Church
to birth the Church and we shouldn't expect that to happen from that point onward. I suppose that
could be an argument worth listening to if there were not other examples of the same
or similar things happening throughout the book of Acts, and the fact that it's also mentioned
in the epistles ... at least in 1 Corinthians. So we're trying to do a thorough and honest job here,
not a tricking through taking verses out of their context, or by coming up with a human explanations
that don't hold weight against the Scripture. I, for one, am not ashamed of the Holy Spirit,
and I'm not ashamed of speaking in other tongues because it's thoroughly biblical. Every author
of the New Testament spoke in other tongues. All right. And tens of millions of Christians around
the world today speak in tongues as a regular part of their prayers and their prayer to the Lord.
We're going to go today to Acts chapter 8. This would be the second instance that refers to
Christians receiving or being baptized in the Holy Spirit.
It occurs after the persecution that arose in the early Church
in relation to the martyrdom of Stephen. You recall that Saul of Tarsus was a major
player in the persecution of those early Christians. And subsequently,
Christians scattered from Jerusalem. We begin reading in Acts chapter 8 and verse number 4.
"Therefore those who had been scattered went about preaching the Word." How about that?
Why don't more Christians preach the Word? Why are so many Christians silent about their faith? Well,
one very plausible reason could be that they're not baptized in the Holy Spirit. And that's really
the important thing. Speaking in tongues is a part of it, but the important part is being a witness
and having other people hear the gospel. Well, all of these early Christians who on the Day of
Pentecost, 120 of them were baptized in Holy Spirit. Peter promised the 3,000 who were
born again on the day of Pentecost that if they would repent and if they would believe in Jesus,
they too would receive the promise of the Holy Spirit and so would their children.
So this is a church that's activated by the Holy Spirit and not just by some kind of intellectual
understanding. Well, Philip went down to the city of Samaria and he began proclaiming Christ
to them. Phillip is later identified as an evangelist. "And the crowds with one accord
were giving attention to what was being said by Philip, as they heard him and saw the signs
which he was performing." He was baptized in the Holy Spirit and he had gifts of the Spirit
operating through his evangelistic ministry. He wasn't just trying to persuade people by human
arguments. No. Like the apostle Paul said, "I don't let your faith resting in the wisdom of men,
I want your faith resting in the power of God." Well, what were those signs and
wonders that Phillip was performing? "In the case of many who had unclean spirits,
they were coming out of them shouting with a loud voice." Jesus said ... we read this in
this series, one of the signs that will follow believers is that they will cast out demons.
That was the very first thing of the five signs that Jesus listed in Mark chapter 16.
We need this to return to the Church of Jesus Christ. "And many who had been paralyzed and lame
were healed. So there was much rejoicing in that city." Wouldn't you have loved to have
been there? Wouldn't you have loved to see that happen in your city? That's not going to happen
apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. And if the Church in your city is resistant to the basic
stuff that I'm teaching ... Nothing to do with me, I'm just talking about what the Bible says.
So clearly, what is the pattern that God has laid down for the Church? The Church is
a Spirit-empowered body of believers. That's why they're effective in
evangelizing and spreading the gospel, making disciples. Now, the story then begins to focus
on one interesting convert here. We have to read this in order to understand the part about folks
being baptized in the Holy Spirit. So let's get the context. "Now, there was a man named Simon
who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria." This guy
has got supernatural power, but it's from the dark side, demonic supernatural power.
He's got the attention of the people of Samaria with his magic arts and he's claiming to be
someone great. "They all from the smallest to greatest were giving attention to him saying,
'This man is what is called the great power of God.'" That's Simon. We call him Simon
the magician. But he wasn't just a sleight of hand type guy. Maybe he had an element of illusion, but
he's got something else going on. He's got everybody in Samaria convinced that he's operating
by the power of God, the great power of God. Now, imagine if any of the modern day evangelists who
have no power, no supernatural power. No casting out demons, no paralyze and lame people healing,
unlike Phillip who went down [inaudible 00:07:07]. Imagine that any of those had come to Samaria
and preached the gospel, they'd have been laughed and scorned. They'd have gone off with no results
whatsoever because the supernatural power of Simon the magician would have been greater than what
the evangelist would have had, what the proclaimer of the gospel would have had.
And you see really, the people are attracted to the supernatural. That gets their attention.
There still is that element of the supernatural within the demonic supernatural today in
witchcraft and all of this stuff, and people are drawn to it because they can't explain it.
Whereas the Church says, "Well, miracles have ceased. That was just for the apostolic case,
so don't expect that from us." The angels must be weeping over that kind of theology.
It says, "And they were giving him attention because
he had a long time astonished them with his magic arts. But when they believed Philip preaching the
good news about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized men
and women." Now, why did they convert? Because Phillip had more power than Simon the magician
had, and he was someone who had the power of the Holy Spirit evident in his ministry backing up his
message. Get this. This is fantastic. "Even Simon himself believed." So he saw things he'd never
seen before. He wasn't getting lame paralyzed people healed under his magic arts. Demons weren't
coming out of people, more likely they were going into people, or speaking through people.
But he wasn't getting them delivered, so he saw, "There's a bigger power than what I've
experienced. So Simon himself believed and he was baptized. So we've got all these new
converts down in Samaria. They're believers according to the Bible and they're baptized
according to the Bible. Phillip would not have baptized them, had they not professed faith in
Christ and he'd been persuaded that they were genuine believers in Christ. Again, "Even Simon
himself believed that after being baptized, he continued on with Philip. As he observed signs
and great miracles taking place, he ..." The guy who was amazing other people, "... he was
constantly amazed." And because we're out of time as we have to stop today,
I wish we didn't have to stop because the rest of the story is what I really want to get to. But
we'll get to it on our next little lesson, just with a very quick review about the context. It's
so important to get the context. Simon and all the Samaritans were believers, baptized believers.
But Peter and John came down for a specific reason from Jerusalem to Samaria. What was the reason?
So that they could be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Wow. Does that fit into your theology? Well, if it
doesn't, it will the next time we get together. Hey, if you've never been to davidservant.org,
do check us out. There's just tons of information there for your spiritual edification. We've been
compiling teaching there for decades now, I guess, and it's all free and it can help
you grow spiritually. Okay. So do check us out. Until next time, may the Lord richly bless you.