The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is needed today
This is an explanation for normal believers. I need to do this because of all the lies, distortions, and manmade doctrines which have arisen because of the panic of Satan and his minions. He does not want these things known generally in the Church, the Ekklesia, or Israel. His nefarious campaign has been very successful.
First: how do you receive it?
You ask Yeshua Messiah, Jesus Christ, or Joshua the Anointed One to give it to you. Any other language works also. Jesus told me once that He likes Yeshua, because it brings back childhood memories. Find a quiet place to pray and ask out loud. Luke 11:9–13 talks about this.
9 And I tell you, Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for[b] a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
But you need to know that if you ask Him to baptize you, it is done. Immediately. It often takes quite a while to work it all out in your life as you come to understand how it works. Part of my job in this article is to share some of the bad dogma, misunderstandings, and lies which you have heard and make it difficult to receive for many people.
Here's a short list:
- Tongues is the first manifestation: This is not true. It is false doctrine developed by Pentecostals as they developed their separate denominations after the Azuza Street Outpouring in 1906. However, it is commonly true if you go into worship after you are born again and run out of words to express yourself. If you just keep going you’ll find yourself praying in a new language.
- Tongues is ecstatic uncontrollable babbling: Almost completely untrue. First, it is not babbling or baby talk. Second, immature people may do it when they first get the baptism. Plus, emotional people can get pretty joyful the first time. The vast majority of your walk, speaking in your unknown language is quiet prayer murmured while asking the Lord for help as you minister. In fact, on a practical level it should be called your private prayer language. It is powerful and very useful in spiritual warfare because it causes demons and evil spirits pain which often causes them to cry out. This makes getting rid of them more simple and easy.
- It’s all emotionalism: Balderdash! In fact, once you mature a bit, it is rarely emotional.
- It’s impossible to control: Simply a lie. You have complete control. However, trying to control the Holy Spirit will shut down His activity in your life. But, the Holy Spirit rarely forces you to do anything—unless it truly is an emergency. You are asking for help and power. Forcing you to do something is the enemy’s weapon. He’s a congenital rapist. The Holy Spirit is gentle and loving.
Paul covered this directly in 1 Corinthians 14:32-33 about the gift of prophecy:
The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
- It only works in church: This is a particularly horrible lie. In fact the manifestations of the Holy Spirit are available anywhere two or three are gathered together. They are an especially powerful set of practical gifts available to help in marriages, for example.
- It was only available in the time of the apostles (or worse) or before the canon of the New Testament was agreed upon: Jesus has not changed. If He gave the Baptism back then, He is still giving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit & Fire today. Jesus does not change.
That's enough for now. There are many more.
What you need to do is watch your life because you will first see the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in hindsight. After I met the Lord and asked for the baptism, I went with my blood father to a different charismatic bible study or prayer group every night for the first couple of years. I was working in the gifts fairly quickly, but I didn’t get my prayer language until a couple months later as I was walking home while worshiping the Lord. I was singing in worship and the lyrics changed to my new language.
What are the gifts of the Holy Spirit?
Here we are specifically talking about the list Paul gave us in 1 Corinthians 12. You do not get to pick and choose. The Holy Spirit gives these gifts to individuals as he chooses for His purposes. We do receive them when we are talking with the Lord. But, they are not called gifts of the Holy Spirit in that case. I usually call them answers to prayer—duh.
They just become a regular part of your daily living as you walk in the Spirit. You can ask for a specific gift as you minister to others. But, it works better if you just ask the Holy Spirit to help you as needed. He knows what will work.
These are supernatural gifts
Having a baby is miraculous, but it is not a gift of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are clearly things which are beyond the natural. Babies are not. The gifts are manifestations of the Ruach HaKodesh in the life of a reborn believer. You’ll understand better as I explain them a bit.
The Word gifts
Paul tells us that prophecy is the most important. This is rarely future telling. It is God using one of his people to speak to His people giving knowledge, wisdom, guidance, and correction. These three gifts are:
- Word of knowledge: This is when the Spirit gives a person knowledge which can only be known supernaturally. For example, in her Biblical counseling sessions, the Spirit would sometimes give my wife knowledge of sins which had been done in the past or were presently being done. They were given to get the attention of the person being counseled who was in denial. Or, the Lord might share something that happened in a person’s life in the distant past so that healing of the memories can take place.
- Word of wisdom: This is similar, but it is when the Lord tells you how to make something work, how to fix something, or gives guidance on how to work out a situation. How to use the knowledge.
- Prophecy: This is same type of gift. But, it is the Lord giving counsel, advice, direction, or whatever He decides a person or a group needs to know. It is God Almighty speaking through one of His people. It is expected that all the people involved take this seriously. It truly is God Himself talking, and it needs to be discussed and discerned. See 1 Corinthians 14: 26–33 for God’s guidance for church services.
26 What then, brethren? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27 If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silence in church and speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. 30 If a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first be silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged; 32 and the spirits of prophets are subject to prophets. 33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
It doesn’t look anything like modern church—it’s participatory.
The Power gifts
- Faith: This is the supernatural gift of faith. Smith Wigglesworth testified that every time he raised someone from the dead, the faith would rise inside himself so strong that he had absolutely no doubt. This happened to him several times which were documented.
- Healings: These are supernatural also. One common example is praying that a person’s heart is healed (and then documented). To drive it home, there have been times when a person prayed for the healing of heart problems. When the person who was prayed for went to the doctor to find out if he or she had been healed, the doctor was astounded because the pacemaker was gone.
- Miracles: Miracles are things which are impossible. For example, in the Indonesian outpouring in the 1970s, a pastor was able to cross a raging river in flood stage by simply walking on water. I’ve seen crashed computers healed with a prayer. Car’s engines started the same way. My wife saw on radar a tornado headed straight toward town and our home make a sudden right-angle [90°] turn and head off in a different direction. Small miracles are common. I have prayed to find something lost and watched my eyes move over and come to rest, looking at the item we had been frantically searching for. I felt nothing. My eyes just moved on their own.
The final three gifts
- Discernment: This is very important at this time. In this time of confusion, deception, and delusion this gift has never been needed more. This gift tells us the spiritual truth about what is being said or what is happening. I remember the first time we saw the Ayatollah when he was hiding in Paris before the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s. My wife violently shuddered and gasped, “I have never seen that level of evil!”
- Languages: I’ve talked about this already. It can manifest in many ways. I remember hearing an evangelist who had just come back from a large crusade in Japan. He told us that the first night, the interpreter had not shown up. The Holy Spirit told him specifically. “Go out and preach in tongues.” He did and thousands of people heard him preach in flawless Japanese though he did not speak the language at all. Sometimes in a prayer meeting the language will be known. One time a message was given. A person exclaimed in back that the message was in her native language telling her about Jesus.
- Interpretation of languages: This functions as prophecy. Be aware that it is interpretation, not translation. Sometimes is will be a short message in a language, followed by a very long explanation —or vice versa. It is possible to interpret your own message. But, this is risky and should not be done when there are not people trained to discern the accuracy.
As you saw in the passage in 1 Corinthans 14 about managing a gathering of believers, that it is expected that there will be discussion about the gifts. People need to pray to discern if the message was from the Lord or not. It is crucial that you have elders with experience in this type of discernment. Sadly, they are almost non-existent these days.
The superstar preacher with the spectator seating and elevated platform makes the gifts very difficult to manage or discern. Gifts are not usually given to the leadership. The leadership is supposed to be part of the elders discerning. But the modern pastor behind a podium on a platform with special lighting and a top notch sound system does normally not allow gifts anyway. A megachurch is not a Biblical model. Even in Jerusalem as the ekklesia began the temple was a place of ministry and evangelism. The believer assemblies were in private homes.
On a practical level, this article is a composite of the Word gifts
I could not write without His help and anointing. More than that, I’ve come to realize that without His help and input what I write is worthless, at best. If I want fruit, I need the help and anointing of the Holy Spirit. If that does not happen, I commonly toss what I have written. I still need help open the process. I forget to ask for his approval before I publish far too often. Like all of you, I am still a work in process. But when the Spirit moves in power it is a true delight. More importantly, people are touched and changed.
In the Acts of the Apostles, all the believers were spirit-filled. This was normal for the first century or more. At this end of the “church age” all believers will be born again with a close personal relationship with Yeshua. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is essential to this process.
