Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Well, I've enjoyed teaching this series so far. I hope that you've enjoyed attending and being part of it.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: So we have tonight is evening five.
So this is a nine week series, this one on the Holy Spirit.
So this is the fifth Wednesday night. But I've really enjoyed this and enjoyed being with you.
I love to preach.
I said before, I love to preach. If I can get two people to stand still or one to walk slow, I'll preach. But teaching, there's a charm about being able to take nine weeks and just deal with the material in depth and try to take time with it and not have to squeeze it. If I run out of time, then I just stop and we start over the next week and I'm enjoying this.
Now if you have your Bibles, if you'll take those and turn, if you will, to the second chapter of Acts. We're at the crucial turning point.
So let me just sort of.
I certainly can't recapitulate four weeks of teaching, but what we have dealt with is the old. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, wind, the breath, the Spirit. It's the same word, the Holy Spirit.
Ruach is wind or breath or spirit. Kadesh, Holy.
So the ruach Chadesh.
And we talked about how just the same Holy Spirit that brooded over the face of the abyss. So in the very first two verses of the book of Genesis, the Holy Spirit is mentioned. And we talked about symbols of the Holy Spirit, wind, fire, oil, water and a dove, which give us various aspects of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. There's not five holy spirits.
And it's just that sometimes he is the Spirit of peace, sometimes he's the Spirit of power, sometimes he's the Spirit of holiness. So it depends on the work, the ministry. So the title of this whole course is the Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit probably should be entitled, I probably should have titled it the Person and Ministries of the Holy Spirit.
We talked about how in the Old Testament the concept was that the Holy Spirit came with particularity upon specific people set aside by God for unique purposes. So the concept was that a king received the Holy Spirit, the prophets received the Holy Spirit, that there was that Particular person that's chosen with surgical precision to receive the Holy Spirit in the sense of not receiving the Holy Spirit as we're going to talk about at Pentecost, but receiving the Holy Spirit as the Old Testament concept. And we talked about it in the one of oil, the pouring upon, the mantling. The Holy Spirit comes upon a person for power.
Just in passing, I'd like to add, just make you note this in the Book of Judges in Hebrew, there is an odd twist in the English translations. It's talking about Gideon. And it says, and the Holy Spirit came upon Gideon. It says in English, which is not a bad translation. It's just that it is apparently topside down in Hebrew.
In Hebrew it looks like it says, and the Holy Spirit drew Gideon on.
That's different, you see, than Gideon putting the Holy Spirit on like a garment, like a cloak, like a mantle of power. What it actually seems to say in Hebrew is the Holy Spirit drew Gideon on and wore him into battle.
Either way, it's pretty cool, right?
Now then there was this verse of Scripture from Joel, chapter two.
And that was this prophecy. And it is certainly not unknown in Judaism. It was a perfectly well known passage, but it was just a passage that kind of laid on the clipping room floor of rabbinical teaching because nobody knew quite what to do with it. And it was that after the coming of the just one, there would be this outpouring of the Holy Spirit that all flesh, not just kings, not just prophets, and not. I know this doesn't seem shocking to you in 21st century Protestantism, but you have to think of 850 BCE Judaism, that women would receive the Holy Spirit, not just Deborah, but women would receive the Holy Spirit just like a rabbi. That children would receive the Holy Spirit, that young people would. It would turn everything topside down. Young people would prophesy, o oh, people would have dreams. And there was this passage. Well, it was just there, but nobody quite understood what it meant. And in a way it was kind of frightening because when the Holy Spirit came upon a life like Jeremiah, like Isaiah, like a king or a warrior, it kind of brought all the tumult into that life.
So the idea of the Spirit of God, there was thunder and lightning on the mountain and fire between the cherubim that leapt out and burned up the sons of Aaron. The very idea that that would come upon you individually, you as a person was kind of a little bit frightening in the first place. In the second place, it didn't quite make sense.
Then we come to this next moment Where John Baptist, standing in the midst of the river, says to the listeners on the shore, I indeed baptize you with water. But one cometh after me who the latch of whose shoes I'm not worthy to loose. And he shall baptize you with fire and with the Holy Ghost. Now, Pentecostal language, we understand that, but you gotta.
You gotta hear that standing on the bank of the Jordan river, when Messiah comes, he'll baptize you with fire. Okay, I'm not sure that's all that good.
Do you see what I'm saying? It was a sobering kind of thought. It was all there.
Okay, now then, and I'm just about to come to Acts chapter two, then we talked about. The concept or the way I teach it is just a way of viewing it, of Old Testament flashcards, that God would show flashes of things so that when they are realized hundreds of years, even thousands of years later in the new Covenant, that they're not entirely new ideas.
That these are things that we knew. Oh, that was that. And that was this. And that was that. Okay, so in Acts chapter two, this is where we ended on last week in Acts Chapter two. I'm going to just read it, and then we're going to deal with that, and then we're going to talk about Experiencing Pentecost. Is the title tonight. Experiencing Pentecost through the New Testament. How does it feel different in the New Testament?
Acts, chapter 2. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord, in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind. And it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man was heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, behold, are not all these which speak Galileans. How here we every man. There it is repeated, how here we every man in our own tongue. Wherein we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites and dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and in Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, and in. In Phrygia and Pamphylia, and in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, that's North Africa.
And strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our tongues, the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, what meaneth this? Others mocking, said, these men are full of new wine, cheap wine, popsicle wine. But Peter, standing up with the 11, lifted up his voice and said unto them, ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words, for these are not drunken as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day, nine in the morning. But this is that which was spoken by Joel.
The subsequent verses of Scripture are Peter quoting or more precisely, paraphrasing Joel. Chapter two. Let's pray together now. Heavenly Father, as we begin tonight, we ask that this same Holy Spirit, about whom we read and for whom we long would now so infuse us, teacher and speaker, listener and hearer, that we will be open to all that you want for us. Come, Holy Spirit.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
I think I mentioned this last week, but it's worth repeating.
Pentecost. The word Pentecost. The word Pentecostal. The word Pentecost is not new to the New Testament.
Christianity did not invent Pentecost. Pentecost is not actually a Christian feast.
It is a Jewish feast, an ancient Jewish feast. It is called the Feast of weeks.
And it's called that because it lasts seven weeks plus a day from a Passover.
So seven times seven is 49, plus one makes 50.
And so when the. When the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek and then Septuagint, then they wanted a word for that feast of weeks, as it was in Hebrew. So everything that begins with the prefix penta is a derivative of five. The Pentagon, the pentagram, pentathlet, a pentathlete.
All of those things are derivatives of five.
So the days of 50 days. So it's the feast of 50 days, or in Hebrew, the feast of weeks.
There was a sense of connection with Pentecost and the Holy Spirit. First of all, it's a. It's a harvest feast.
Second of all, there was this sense of joy. It was a joyful feast and a feast of outpouring, a feast of celebration.
But I do not for one minute believe that. When Peter and the 119 others woke up that morning, they said, Acts chapter two.
Today, nine o'. Clock.
I don't believe that. Five minutes to nine. I don't believe that. 60 seconds to nine. They didn't have one of these fancy church clocks that we have now that are ticking off, trying to remind Pentecostals to get in their pews and get ready for church. It didn't have one of those. There was Nothing ticking off. 30 seconds to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was Pentecost, the Jewish celebration of a Jewish feast as they had celebrated every year, decade after decade after decade, eon after eon, for thousands of years, the feast of Pentecost.
So when the Holy Spirit came, think now the sound of that wind rushing through the room. The sound of a tornado, not a hair on your head ruffled by a breeze, but the sound of a tornado rushing through the wind, through the air, and then cloven tongues as of fire dancing, each one visible above every head in the room.
Then what happened was people remember in the Middle east at that time and still, frankly, if you go with me to Israel, you'll see a lot of buildings are quite open trying to catch any faint breeze. So even when there was a crowd like that and noise like that, people would be standing in the streets. Well, they raced off then, hey, something's happening in that room. Something's going on. Something's going. And quickly it drew a crowd.
Well, somebody wants to ask the logical question, what's going on in there?
As they drew closer, they heard these people, every person on the outside. We dealt with this on last week. I'm not going to go through it all again. But they heard them speaking their own languages. It is not clear at all.
I'm just saying, regardless of what you believe, it's fine. But I'm just saying it's not clear in the text itself that those people were speaking those languages. They may have been speaking in tongues. It just says they spoke in other tongues. But the people on the outside heard those languages. And everybody on the outside heard them all speak. How hear we them all in our language wherein we were born.
So there is an operation of supernatural power and giftedness happening at the birth of the church. So the church is born.
The living, breathing body of Christ is born in the upper room in supernatural power and the visitation of the Holy Spirit.
Well, what happens is what would happen anywhere people try to come up with an explanation. Somebody said they're just stoned.
Peter in his imminent practicality, he says, think now, 120 people in the same room, including women, get them all this drunk, so drunk they can't talk plain by 9 in the morning. There's not that much Jerusalem and all, not that much Thunderbird in all of Jerusalem. So he says, this is not. That's a stupid explanation that he says. And he points back to everything we've studied for four weeks.
He says, what is happening here, experientially, contextually, in this moment is that which Joel told us about.
This is the wind, this is the fire, this is the oil of anointing. This is the power. This is the dove of peace. It's all on us, happening in this room.
Now I would from that moment I want to just go forward with other places in the New Testament where there is a repetition of the upper room experience, of the Pentecost experience.
And what I want to try to pick up on is threads of continuity that knit these experiences together.
I was educated in rigid cessationism.
You may or may not even know what that phrase means. You could live your entire life and have a very meaningful experience and never know what cessation means.
But it means a theology that things that happened in the Bible at one phase in biblical history ceased at a certain time.
That's cessationism.
So I was taught, educated and preached for seven years that with the death of the last apostle that the gifts of the Spirit as they were in Acts, ceased.
That that was cessationism. And I. And I, I preached that for seven years. God have mercy on me. And I. And I believe that because that's what I was taught.
So in the footnotes of the Scofield reference Bible, which is the heart and soul of secessionism, it says in the footnotes in Acts chapter 2 after subsequent to Acts chapter 2, no Christian ever again needs to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
In other words, what happened in the upper room to those 120 people, Scofield says took care of it for all the rest of us until the rapture of the church.
Now that's a specious logic.
Without even reading the rest of the book of Acts.
Let's just approach it logically. First of all, that doesn't make any sense.
I know that 7 o' clock on a weeknight, there are probably some of you that skipped supper to be here tonight. You come straight from work and stop by to pick up your wife or you meet with your husband and come here and you may be thinking to yourself, let's try to wrap it up right at 8. I'm hungry.
It's all right. Be of good comfort.
I had a nice supper before I came and you say, no, Dr. Otland, you didn't understand what I was saying. I wasn't worried about your tummy. I was worried about my tummy. I said, yeah, but see, you're not listening to my answer. I'm well fed.
I'm fine.
Be at peace.
So what can happen is that there are people in the pews of American churches that are longing for supernatural power to live in the context in which they live.
And if the answer from the pulpit is, be of good comfort, Simon Peter received the Holy Ghost 2,000 years ago, then that is an illogical answer on the surface of it.
Now, beyond that, however, even the book of Acts, its own self, if that were true.
If that were true, the issue is not whether the Holy Spirit's outpouring is repeated in the 21st century or not. The issue is that it was repeated almost immediately over and over and over again. Furthermore, that it was expected to be repeated.
So let's look at some of these. Now, if you have your Bibles, just keep them open. If you're taking notes, you can write your notes. But we're going to kind of skip from verse to verse. It's going to look like a Baptist sword drill here. So as soon as you have the verse, stand up and, you know,
[00:19:49] Speaker A: so
[00:19:49] Speaker B: turn to Acts, chapter four.
Peter and John have been arrested and admonished not to preach Jesus anymore.
The first wave of persecution.
And then they are released and they return to the company of these early Christians. And if you look at Acts chapter 4 and verse 31, and when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke the word of God with boldness. Now you see the challenge, don't you?
Those are the same people that were just in the upper room.
So it's only two weeks later or only two chapters later that they are. They are now saying, what happened in the upper room was great. In the upper room.
We need it to face the adversity and persecution that we're facing. We need fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. So the old joke, people always joke around, right? And it's, what's the matter with these Pentecostals? Why do they keep asking to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Do they leak? And the answer is, yes, you do.
Whether you like it or not or want to admit it or not, you do leak.
Life knocks the stuffing out of you. The nicks and cuts, the abrasions of interaction with humanity. You leak. You bleed power.
That's the reason we need that fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit. So there is this baptism of the Holy Spirit in the upper room.
Then there is a secondary further work. Not secondary. That makes it sound like there are only two. A further work.
Ministry of the Holy Spirit, for empowerment in people that have received the blessing of Pentecost.
They're not asking for the baptism of the Holy Spirit again.
They're saying, we're facing something new here.
We're facing something new. Persecution.
Listen to what they prayed. This is fascinating. And it. And it is a stark indictment over much of the. Of the American church. Here's this persecution. Instead of praying, God stopped the persecution. They never. They never pray that. You know what they pray? They say, God, look at all this persecution that's happening. Make us bold.
They don't ask for God to protect them. They ask for God to empower them in the face of persecution. And the place is shaken.
The room is shaken. And they're filled with fresh. With the Holy Spirit.
Now turn, if you will, to a complicated passage of Scripture. And it's Acts, chapter eight, the second wave of persecution, largely led by a man named Saul of Tarsus, whom we shall encounter later.
But this wave of persecution now drives some of the Christian Jews out of Jerusalem. They scattered.
A Jewish Christian evangelist, not one of the apostles, a lay evangelist named Philip, goes to Samaria.
Now, you'll remember from your studies of the Gospel accounts how the Jews hated the Samaritans.
And so he goes to Samaria, and there he begins to preach. And God gives him signs and wonders.
And the people are.
They're amazed with these signs and wonders. He begins to preach. They get converted, and they receive water baptism.
There is a magician named Simon, not Simon Peter, of course, Simon Magus, Simon the magician. And he has kind of held the Samaritans in awe of his ledger domain.
And they think that he's at least a prophet and maybe even Messiah. Maybe he is that great one, the Messiah.
He also said. It says, this is a complicated passage because it says he also believed and was baptized.
Now, that's very complicated because it means that what he does next he does as a Christian, which is a very wicked thing.
So we can explain it away by saying, well, maybe he wasn't really. Maybe he didn't really believe. But that implies that the Bible was confused.
I have a hard time with that.
The Bible says he believed. I have to believe he believed.
So was he a Christian or not?
Was he a Christian? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt Be saved, receive water baptism for the remission of sins.
So is Simon the Magician a Christian at that point? This is not a trick question. Is he a Christian? Yes. If we understand what it means to be a Christian, he's a Christian.
The only thing is, remember this. When you receive water baptism, you have to be careful how much stuff you leave on the bank that you intend to pick up when you go back.
You wade out in the river, go underneath the water, but you left your Rolex on the bank.
He leaves his pride and his greed and his magic and his control and longing for position on the bank.
Now, Acts chapter 8, 14, 17 says, now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John, who when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet he had fallen upon none of them.
Only they were living as men and women, baptized. Water baptism in the name of Jesus. And when Peter and John laid their hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit. This is a. A very important passage of scripture because don't you see, it shows that the apostolic community in Jerusalem believed that a Pentecost experience was a necessary and essential part of the experience. Experience it doesn't if it's not important.
If it only had to happen once in the upper room, then that passage is rendered insensible.
It it should have said, when Peter and John and the apostles who were Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they rejoiced and told him, you don't need anything else.
That's what he should have read.
When you got saved, you got it all. That's not what it says. It says, when they heard that, they went up there and said, okay, it's great you're Christians. It's great you're water baptized. Now what you need is the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Now there's two problematic passage with two problems with the passage, if you will look at verse 17.
And they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. That's all it says.
The second is says, and then when Simon saw that they had received the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, he offered Peter money, saying unto him, give me that power that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he would receive the Holy Spirit. And Peter says to him, if you have a kjv, I don't know what it says in some of the others. Kjv it says, thy money perish with thee. How many have that translation Thy money perish with thee. All right.
That's a kind of a prissy translation.
You know what it says in Greek?
It actually says in Greek, to hell with you and your money.
Peter had trouble with his mouth till he died. He just.
No, he meant it.
No, see, he meant it. He's saying, that's a hellish suggestion.
That's from hell.
So he says, you, your money and that suggestion all go back where it came from.
But that's the reason I'm never shocked when somebody who claims to be a Christian and probably even is, acts in a way that's really wicked, because it's been that way from the very beginning. The only person that was left out of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was Simon the Magician.
He didn't want to receive the Holy Spirit.
That is not what he asks for.
He doesn't say to Simon, I believe if he had come to Simon Peter with a broken heart and a contrite spirit and said, look, I want this baptism. I want to be purified. I want sanctification. I want power for life. I want that. I'll give you everything I've got. I think Peter would have said, no, keep your money. You can't buy this. Keep your money. Kneel down, though. I'll lay hands on you. If his heart had been. But that's not what he asked for.
He doesn't say, give me the Holy Spirit. He says, give me the power that on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Spirit. Because he is filled with ministerial envy.
He wants. See, he's the big cheese until Philip arrives. Now he's number two.
Jesus comes. Now he's number three.
The apostles come. Now he's four or five. Maybe the Holy Ghost falls. He's. Now he's off the chart.
He finished last in New Hampshire. There's no. He's.
He's finished.
He's just. He just. He's just somebody, right? And he doesn't want to be just somebody. He wants apostolic authority, and he attempts to buy it.
So the issue is here that he doesn't receive the Holy Spirit. He wants to bypass that, to leap over into the authority to bestow the Holy Spirit. He just chose the wrong thing with Simon. Simon Peter had his weaknesses. Fear was often one of them, and public opinion. But money never seduced Simon Peter.
If he had just for one moment googled up Ananias and Sapphira, if he had just put that one thing into his iPad, he would never would have offered Peter money.
Right.
So now look at verse 17.
And they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. That's all it says.
It's a challenging verse of Scripture for many Pentecostals because it doesn't describe any concomitant phenomenon. It just says they received whatever that looked like, sounded like, felt like nothing.
So in the upper room, I want you to hear the point. In the upper room, there's wind.
Is there wind in Samaria? Not that we know of. Maybe, but it's not recorded.
Is there. There was fire in the upper room. Is there fire in the. Up in Samaria? Not that it's recorded. It's not recorded. Maybe it was.
There was tongues in the upper room. Is there tongues in Samaria? We don't know that. It isn't mentioned.
So it's a challenging verse of scripture.
Now turn to Acts, chapter 9, if you will. In verse 17, Acts, chapter 9 and 17, Ananias is sent by God to minister to Saul of Tarsus. Saul is the trigger man for the Sanhedrin. He has gone to Damascus to arrest Christians and bring Christian believing Jews and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains to face trial for heresy. And on the way, God strikes him down, strikes him blind. He spends three days blind and alone in a back room of a house in Straight street in Damascus, Syria. And God gives a vision to a man named Ananias and says, go and lay hands on him. Look at verse 17, Acts 9. 17. And Ananias went his way and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales. And he received sight forthwith and arose and was baptized.
So again there is.
There is no account in the upper room that anybody got healed.
There is no account in Acts chapter 8 in Samaria that anybody got healed.
But Paul the apostle, in receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is also healed of blindness, certainly temporary blindness, because God had just struck him blind. But it is a healing all right. I hope you understand where we're headed with these. Now look at Acts chapter 10.
Now Acts chapter 10.
Fascinating passage. Peter is at Jaffa Yafu, it's a suburb of contemporary Tel Aviv. And he is in a trance and he has this vision of a sheet being lowered down. And in it is non kosher food.
And God says, rise, Peter, have a ham on rye.
And Peter says, lord, I've never eaten anything that wasn't kosher.
And God says, never call anything unclean that I've cleansed.
Three times the vision, three times Peter's response, and three times God's answer.
Is Peter an interesting guy or what God has. How many of you raise teenagers? God has to tell Peter everything three times.
All through the Bible, all through the New Testament, Peter has to get everything three times.
So he wakes up and there's a knock at the door and there are Gentiles from Caesarea.
Caesarea. If I say it differently, it's Caesarea.
Caesarea is a city built for Romans who don't want to live in Jerusalem, on the seacoast built by Herod. It's named for Caesar, Caesarea. It's a. It's a blasphemous Roman city on Jewish soil. On Israeli soil. Jews won't even go there because it makes them unclean.
In that city there's a centurion named Cornelius.
So it's. He's a Roman, he's of the occupation army, the most hated of all the occupation army were centurions. And he's in a filthy city called Caesarea.
And God gives him a vision, tells him to go to. To Jaffa, find Simon Peter, and he'll come and tell you the words of life.
So here these Gentiles standing at your door, come to Caesarea. They're not even supposed to go in the city limits.
Come to Caesarea.
Never call anything, anyone unclean that I've cleansed.
So Peter goes with them and he preaches. And while he preaches, I want you to look at this again. Another troublesome passage.
Acts chapter 10, verse 44. And while Peter yet spoke these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
And they of the circumcision, meaning Jews which believed, believing Jews, Christian Jews believe, were astonished as many as came with Peter. Because on Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.
Okay, now look, this passage is problematical. Can anybody see what it is?
There's no sense that these people have prayed the sinner's prayer.
There's no sense that they're saved. They're pagans.
They're pagans.
So what happens is while they're listening to Peter preach, the Holy Spirit falls on. It's humiliating thing to happen to an evangelist. He doesn't even get to give his altar call.
Everybody just receives the Holy Ghost.
So they're Speaking in tongues. And they're pagans. They're not water baptized.
Okay, now look, here's the point I'm making. And I want to. I have to keep track of the time. I get cranked up and I'll go all night. But there's one more passage that I would read, but for the sake of time, we'll leave it to them. That's Acts chapter 19 at Ephesus, in Turkey, In Ephesus, where Paul arrives at the synagogue in Ephesus and says, ask them, have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? They said, we didn't even know if there was a Holy Spirit. That's their answer.
And Paul baptizes them in water and then lays hands on them and they receive the Holy Spirit.
So look at this. Now, here's what I'm trying to show you tonight.
Experiencing the upper room blessing is not a formula.
When you try to make it formulaic, you miss the quintessence of the experience itself.
So there are passages here where people audibly speak in tongues. Okay, maybe that happens every time, but it isn't recorded every time.
There are passages here where they're supernatural phenomena. Wind, fire, the building shakes. But it doesn't happen every time.
There are passages here, too, at least in Samaria and Ephesus, where people who are not Christians become Christians, receive water baptism, and then through the laying on of hands, received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
But just when you think you've got that. Okay, okay, now we know the rules. Then along comes Acts, chapter 10. And this is a room full of Roman pagans in a pagan city who received the baptism of the Spirit. And they're not even water baptized.
They haven't even joined the church.
They haven't been to membership, class, nothing.
They're just sitting there listening to a sermon and God fills them with the Holy Spirit.
So what can we say to these things?
I don't know if any of you ever had playing cards in your house when you were growing up. A lot of Pentecostals thought it was sin.
I was a Methodist. Nothing was sinful.
But we had playing cards all the time. And I don't know if you ever built cardhouses.
And then you turn one on end and brace it against another and another, and you work on it and get it built up two or three stories of card houses and you go, wow, that's great. And then your little sister come and shake the leg of the table and knock it all down.
What I think is this, we get all our theological card Houses about the Holy Spirit all built up. We work on it, hover over it, get it right. And we look up at God for approval and we say, there, Isn't that right?
And God says, that's wonderful.
Watch this.
See, the problem is the Holy Ghost will not read all our books about him.
He refuses to abide by all of our formulaic doctrines.
He blows where he will.
And so that's the reason I always say to everybody, be careful about imposing your formula on anybody else. The Holy Spirit is experienced. Contextually, he is experienced.
He comes experientially. Something happens.
The arena in which that happens is supernatural. But none of the concomitant phenomena are repeated.
Don't get hung up on the rules and the laws. And this has to happen, and that has to happen.
So I've got 60 seconds. Listen to this.
There's a lady walking through a field and she fell down into an abandoned well.
And it was just deep enough where she couldn't get out. Knee deep in water. She wasn't going to drown, but she couldn't get out. The walls are slimy. She tries. She's exhausted. She starts screaming and screaming. Nobody will come and help her. And finally, as people do in those situations, she decides to do a deal with God.
And she says, lord, if you will get me out of this well, I'll be the greatest soul winner this county has ever seen.
And sure enough, just as she said that, somebody leans over the well and says, can I help you? She says, I'm trapped. He gets her out of there and she's rescued. But unlike most people, she remembers her promise.
And she became one of the greatest soul winners the county had ever seen. You know how she did it? She'd take people out there in that field and push them down in the well.
The problem.
The problem with the engaging experience of the Holy Spirit, as wonderful and earth shaking and room shaking and powerful as it is, the problem is that we want everybody else to find the Holy Ghost in the same well where we found him.
Well, let me pray.
Heavenly Father, I thank you for these precious people who've come to study your word and hear from your spirit and your grace to be poured upon them.
Bless us, O Lord. Keep us strong in the spirit. May we walk in such a way that you will feel free to continue to pour your blessings upon us. We thank you for it. Now bless this precious church. Bless Pastor Grizzle, and bless these as we depart to our homes and places of business. In Jesus name the strong son of God.
Amen. Amen.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: You've been listening to the Leader's Notebook book with Dr. Mark Rutland. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review today's podcast. You can follow Dr. Rutland on Twitter @Dr. Mark Rutland or visit his website, Dr. MarkRutland. Com. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
