Baptized in The Holy Spirit

and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of 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. Now, what happened here, this is a finished work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished the same as the work of redemption. That's what this is. It's a finished work that the Lord accomplished. It will not happen again like this. This is when the Lord Jesus baptized his church in the Holy Ghost, in the Holy Spirit. It's not to be confused with regeneration.

The disciples and apostles who believed were already born of the Holy Spirit This was a baptizing into the Holy Spirit. This is what our Lord promised to work just before he ascended to the Father, back up there in Acts 1, verse 4. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, you have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence, or baptized in the Holy Ghost not many days hence. That was a promise the father had made concerning his elect church, and Christ declared he would do it. And this is what John the Baptist spoke about. He said, I baptize you with water, unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire.

Later, the Lord Jesus did this to the Jewish elect, I mean the Gentile elect, Cornelius' house and others that he had called out and given faith And he did it to show his elect among the Jews that he had a people among the Gentiles. It said they of the circumcision which believed were astonished. Those that went with Peter down when he preached for Cornelius, they were astonished. And they said on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. Later, Peter talked about it. how he went to Cornelius's house and preached, and he said, and as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them as on us at the beginning.

Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. For as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did to us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, What was I that I could withstand God? When they heard these things, Peter told this to the other brethren, he said, when they heard him say these things, they held their peace and they glorified God, saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

This was a one-time work that our Savior finished whereby he baptized his one body, the church, Into the Holy Spirit into the realm of the Holy Spirit Paul quoted this in first Corinthians 12 He said as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many or one body So also is Christ For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body and I talk about water baptism He's talking about what the Lord did through the with the Holy Spirit He's saying we're all baptized into one spirit, into one spiritual body. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, we've been all made to drink into one spirit. I read Hebrews 1 to you because in the past, the Lord spoke a lot of different ways.

He spoke in visions, in dreams, through the prophets, through the burning bush. He spoke a lot of different ways, but our Lord In these last days, they began when Christ came. That's when the last days began. And since then, he's spoken one way by his son. And when our Lord ascended and he poured out the Holy Ghost, he declared by that that his church is now in the spirit. And he's speaking one way through the preaching of the gospel, through the Holy Spirit, to the spirit he's given to his people. That's what was signified.

He did it publicly so that they knew what he had done and so that the Jewish and Gentile brethren knew that this was a work of the Lord, that they were one, they were one church. Now, it'll help us to understand this a little better if we consider what Pentecost typified.

There were three feasts that the Lord called my feasts. The Lord called these my feasts. And the reason he called them that is because they glorify the Lord Jesus. And they declare that Christ is the fulfillment of every one of them, that he is alone the salvation of his people. That's why the Lord required three times There were three feasts that the males in Israel had to go to.

This was one of them. Or these were them that I'm about to give you. And every one of these feasts required that they do no work. They had to rest. Because there is no work whereby we can save ourselves. All three of these feasts declare Christ as salvation. It's by his works alone. The first is Passover.

Now, they were being reminded, the children of Israel were being reminded that the Lord brought them out of Egyptian bondage. But then and now, anybody born of the Spirit of God knew that this pointed to Christ. The Old Testament believers knew it just like you know it. They were in bondage in Egypt.

That's a picture of everybody God saves were in bondage to The curse of the law, guilty before God, the law said we had to die. That's the curse. We are in bondage to our sin nature. We cannot give ourselves spiritual life and faith. We don't have a will to do that. Our will is in bondage to our nature. That's so with everybody.

And it declared that only the Lord could deliver us from our sin, only he could deliver us from death, only he can deliver us from the power of the devil. And our Lord, what God said is he said, I'm gonna pass through Egypt and this is gonna be done through judgment. I'm gonna pass through Egypt and all the firstborn are going to die. But before he did that, he provided a Passover lamb for the firstborn in the houses of Israel. Christ Jesus is that lamb. He's the Passover lamb. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, Paul said. He's that Passover lamb.

He went to the cross and laid down his life in place of his people. And he bore the curse. He bore the condemnation that all his people deserve and satisfied justice by it so that God will not pour out justice a second time on anybody for whom Christ died. Christ accomplished the work. To say otherwise is to call him a failure. Christ accomplished what he came to do. He justified everybody he laid down his life for. And then God said, the elder of the house was to apply the blood to the doorpost. The elder of the Lord's house is Christ. He's the elder.

And through the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the gospel, he applies the blood to the heart of his child, giving you a new spirit and faith to trust him. And God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. You may get to a point where you don't even know who you are, much less know who the Lord is. God said, when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. If you're in Christ by the grace of God, if he's ever come to you and made you to know Christ and given you faith to trust him, the Lord God is looking to his son who justified his people. And he said, I'll pass over you. Justice is satisfied. Now, the next feast was the Feast of First Fruits, and this pictured Christ the first fruit. You can turn if you want, but I'll just give it to you.

But in Leviticus 23.10, the Lord told them, when you reap the harvest, you take the first fruit of that harvest. And you come to this feast and you bring a sheaf of the first fruits of the harvest unto the priest.

And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord. The people didn't even do it. The priest did it for them. And it's said to be accepted for you. And on the morrow after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it. And he said, and at the same time you shall offer a lamb a he-lamb without blemish as a burnt offering for you.

And all of that pictured Christ. The first fruit that they harvested, they waved it before the Lord, acknowledging that it was the Lord who made the life to come out of the earth. He made the fruit to come out of the earth. And if the first fruit was holy to the Lord, the rest of it was too. and that they were to observe this feast, and the very next day, or they did it the day after the Passover of the Sabbath.

It's the very day after Christ fulfilled the Passover feast, that night he ate that feast with them, and he, that night, was betrayed. And he instituted the Lord's table. We don't observe the Passover. We have the Lord's table to remember his broken body, broken for his people, his shed blood by which he wrote the New Testament in his blood, guaranteeing he shall save his people. But the next day after the Sabbath, there was that Friday, then the Sabbath, then that Sunday morning is when they were to offer this sheaf of the first fruit. And Christ, that's the very day Christ arose from the grave.

He is the first fruit. Christ is the first fruit. He is God who made him arise. And in Christ the first fruit, the rest of the fruit arose in him. All his elect arose in him. And he shall make each of his people arise from this cursed flesh made from the earth. He will make us arise when he gives you a new spirit to believe in, first of all, and then when you're in the grave, he will make you arise from the grave. Scripture says, now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

We arose in Christ, all his people did. For as in Adam, all Adam's children died. Everybody Adam represented died when Adam sinned. So in Christ shall all his people be made alive. Every man in his own order, Christ the first fruit, after a day that of Christ had his coming.

And by Christ the first fruit, each of his people shall be born again. He will send the gospel, he will send the spirit, and we shall be born again, every one of them. James said, of his own will, not our will, of his own will, begat he us with the word of truth, with the gospel, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation. He made us.

So Passover pictured Christ, then the Sunday after that, the first offering of the first fruit pictured Christ. Then came the feast of Pentecost. The Lord said, you shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. From that Sunday morning, he said, you count seven Sabbaths shall be complete. Even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you number 50 days. That's what Pentecost means. and you shall offer a new meat offering to the Lord.

And on this day, all things were new, so to speak. When they observed that ceremony, everything was new, so to speak. They were renewed. They dedicated themselves anew to the Lord. And they made new vows to the Lord. That's the exact day that this took place. 50 days after, the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit on the church. on that exact day.

And he is declaring that he has made all things new. And when we're born of the Spirit and regenerated, we're made a new creation, all new. And he gives you faith and you are dedicated by the Spirit, by his grace, to the Lord Jesus. and he keeps renewing you through the gospel, through the spirit, and that everlasting marriage covenant that we saw on Sunday. He keeps it brand new to you. Well, all of these things that took place, including this pouring out of the spirit, is Christ's finished work, is what he accomplished.

And he's declaring from that day forward, you just look back, from that day forward, everything changed. He never saved a person after that day, except through the preaching of the gospel. He always sent a preacher to him. He called Paul personally, but even Paul, he sent Ananias to him. But the Lord saves one way. It pleased the Lord to save through the foolishness of preaching.

Now it's Christ speaking, and he's speaking through the gospel, and he's speaking into the heart of his people. And you that have been born of him, heard the gospel and have him speak into your heart, you know that when he speaks, it's powerful. You know it. You believe him, you trust him, and he renews you by it. That's what's being declared. Everything's of the Lord.

Now, go back to the text here, and we're gonna dial in and see a little closer, looking at our text and see what else we can learn about our Savior and how that he does everything he purposed, everything we see here, he does through the Spirit. First of all, he is always right on time in fulfilling his purpose. It says there in verse one, when the day of Pentecost was fully come. You know, as if it wasn't enough that our Savior fulfilled each of these feasts fully, as if it wasn't enough that he accomplished it for his people, and shows his people what these things picture, but he did it at the exact time that the feast was to be observed. He showed us that he set that time to give us an idea of exactly what he was going to do, and then he did it exactly on the day, just like it was pictured in the old ceremony. We learn from our brethren in our text It's always best to wait on the Lord. His time is the right time.

He waited till Pentecost was fully come, and he did exactly what he promised him he would do. Waiting is the hardest thing that you and me do. We want to put our hand to it. Like us, we want to try to reach out, steady the ark, and the Lord don't need us to put our hand to it. We have to wait on the Lord. But you see here from this text, they went back and they waited.

They had the Lord's promise. And the Lord did it right on time, right on the exact time he said he would do it. And then we see here that the Lord, by his word, by his promise, by his spirit, through his gospel, unites his people all together. He does that by the word of his power. He makes us one and he blesses us to be gathered together as one and he blesses us when we're gathered together as one.

He told them, go back, wait for the promise. Now you just think about the power that the Lord worked in their heart to make them do that. This is where they saw, they saw Christ crucified and they're gonna go back close to Jerusalem and wait and then go into Jerusalem and pray. They did this by the spirit of the Lord. But it says there, verse one, and they were all with one accord in one place.

It pleased the Lord to save through the preaching of the gospel. The Lord proved over time that no man by his own wisdom can know God. That's what First Corinthians 121 says. After that, in the wisdom of God, man by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God to save through the foolishness of preaching.

If there's one thing he's declaring on this day of Pentecost when he poured out the spirit is, is from this day forward, I'm saving one way, through the preaching of the gospel. And I heard somebody not long ago say that the Lord could save any way he chooses to save. Yeah, he could save any way he chooses to save, and he told us how he chose to save. He said, I'm gonna save through the foolishness of preaching. And that doesn't limit his sovereignty, that exalts his sovereignty. Because if he tells you beforehand, this is how I'm going to do it, and then he does it that way, then you know he has the sovereign power to bring to pass what he purposed. And see, here's the mistake men make. They start trying to come up with these hypotheticals.

Judging from man up to God well What if man's on an island or what if man's over here in some foreign place, and he don't have the gospel? Like let's see how about like the Ethiopian eunuch on the back road not even on the main road on the back road Having left Jerusalem out in the middle of nowhere was the Lord able to send Philip to him send him right there and made him to know, this is the man you're sent to preach to.

And Philip preached the gospel to him, and the Lord saved him. What if the Lord, his preacher's on the way to a different place, but the Lord has a people over here in this place? The Lord told Paul, you can't go where you're wanting to go, Paul. You gotta go to Philippi and go down by the river. And Paul says, so we went there, And sure enough, there was some women down there by the river praying, and we preached the gospel to them, and the Lord saved Lydia.

But then he's got another one of his elect that he redeemed who's a jailer in a jailhouse. Well, how's he gonna get the gospel to him? He just lets the people reject Paul, and whip Paul, and beat Paul, and throw him in the jail. And then since an earthquake, and releases Paul, and when the jailer runs in, he's heard him singing the praises of God, and the jailer runs in, and Paul preached the gospel to him, and the Lord saved the Philippian jailer, and a bunch of other elect in his house, and they were baptized that night.

You wanna tell me God can't get the gospel to his child? God can get the gospel to his child. We're talking about Christ Jesus, who gets the glory for getting the gospel to his child. He's the prophet. That means he's going to be the preacher who saves. He's the priest. He's going to represent us to God. He's going to pray the father who's going to send the spirit. And he's the king who's sovereignly ruling everything to bring his child under the gospel.

And when people say, well, I think that's one way, that's like saying Christ is one way that God saves. To say the preaching of the gospel is one way he saves, well, how else is he going to save? Is he going to save through no message that glorifies Christ? He's gonna save by giving a message that gives Christ all the glory.

And he's gonna send the preacher, he's gonna give the message in the heart, he's gonna put the people under the preaching, then he's gonna put the new heart in the child, he's gonna give faith to the child, he's gonna make them hear the gospel that's being preached, and he's gonna bring them to confess Christ.

It's all of him. None of it's in our hand. It's all of him. If I believed one part of this work was up to me, I'd quit preaching. because I can't make anybody stay, I can't make them come, I sure can't make them stay. It's of him, it's not of us. But where he blesses, he gathers his people together in one accord, in one place, and that's where he sent out, sent the gospel, and that's where he sent the spirit. Paul said, we got one spirit, one faith, one baptism, and he makes you endeavor to keep that unity. because we're all dependent on the measure of the gift that Christ gives. And after he ascended, he gave the gifts of pastors and teachers and evangelists and apostles to bring us into one body and grow us up into him to protect us from false doctrine. He made nature to illustrate it. We're sheep, but sheep don't have defenses, and we don't have defenses. And sheep need a shepherd, And sheep need each other. You put a sheep out by itself, and that's the most dangerous place a sheep can be.

And that's me and you, who are believers. We need each other. We need to be under the care of Christ our shepherd through the preaching of this word. They were one accord in one place when he did this. And he commanded the blessing on them. And the oil came from the head all the way down to the members that day. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It's like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even the Aaron's beard that went down to the skirts of his garment, as the dew of Hermon, as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. That's the whole picture of what took place on the day of Pentecost. The oil of the Spirit poured out. from the head down onto the members, just like he did on Aaron that day. That's the unity the Spirit creates. Now here's the last thing I want to show you. The Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one. God the Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one. One God. One God. So what you see the Spirit do, you see Christ doing.

That's who's doing it. Now look what happened. Verse two says, suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Now look, a dead sinner must be born of the spirit of God. Christ declared that.

And he said, when the spirit comes, it's gonna come like the wind. You can't stop the wind, you don't know where the wind's coming from or where it's going. In other words, God is sovereign, Christ is sovereign, the Holy Spirit is sovereign. He said, I say unto you, except a man be born of the water, that's the gospel, the water of the word, except he be born of the Holy Spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of heaven because that which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of spirit is spirit. And he said, Marvel not, I said unto thee, you must be born again. The wind bloweth where it will. And now here's the sound thereof, but you can't tell whence it cometh and where it goes. So is everyone that's born of the Spirit. God the Father, Christ the Lord, and the Holy Spirit are one.

And he doesn't beg people, let the Lord have his way. Let him save you. That's not what he does. He comes into the heart. when the gospel's going forth, and he saves in power. He gives faith, he gives you a new will by his power, made willing in the day of his power, and you believe him.

That's how the spirit works. And then when we're born of the spirit, the sinner shall speak and give Christ all the glory, all the glory. This is not a maybe, this is certain. When that sinner is born of the Spirit, they give Christ all the glory. Verse 3 says, And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it set upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, when the Spirit of Christ enters a sinner, That sinner does not speak nonsensical nothingness.

He's not just speaking some nonsensical language when he begins to speak. A sinner speaks that already when they're dead in their sin. They already speak nonsensical language when they're dead in their sin. This charismatic stuff that people say is speaking in tongues, that's not speaking in tongues. It is not speaking in tongues.

But let me tell you something else, and this needs to be said. That nonsense that people are speaking, that it's no language, it's just gibberish, and they say it's an angelic language or whatever, that's absurd nonsense as a preacher who's standing up and saying, you need to be born again by your will, by something you do. You need to choose God, and then that's an indication God chose you because you chose him. or that you can do a work to make yourself righteous, or you can do a work to make yourself holy, or you can, by your power, persevere to the end. All of that is as nonsensical a language as these charismatic folks who stand up and act like they're speaking in tongues and are saying nothing. It's just as nonsensical to tell a sinner he can do something to save himself. It's dead. What does somebody speak when they're saved by the Spirit of God? Let's just read this. We're gonna preach on it next time, but let's look at this.

Verse five, and they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. This is one of those feasts they all had to come to, so there's men everywhere there, but the Lord drew people out of every nation. And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded because Every man heard them speak in his own language. They heard them speaking in their foreign language.

And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? So they obviously had never learned these languages they're speaking in. They're all Galilean. How hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? That's speaking in tongues. These men were speaking in languages they had never learned before this day.

The Spirit gave them the gift to speak in foreign languages. And what were they speaking? Well, he lists all those nations right there to make sure you understand what it means that they heard them speak in their own tongue, and it gets down to the end of verse nine, and here's what they were speaking. We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. That's what the Holy Spirit makes a man speak, right there, the wonderful works of God.

Before the man was speaking, he was speaking in tongues, what charismatics call speaking in tongues, he was speaking nonsense before. Before he was saying, well, I decided to give my heart to Jesus. That's no different than a man stood up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and saying he's speaking in tongues. It's just nonsensical, both of them are.

But when he saves you, you start speaking the wonderful works of God. I was saved by the wonderful works of God. God the Father chose me by grace. I wouldn't have chosen him. Christ came and redeemed me. He made me righteous. He sanctified me by his one offering. The Holy Spirit gave me a heart to hear the gospel and gave me faith to believe and granted me repentance from trusting in my dead works whereby I thought I made myself righteous.

He starts preaching the wonderful works of God. And go with me to Romans 8. I want to end with this. Here is what it means now that we've been baptized into the Spirit. You don't understand this until you've been born of the Spirit, when you've been regenerated and given faith. This is what it is. that Christ accomplished when he baptized his whole church in the spirit that day. When you're birthed again, then you come into an understanding of this right here. Verse five, Romans 8, five, they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh.

That's what all false religion preaches. Do this, don't do that. Touch this, don't touch that. Drink this, don't drink that. They are minding the things of the flesh. Touch not, taste not, handle not. But they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. I've been telling you what the Lord does. I've been preaching the wonderful works of God to you.

For to be carnally minded is death. That's all false religion is. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, hates God. For it's not subject to the word of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Here's what Christ accomplished on the day of Pentecost.

You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so be the spirit of God dwell in you. When he births you again and he's in you, he makes you know you're not in the spirit. You're in, I mean, you're not in the flesh, you're in the spirit. Now if any have not the spirit of Christ, he's none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you.

Here's what I'm saying. On that day of Pentecost, the Lord, when he baptized the church in the spirit, he said, from now on, I'm speaking by my son, I'm speaking through the gospel, and I'm speaking through the spirit, birthing a man and giving him a heart to hear what God says. And from that day forward, that man is gonna speak the wonderful works of God and give God all the glory. That's what the Lord does. I pray he bless you with that. We're gonna not sing a closing hymn.

Baptized in The Holy Spirit

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Baptized in The Holy Spirit

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