The Christian Church celebrates Pentecost, some times called Whitsunday, in remembrance of the time 50 days after the Resurrection of Jesus when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early church to launch them into the ministry of telling the story of Jesus to the whole world. This event is recorded in our New Testament Book of Acts in chapter 2 verses 1 through 47 and happened on a Sunday which would have probably been May 28, AD 30 if we reckon back using our current calendar. After Jesus rose from the dead there were over 500 believers who saw Him and believed in His resurrection according to the record of the Apostle Paul in
1 Corinthians 15:6 which he wrote about 25 years after that original Pentecost recorded in Acts chapter 2. About 120 of those 500 believers were baptized in the Holy Spirit on that Pentecost Sunday in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts chapter 2.
There are many works accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the life of each child of God. His work begins in us early in life and He draws and calls us to Jesus; convicts us of our sin; gives us faith to believe in Jesus; grants us repentance; births us into the family of God; places us into the body of Christ; seals us unto the day of redemption; and then preserves and keeps us throughout the rest of our Christian life.
One experience spoken of in the New Testament is called a “baptism in the Spirit.” This was spoken of by John the Baptist as he introduced Jesus. He presented Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (
John 1:29, salvation) and also as the One who would baptize people in the Holy Spirit (
John 1:33, Holy Ghost Baptism). There are differences among Christians as to whether the salvation or born again experience is separate from a subsequent experience called the baptism in the Spirit or the filling of the Spirit or the empowering of the Spirit.
In my opinion they are two separate experiences. This is seen by the way Jesus gathered disciples around Himself who definitely were saved and serving Him but after His resurrection He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem until they were baptized in the Spirit (ref
Acts 1:4-8). It is also seen in the experience of the Samaritans who were converted and baptized in water in the winter of AD 31/32 and then later baptized in the Spirit (
Acts 8:5-17). This pattern was displayed in the experience of Saul of Tarsus who was converted on the road outside the city of Damascus on January 25, AD 32 but was not filled with the Spirit or baptized in the Spirit until 3 days later (
Acts 9:1-19).
Below are the experiences of some great evangelists and Christian leaders of the past plus a word from Billy Graham about the Baptism of the Spirit.
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Charles G. Finney (Evangelist and Teacher 1792 - 1875)
I was powerfully converted on a morning of the month of October, 1822. In the evening of the same day I received overwhelming baptisms of the Holy Ghost, that went through me, as it seemed to me, body and soul. I immediately found myself endued with such power from on high that a few words dropped here and there to individuals were the means of their immediate conversion. My words seemed to fasten like barbed arrows in the souls of men. They cut like a sword. They broke the heart like a hammer. Multitudes can attest to this. Oftentimes a word dropped without my remembering it would fasten conviction, and often result in almost immediate conversion. Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go and visit, and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray, with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power had departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself, and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life.
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Dwight Lyman Moody (Evangelist and Author (1837 - 1899)
D.L. Moody was a successful minister but by his own admission later, he lacked the power in his ministry. One day two women came up to him after a service. They said,
"We have been praying for you."
"Why don't you pray for the people?" he asked.
"Because you need the power of the Spirit," they said.
"I need the power! Why," said Mr. Moody, in relating the incident years after, "I thought I had power. I had the largest congregations in Chicago, and there were many conversions.”
Moody also said that in a sense, he was satisfied. He was in a comfort zone. But these two praying women rocked the boat. They told him that they were praying for an anointing by the Holy Spirit for D.L. to have a special service to God. He could not get this off his mind and he said, “There came a great hunger in my soul. I did not know what it was and I began to cry out to God as never before. I felt I did not want to live if I could not have this power for service”.
After the great fire of Chicago, DL was working to raise money to rebuild a tabernacle. He said his heart was not into it because he kept crying out to God to fill him. He withdrew and prayed during a visit to New York to raise money and he cried that God would fill him with His Spirit. DL describes it this way:
“Well, one day, in the city of New York -- oh, what a day! -- I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years. I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask Him to stay His hand. I went to preaching again. The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths, and yet hundreds were converted. I would not now be placed back where I was before that blessed experience if you should give me all the world -- it would be as the small dust of the balance.”
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Reuben Archer Torrey (Revivalist, Evangelist and Teacher 1856 - 1928)
R. A. Torrey gives his testimony:
The address of this afternoon, and the addresses of the days immediately to follow, are the outcome of an experience, and that experience was the outcome of a study of the Word of God. After I had been a Christian for some years, and after I had been in the ministry for some years, my attention was strongly attracted to certain phrases found in the Gospels and in the Acts of the Apostles, and in the Epistles, such as "baptized with the Holy Spirit," "filled with the Spirit," "the Holy Spirit fell upon them," "the gift of the Holy Spirit," "endued with power from on high," and other closely allied phrases. As I studied these various phrases in their context, it became clear to me that they all stood for essentially the same experience; and it also became clear to me that God has provided for each child of His in this present dispensation that they should be thus "baptized with the Spirit," or, "filled with the Spirit."
As I studied the subject still further, I became convinced that they described an experience which I did not myself possess, and I went to work to secure for myself the experience thus described. I sought earnestly that I might "be baptized with the Holy Spirit." I went at it very ignorantly. I have often wondered if anyone ever went at it any more ignorantly than I did. But while I was ignorant, I was thoroughly sincere and in earnest, and God met me, as He always meets the sincere and earnest soul, no matter how ignorant he may be; and God gave me what I sought, I was "baptized with the Holy Spirit." And the result was a transformed Christian life and a transformed ministry.
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John R. Rice (Baptist evangelist, 1895 - 1980)
It is not wise to base a doctrine upon human experiences. For example, thousands of people have been converted to God, really saved, at mourners' benches. But that is not any reason for anybody to say that a mourners' bench is essential to salvation. Some people delight in their "experience," remembering that they felt a great ecstasy and shouted the praises of God when they were born again. But it would be foolish for us to thereby conclude that one cannot be saved without shouting the praises of God. It is never wise to make a doctrine out of our human experiences. Nevertheless, when the Bible clearly teaches a truth. it is refreshing and helpful to have human experiences testify to the truth of the Bible doctrine.
In that great book, The Holy Spirit: Who He Is, and What He Does, Dr. R. A. Torrey in chapter five gives three defining statements as to what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is. ...
1. In the first place, the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a definite experience of which one may know whether he has received it or not ....
2. In the second place, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is a work of the Holy Spirit distinct from and additional to His regenerating work ....
3. In the third place, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is a work of the Holy Spirit always connected with and primarily for the purpose of testimony and service.
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This is from page 16 of the February 1962 issue of Voice Magazine published by the FGBMFI (Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International). It is my understanding that it is from a message delivered before a group of ministers at Sacramento, CA.
Be Baptized With The Holy Spirit
by Billy Graham
We have learned much about the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, in the main denominations, we have looked a bit askance at our brethren from the Pentecostal churches because of their emphasis on the Holy Spirit.
I wonder if one of the secrets of Pentecostalism cannot be learned by our main stream churches by placing emphasis on the Holy Spirit. I am sure that my Pentecostal brethren that are here today would agree with me that there have been extremes and excesses that have embarrassed many of them at times, but I want to tell you I believe the time has come to give the Holy Spirit His rightful place in our preaching, in our teaching, and in our churches! We need to go back and study again what Paul meant when he said, "Be filled with the Spirit.” We need to learn once again what it means to be Baptized with the Holy Spirit. I know that we can rationalize, and immediately ten thousand theological questions arise and we try to figure it all out; but brethren, I want to tell you that we need to accept, we need to get something! Give it any terminology you want, but we do not have the same dynamic and the same power the Early Church had.
They had no Bibles, no seminaries nor Bible schools, no radios, no telephones, no printing presses, nothing! However, they turned the world upside down in one generation! What did they have? They had an experience with the living Christ! They had the filling of the Holy Spirit!
Look what we should be doing with our churches and seminaries, and all the other facilities that we have.
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