Every Believer Has Access to the Power of the Spirit

I want to invite you to the book of Acts, chapter 10... as you know, we are on this journey of sermons; I have called them doctrinal sermons, orthodox sermons, sermons that help us better understand the doctrine of our Christian faith. Unexpectedly, I stumbled upon a subseries within the larger series when I began to speak about the Holy Spirit.

Because in reality my desire was simply to have just one... one sermon on the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit among the many other doctrines that make up our Christian faith, but in discovering the importance of this teaching, we have spent about five Sundays talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it is clearly a vast, profound subject, very varied in its different ramifications, shall we say.

And last Sunday morning, those who were here at the morning service will remember that I took the case of David as a comparison—let us call it the case of Saul—where Saul is, in a sense, baptized in the Holy Spirit; and we pointed out that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not something God came up with in the New Testament, but that already in the Old Testament we see that when God wanted someone to accomplish something special, whether a priest, a prophet, or a king, and assigned him a supernatural task, He anointed that person with His Holy Spirit.

The difference between what we see in the Old Testament and the New Testament is that now, with Pentecost, with the coming of Jesus Christ, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, God’s empowerment, now becomes universal; every believer has access to the power of the Holy Spirit. How many believe that? Amen.

The apostle Peter says when he preaches his first sermon, “...it is for those who are far away and for those who are near, for all whom the Lord may call...” And that is something we often forget in the Christian faith: that it is for everyone... Some say, “Well, I do not need the baptism of the Holy Spirit because I am a Christian, I have already received Christ, and with Christ comes everything.”

But we see in Scripture that there is an experience called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is very diverse in the way it manifests itself, but which we should seek, and we should distinguish it from other experiences, such as receiving Christ as Lord and Savior, and that this does not require a great sacrifice.

I do not know why people have made this matter of the baptism of the Holy Spirit so problematic. I think that many times what happens is that those of us who identify with that experience, that doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, have often complicated it more than necessary, and people have become somewhat afraid of it, and it has caused so much controversy through the centuries. But I believe that every believer can ask the Holy Spirit to baptize and fill him, with the absolute assurance that he will receive that fullness of the Holy Spirit. And we have to do so in order to have that extra portion of anointing we need to complete the tasks God assigns us, just like the kings, priests, and prophets of the Old Testament.

God assigned the early church, the church of the first century, an impossible task according to rational frameworks. He told them, “...go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples of the nations, commanding them to obey everything I have taught you...” In other words, conquer the world. And He said this to a band of ignorant, frightened, inconsistent people. Look at Peter: he denied Jesus Christ; the others scattered when the Lord was crucified and said, “Well, we thought He was God’s chosen one.” And He assigned them an impossible task, and that is why He told them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until you receive power from on high, until you receive the anointing of the Holy Spirit,” because by themselves they could never do that; but with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, they would then be able to fulfill what God was asking of them.

And that is how we are, brothers and sisters. God asks us to live victorious lives, to evangelize the world, to obey His Word, to tithe to the Lord, to bring the flesh under control, to be effective in the colonization, so to speak, of the world—tasks that we cannot accomplish by ourselves. And that is why we need that anointing, that touch, that endowment of power from God, and that is also why it is so important to insist on this.

I want to invite you to Acts chapter 10 so that we can study it for a moment, but simply as a starting point, because today I want to analyze a little what the specific effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit are, what the baptism of the Holy Spirit does, and I also want to speak about misconceptions concerning the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And here we see a situation in chapter 10 involving Cornelius, a centurion, a soldier, an officer in the Roman army, who did not belong to Judaism; that is, he had not converted, he was not an evangelical, he was not even a Catholic. He was simply a God-fearing man who had been stationed in a region where he had come into contact with Judaism and had been somewhat captivated by the doctrine of Judaism. But he was not a convert; he was simply a man who feared God, who gave offerings to the Lord, perhaps using his authority, performed good works for the Jews, hungered and thirsted for God, and prayed to that God whom he wanted to know.

Notice that. And the reason I choose Cornelius is that Cornelius is a sui generis case, as they say in philosophy, a unique case that violates all the patterns that until then had been in effect in the way God dealt with the Gentiles, with non-Jewish people.

And this is important so that we understand that the Holy Spirit can do whatever He pleases. We cannot confine the moving of the Holy Spirit; we cannot force it into a pattern and say, “Only in this way will the baptism of the Holy Spirit manifest itself in a person.”

And look... let us begin quickly this way: verse 30, chapter 10. Peter arrives at Cornelius’s house, and to describe what has happened, an angel appears to Cornelius one day while he is praying and fasting and says to him, “Cornelius, God has heard your petitions and your prayers; your offerings have come up as a memorial before God, and God is going to do something in your life.” And the Holy Spirit goes to Peter, a Jew who is very insistent about his Judaism and who has the prejudices that all Jews have against the Gentiles, and tells the apostle Peter, “Go, travel to Joppa, and speak with Cornelius and his family, because I want you to do something there.”

First He gives him a vision of unclean things that a Jew is not supposed to eat, and tells him, “Kill and eat.” And Peter tells Him three times, “I cannot eat that, Lord, because it is unclean.” And finally the Lord tells him, “Do not call unclean what I have sanctified.” Then He sends Peter to Cornelius’s house, and Peter begins to preach... or rather, when Cornelius receives Peter, he tells him what happened to him, right?

“...Four days ago... verse 30... at this hour I was fasting, and at the ninth hour, while I was praying in my house, I saw a man in shining clothing stand before me...” And he describes to him what I have just described to you.

In verse 34 it says, “...Then Peter opened his mouth and said, ‘In truth I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation He is pleased with the one who fears Him and does what is right...’” And then Peter begins to preach the gospel to him, as one would in any such situation. He begins to preach an evangelistic sermon to Cornelius and his entire family, who are gathered in the living room of the house, shall we say.

And what happens? While Peter is preaching the gospel, verse 44 says:

“...While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the message...” Verse 44: “...And the believers of the circumcision who had come with Peter...” That is, there were other devout Jews who had come, evidently Christians, “...who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had also been poured out upon the Gentiles...”

Why? Because up to that time, of the Jews who had converted to Jesus Christ, 99.99 percent of the converted church was Jewish. But obviously God wanted His Word and His anointing to reach the ends of the earth, and this is the official beginning, so to speak, of a gospel that now begins to spread throughout the world—from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to all the earth.

This is a key moment in the history of the church, and therefore this moment needs to be marked in a very dramatic, very graphic way, and it needs to be celebrated in a very powerful way, as the day of Pentecost was as well. There had to be something absolutely otherworldly, extraordinary, to mark that moment when the Holy Spirit now descends and falls upon the multitude, declaring that now the gospel and the anointing of God are for everyone. And that is why, I believe, the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was so exceptional: they spoke in tongues, but not just any tongues; they were human languages, languages that could be recognized and understood by all the Jews who were in Jerusalem at that time celebrating Passover, who had come from all over the world and had their own languages in which they had been raised.

Now, at this moment, God wants to do something exceptional as well, and while Peter preaches the gospel, it says that the Holy Spirit falls. And these Jewish Christians, who thought that Jesus Christ was simply a Messiah for Israel and that the gospel was going to remain only among the Jews—the Lord says, “No, it is not that way. This is for the whole world”—and then they are astonished. Their theology is shattered. They were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had also been poured out upon the Gentiles, because they heard them speaking in tongues and magnifying God; that is, they prophesied, they praised. It was a moment of exaltation like those that sometimes occur during a congregation’s worship, when the Lord begins to move and people feel the joy of the Holy Spirit, feel an intensity. We had a moment like that a little while ago during our time of worship here.

They magnified God, “...and then Peter responded, ‘Can anyone withhold the water so that these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have, should not be baptized?’ And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus...”

Do you see? Peter obediently realizes, “Wow, if these people have been baptized in that way, who am I to interfere with what God has done?” Why does God baptize these people without Peter laying hands on them? Because if Peter had laid hands on them, he would have gotten into tremendous trouble with the denominational authorities in Jerusalem. They would have said to him, “How dare you lay hands on people who were not legitimate believers?” God had to do things in such a way that there would be no doubt that it was not the work of man, but the work of God, because it went so, so violently against the prevailing theological frameworks among the Jewish Christians that a very direct intervention by God was needed to break that framework and declare, “No, I want these people too... the Gentiles, to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

And then, when Peter returns to Jerusalem to give the disciples, the apostles who were there, a report of what had happened—because this was something very serious—he uses as evidence that this was from God the fact that they were baptized without him laying hands on them, without anyone intervening, but that it was a sovereign act of God; that in the same way He baptized those who were in the upper room, He had also baptized Cornelius.

Now, why do I choose this passage? Because I want you to see something here. What I want is to stretch your theological flexibility and show you something, namely that... look, when it comes to the baptism of the Holy Spirit... as I was saying, God can do whatever He pleases...

I think that many denominations have tried to force it into a pattern, right? You have to do this, you have to do that, you have to speak in this way, you have to fall to the floor, you have to... start trembling, you have to... start weeping, there has to be a moment when a lot of dust rises in the sanctuary, or things like that.

Look, brother, God does whatever He pleases. Here He baptizes with the Holy Spirit, first, people upon whom no one lays hands; second, Gentile people; and third, people who, in reality, have not yet said, “I receive Christ as my Lord and Savior.” Cornelius is not yet a bona fide Christian in the sense that Peter did not say to him, “Do you receive Christ as your Lord and Savior?” “Oh yes, I receive Him.” No. While Peter is preaching to him about Jesus, the Holy Spirit falls upon them. The Spirit blows, the Lord says, wherever He wishes, and we, brothers and sisters, must have that flexibility.

If there is one thing I have learned over the years from reading the Word, observing the phenomenon of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, observing many Pentecostal churches and many variations among people baptized in the Spirit and filled with the Spirit, and studying the phenomenon of the baptism of the Holy Spirit—and after reading so many commentaries and so many books about how the baptism of the Holy Spirit is received—I want to tell you, brothers and sisters, that among the people of God there is immense diversity regarding how the baptism of the Holy Spirit is received. Even Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God have been slowly and subtly moving away from that doctrine which says that you absolutely have to speak in tongues, that tongues are the absolute evidence that you have received the Holy Spirit, and that if you do not speak in tongues, you cannot have received the Holy Spirit.

I believe in tongues; I speak in tongues, as Paul says. Paul says, “…I speak in tongues more than all of you…” I am not going to say that, but I believe in tongues. I believe that speaking in tongues is not some otherworldly thing; we make it far too complicated. But I believe that the Lord can baptize… There are people in different parts of the Christian world whom I believe to be Christians filled with the Holy Spirit who have not spoken in tongues, but that does not mean… I have seen those people have visions and dreams, seen God perform miracles through them, and seen God work miraculously in their lives in powerful ways—people who are effective in evangelism, people filled with passion for the Lord, people who know and love the Word—but they do not speak in tongues.

I do not believe that, because of this, we can say they are not filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, I also believe that God can baptize you with His Spirit and that you should seek to speak in tongues. Speaking in tongues is something—and I am getting a little ahead of myself here—that really does not require so much emotionalism, so much commotion. If God touches you that way, glory to God, but it is not… And I know that… for many of you, if you come from a classical Pentecostal background, this may sound a little shocking, but I assure you that I am in very good company, alongside great theologians and people far more knowledgeable than I am about these matters from a biblical standpoint, who very much agree with this.

So we have to be careful; we have to be very, very flexible about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and not box God in by saying that it has to happen this way or in some “x” way. I already told you how I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit years ago. It was not a thunderous event with cymbals and explosions and angels circling the ceiling; it was something calm, personal, and quiet, and the Lord filled me with His Holy Spirit. I began to see powerful changes in my life and in my circumstances, and from that moment on, it was as though the Lord sealed me and began to unleash a ministerial calling in my life that had already been there for many years.

And it is important that you not become tense about the doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Now, setting that aside, I ask you: Well, why is receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit so important, then? What does the Holy Spirit do when He fills a person? What are the effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Look, after observing a great deal, reading Scripture extensively, reading many different kinds of books, and observing Christians in different denominations and groups, I have reached the conclusion that the following are some of the characteristics and effects of the Holy Spirit.

Number one, I believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit seals the believer with a supernatural mindset—what I call a supernatural mindset. That is, it is as though the Spirit… when you are filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you are given an awareness that the world you inhabit is a supernatural world. It is… as though there is a… a very intense impartation of that awareness. I believe that many other Christians, evangelicals of other kinds, have that awareness, but I believe that for the person filled with the Holy Spirit, it is as though their mindset… the filter through which they view reality is one that knows they are moving within a supernatural realm. In my opinion, that believer knows in a very strong, very intense way the importance of the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of prayer and fasting, the dimension of spiritual warfare, the perfection of the Scriptures, the necessity of holiness, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. All those components of what I call a supernatural mindset become more active in the life of a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit. Thus, there is a supernatural mindset that grows stronger in the believer’s life.

Number two, I believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit imparts to the believer a passion for the things of the Kingdom of God. There is, as it were, an additional passion, a greater enthusiasm for the things of God. That does not mean that others who have not had that experience feel no passion, but I believe that this spreading of passion for the things of the Kingdom of God is more widespread when a person receives that fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Third, I put it this way: it replaces the believer’s engine; it adds a new capacity, a new strength to carry out the tasks God wants us to perform. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ tells His disciples, “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and then you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the earth…” It is as though there is an additional component; it puts more horsepower into the engine you have. I spoke about a computer into which more memory is installed, giving it greater power and greater operating capacity. That is the classic impact of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Fourth, it gives authority to testify about Jesus and increases one’s passion for souls and what the Bible calls boldness in witnessing. What happens to Peter and his colleagues? When Peter receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that same fearful Peter who denies Jesus before a small group of people—and denies Him with curses so they will be convinced that he is not a follower of Jesus—now stands before a multitude and preaches a sermon so effective that thousands of people are converted. That is a change. And those disciples who had been running around and hiding now stir all of Jerusalem, create what amounts to a political, social, and religious crisis throughout Israel, shake up all the surrounding regions, and in a short time the Gospel begins to spread like wildfire through every district, because they receive that authority, that passion, that boldness to testify about God. That is something; it is a characteristic.

Brothers and sisters, I have seen many believers who are not educated people and are not even very spiritual Christians, in the sense of being people who display the fruit of the Holy Spirit, yet they have a passion and an effectiveness for bringing souls into the Kingdom of God. Many times they put their foot in it; for every good thing they do, they do ten bad ones, but they bring people in. They are… they have a passion for the Kingdom of God and are effective at evangelizing. Later, you have to take the new believers away from them, because if you leave them there, they… just as they brought them in, they drive them right back out again; but at least they bring them in. They have a passion for God.

Another thing: the baptism of the Holy Spirit seals the believer against falling away. I have seen many, many Christians who have been touched by the Holy Spirit, and later you see them… Look, they may be on drugs, they may leave the Gospel, but when you get to know them, you see that they bear a mark, and there is anguish in them, there is agony. It is as though the Lord will not leave them alone, and I believe that sooner or later those people who had an experience with the fire of God will have to return to the Gospel, because the divine hound pursues them until they return once again to the way of the Lord. So you see them, but you know that they are marked, that they are being pursued. Like Cain, they bear a mark wherever they go; the Lord will keep pointing them out and calling them to His Kingdom. That is the advantage, I believe: there is something that will not leave them alone, because they know that God has marked them.

Another thing: it opens access to the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit and to their regular exercise. I believe that when a person has an experience with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is as though a spiritual bank account is opened from which the person can now begin to draw supernatural power. The gifts of tongues, the interpretation of tongues, signs and wonders, miracles, faith, prophecy—all these gifts begin to manifest themselves in different ways; the Holy Spirit begins to do something supernatural in the believer’s life.

A congregation in which the Holy Spirit and His baptism are commonplace is a congregation in which people will be receiving a word from the Lord; someone here will have a dream, someone else will sense a concern and share it. There will be overall evangelistic effectiveness; it is as though the gifts begin to flow in different ways as the Lord distributes them throughout the body of Jesus Christ.

Seventh, it intensifies the believer’s experience and makes them passionate about the Christian life. I believe I have already spoken a little about that, so I will not emphasize it.

Eighth, it makes the believer more productive than they would normally be without the baptism. In other words, many Christians who normally would not be very effective because they lack education, do not have an evangelistic temperament, or do not have teaching gifts or whatever, suddenly begin to bear more fruit than they normally would.

I have seen people with no education whatsoever, with no particular great abilities, whom God begins to use in ways no one would expect of them when they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, because they have within them that anointing of God, which expands their capacity a little more.

And finally, it imparts conviction to the believer regarding their faith. That word “conviction” is very important. I believe that the person filled with the Holy Spirit has a… it is as though a piece of concrete were placed in their innermost being, anchoring them, making them firm, giving them weight and conviction regarding their faith. They may not have the rational arguments to debate someone about their faith, but they have an unshakable conviction that Christ is who He says He is.

They believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ, believe in bearing witness with conviction, believe the claims of the Gospel, and believe in their experience of salvation; that conviction is there, reinforcing their Christian experience.

As you can see, these are some of the things… Again, I believe this is based on my observation; it is based first and foremost on what the Word of the Lord suggests, and it is based on the extensive reading I have done of different theological viewpoints, including those of various commentators within the Pentecostal world.

When one summarizes all these things, these elements, as it were, come to light. If you examine the book of Acts as a whole, you will see this kind of atmosphere, this kind of environment, in which the qualities I have just pointed out are at work.

Notice something interesting: the book of Acts is the only narrative book in the New Testament. All the other books… well, there are the Gospels—I stand corrected—but once you move beyond the Gospels, the only other narrative of events in the style of the Old Testament that we have in the New Testament is the book of Acts. The rest are doctrinal books, letters written by the apostle Paul or by John or Peter or James.

Why did God want us to have this book of Acts? Because it is a way, as it were, of removing the roof from the first century and looking into the life of the Spirit-filled church: a church empowered and endowed with power, a church that speaks with authority, a church that experiences signs and wonders in its midst, a church that impacts the society in which it operates, a church in which the power of God manifests itself in terrifying ways, as it did with Ananias and Sapphira, a church that causes conflict and spiritual clashes with society because it cannot be ignored, a church that even experiences divine appointments in the process of evangelization, in which God helps the church in its evangelistic work.

It is as though, by then… it is like fishing in a swimming pool. The souls are already poised to enter the Gospel; they are dazed, and all you have to do is blow on them and they immediately enter the Kingdom of God.

Look, for example, at the case of the Ethiopian. The Holy Spirit takes Philip, miraculously transports him to a desert place, and there Philip meets a man from Ethiopia, a high official of the queen of Ethiopia. Philip approaches the Ethiopian; the man, like Cornelius, is reading, troubled by…

Look, there are so many restless souls in the world outside today, longing for someone to come and speak to them about the Gospel. There are many people yearning to receive from God, and it seems that what we lack today is the connection—simply the connection. Nowadays, the modern church has to invest so much effort, so much money, so many programs, and so much equipment for one soul to be converted, and there are churches that have literally not seen a conversion in decades; what is more, they are dying. New England is a cemetery of churches, you know?

The first church we occupied was a church in Cambridge that was very much a product of that era, if you know what I mean, and it had died—a church where only a tiny handful of elderly people remained, struggling for years to keep the church open, and finally they had to turn over a marvelous, beautiful sanctuary in the city of Cambridge, with a lovely parsonage in the city of Watertown, and they had to give it up because no one came anymore. Those elderly people were godly, but they could not even clean the church, so they had to turn it over for a group of Latino people, filled with the Holy Spirit, to come and take it, possess it, and put it to use.

And that is what often happens: when God’s anointing rests upon a people, the gifts and resources of the Kingdom pass to that people. Did you know that?

It says that to the one who has much, more will be given, right? To the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away, it says. Where the anointing of the Holy Spirit is present, powerful things happen; where the anointing of the Holy Spirit is not present, where there is a people who are not actively seeking, desiring, and asking for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, little by little the power declines, the energy declines, the life declines, the evangelistic strength, the anointing, the joy of praise, God’s transforming work in the body of Jesus Christ declines, and the body begins to die. That infusion of God’s grace is needed for a church, for a person, to remain vital, active, and effective in the Kingdom of God. And that is why a church that wants to be effective in society must always be preaching these things, remembering these things, rehearsing them again, learning them, strengthening them, because otherwise, little by little, the drowsiness of life begins to set in, and the church declines and declines, sinking further into routine, into programs, into what was done yesterday, what was done a year ago, and its strength and vitality decline, and that affects how that church relates to the society out there.

But when the Holy Spirit is alive and active in a congregation, things happen, as the little chorus says: there are divine encounters, there are appointments that take place.

When Philip is sent by the Holy Spirit, he encounters this official from a distant and powerful nation, Ethiopia. The man is spiritually restless, and the Holy Spirit makes sure that this encounter takes place between Philip, who has an evangelistic gift, and this man, who has an evangelistic need. And Philip begins a dialogue with this man and preaches the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him, and this man receives the Lord. He even puts pressure on Philip and says to him—because perhaps Philip had spoken to him about water baptism—“Well, look, here is a little pool of water. What prevents me from being baptized? Since I’m leaving, I want to leave with everything complete.” And it says that Philip baptized him right then and there, and this man went on his way happy, singing and worshiping the Lord.

And you know what? Today, today in the twenty-first century, there are people in Ethiopia who connect their Christianity with that Ethiopian who arrived there. Ethiopia is one of the few nations in the Middle East that has a vibrant Christian community, one that clearly dates back to this Ethiopian’s encounter with the Holy Spirit.

And we often see things like that: Cornelius, another man, a Roman soldier who feared God, sees an angel appear to him and make a connection with Peter, bringing Peter to preach the Gospel to him. The Holy Spirit falls upon this man, and he and his entire household are converted. Because when the Holy Spirit is moving in a congregation, in an atmosphere, in a Christian community, things become much easier. Do you understand?

God’s call to evangelize, to make an impact, to disciple, to convince the community of Jesus Christ’s messianic claims, becomes much easier. Why is it so difficult to evangelize in New England today? Why are people so hard? Why is there so much filth? So much stale rationalism in this New England society? Because once, in this place, God visited Boston, all of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. God visited this region with His power, with His Gospel, and this region flourished and came to know the power of God, and it was the seat of an entire evangelistic movement throughout the whole land. But afterward they gradually died away; they embraced rationalistic doctrines that came from Europe with the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, and Boston became a humanistic, Unitarian place where the Gospel was rejected and the Spirit of God was grieved.

And today this place, which was the cradle of the Gospel, is the hardest place in all the United States and one of the hardest places in the entire world, because to whom much is given, much is required. Do you understand? They did not tend the garden; they did not continue seeking the intensity of the Holy Spirit. They fell in love with the rationalistic doctrines that came on other winds instead of seeking the wind of the Holy Spirit. And it is terrible when a person has known the grace and power of God and then grieves Him and drives Him away; that person’s latter state becomes worse than the first.

And I believe that is why the devil has spread so widely through these cities and has raged so fiercely against New England, and only a church filled with the Holy Spirit, a visitation of fire from God, will break this. That is why many people are asking for revival, but they are asking for it in their own way; they are asking the Lord to do it very decently, very properly, in a middle-class fashion. But when the Holy Spirit comes, it will not be that way, and people have to... we as believers have to be open to whatever God wants to do. We have to hunger for the Lord, we have to yearn for the Holy Spirit, we have to say to the Father, “Lord, do whatever You please. If You want to make the pastor dance the Macarena in front of the whole crowd, so be it, in the name of Jesus.” I say amen, glory to God.

Let us not put obstacles in the Holy Spirit’s way. Let us eagerly desire the Holy Spirit. Let us say to Him, “Lord, do whatever You want, but without You we die; without Your powerful moving we cannot go out. Do not send us away from here unless You go before us.” And when many churches, when many congregations throughout this entire area begin to desire God’s moving in this way, when they begin to break out of their middle-class molds, when they begin to humble their appetite for elegance, order, predictability, and repetitive patterns in their meetings and begin to give the Holy Spirit lordship and sovereignty, and this begins to spread throughout the whole region, a network of anointing will be created that will make encounters possible, like the encounter with the Ethiopian, the encounter with Cornelius, and Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman. Because when the Holy Spirit is present in a community, He makes things easier, facilitates encounters, prepares souls, and softens their hearts so that they receive the seed of the Gospel, and what once required a great deal of work, a great deal of effort, now happens easily.

A grain is cast, and it makes a noise like the Jordan, because there is fertile soil that God has been preparing. Oh, but how difficult it is to sow where the soil is packed down and hard, where it has not been tilled; and that falls to the church, it falls to you, it falls to me.

We have to ask the Lord, “Lord, move us by the power of Your Holy Spirit, make us fruitful through the power of the Holy Spirit, open us up.” Every day I have to ask the Lord, “Father, You have given me the task of pastoring a congregation, of impacting a community; I need Your Spirit.” And you have assignments as a mother, as a father. How difficult it is today to pass our faith on to our children; how difficult it is today to raise teenage children; how hard it is when, in this land, the school undoes with its feet what you do with your hands.

You preach to them... you want to preach to your children about respect, the fear of God, and submission to authority, while at school they question authority: “You owe your parents nothing; there is not just one God, but many gods; you can do whatever you please; express yourself.” How difficult it is.

But when the power of the Holy Spirit is present in a family, making an impact becomes much easier, brother. God makes you more effective in sharing the Gospel with your children; God gives you a special anointing; God gives you wisdom. In your work, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit for the dilemmas found in modern life, for the temptations found in modern life, for the way one declines spiritually because one moves through a barren environment. It is like walking through the desert: your fluids are depleted and dry up quickly because you are in a desert environment.

The same thing happens with God’s anointing, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the joy of God, and the perception of the supernatural: this ultra-secularized and ultra-rational world in which you move absorbs them from you, and you need to drink more spiritual water. You need to have more of the Spirit’s anointing; you need to keep your little jug ready there so you can drink once again from the wine of the Spirit and remain revived and full.

We cannot live the way people live in other environments where perhaps the pressure is less. Here we contend with principalities and powers that have entrenched themselves in this society, and living a fruitful, prosperous, blessed, vibrant Christian life becomes three or ten times more difficult than in other environments where there is less resistance.

Here in the United States and in the industrialized Western world, there are demons wearing three-piece suits, and we do not identify them as demons because we think demons are only people foaming at the mouth and with their eyes rolling around in their sockets. Those are... look, there are demon-possessed people in the highest corporations in the United States; there are demon-possessed people in Washington; there are demon-possessed people teaching classes and giving lectures at Harvard University, because this is an extremely demonized environment, and only people filled with the power of the Holy Spirit can prosper in these environments. Only a church endowed with exceptional power can do the work God wants it to do.

This is not going to be broken with a little six-ounce hammer; a sledgehammer is needed to break such a hard stone. And that is why you need more than merely a generic spiritual experience. You need more than simply coming to church on Sunday, sitting there, hearing a watered-down sermon, as we say, and then going home just as barren as when you came in. You need to know where to go to eat and where to go to drink: directly to the fountain of the Spirit of God.

I want the musicians to come up here. I did not have time to go into many more things, but at least, brothers and sisters, let this be clear. I do not believe that this matter of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is something spectacular or problematic; we have complicated it far more than necessary. All I am saying is that there is something called the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and you need it, and every day you have to go to the heavenly Father and ask Him, “Fill me again, Lord, fill me again.” This does not happen through a merely routine life. Do not think for a moment that it is enough simply to come to church and sit on a pew, and that this alone makes you a Christian filled with the Spirit. That is simply something important but very minimal compared with what is required.

Every day, every day, you have to be going to the fountain; every day renewing your walk with God; every day asking the Lord, just as I go every day and say to Him, “Father, I have a day ahead of me, and I have to minister to Your people, I have to give counsel, I have to make administrative decisions, I have to preach the Gospel, and I need... my hands are empty, and I am the steward of Your house, and I have to pay those who come to sell the milk and the food so that Your children can eat, and I have to make decisions concerning Your house, so give me the portion I need.”

You have seen those women who work in Latin America; we call them servants, which in my opinion is a horrible term, but these young women work, and in the morning, if they are cooks, they have to go to the lady of the house so she can give them the money to buy the meat for the day, or the vegetables. Have any of you experienced... have you seen that or experienced it? They do not have the money; the lady or the man of the house has it, but they need to manage the household economy, and they have to go to the man or woman of the house; they have to ask.

That is how I picture myself, and that is how you have to picture yourself as well. You have responsibilities resting upon your life; you have children who depend on you, a home, a wife, a husband; you have a world that needs to hear about Jesus Christ; you have to make serious decisions that will affect the well-being of your home and your community. And every day you have to come to the Holy Spirit and say, “Holy Spirit, my hands are empty. I am Your steward. I need my food for today and for my people who are... who depend on me,” and you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit again; you have to seek the anointing of the Holy Spirit again.

I will finish with this. Years ago, many years ago, God gave me a dream that has always stayed with me. Few dreams in my life have left their mark on me, and this was one of them. And I dreamed about a Volkswagen—just imagine—from the 1960s. They were vans of a certain size; don’t you remember them? They were like the first Volkswagen minivans, those boxy ones... how many of you remember them? Don’t worry—admit it, admit it, okay? Perhaps I am giving away my age by saying that.

The thing is, in the dream I saw one of those boxy Volkswagens, a minivan, like a little Volkswagen van, but the wheels—all four wheels on that Volkswagen—were bicycle wheels. It looked ridiculous, because there was this heavy Volkswagen with four bicycle wheels supporting it, and the Lord said to me: Roberto, you are like that; you are carrying a heavy load, but you have four wheels that are weak, and you need to strengthen them. And I remember that I was told what the four wheels were: prayer, fasting, the Word, and holiness. And God said to me: you have to strengthen yourself in those four things because you have many people resting on you; you need to strengthen yourself.

Brother, that is what God is saying to you in your life and to me in mine. How are we going to deal with the burdens of life? How are we going to deal with the tasks He commands us to carry out? Impossible tasks—we need to strengthen ourselves; we need to put some air in those tires. Sister, we need to change the tires and strengthen ourselves spiritually; we have to come to the waters, drink from the waters, and be filled.

The Word says, “...do not get drunk on wine, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit...” Hallelujah! And that does not mean that you have to go around jumping like a little lamb or that you have to be shouting and doing outlandish things. Simply fill yourself with the Spirit of God, drink from the waters every day, make time to pray, make time to fast, make time to meditate on the things of God, make time to pray... to pray with someone who has the anointing of God, and say to him: Brother, come here; I want you close to me because I want some of your anointing. And you have to seek more of God in your life every day. In that way, you will be able to live a life filled with the Holy Spirit.

How many want that effective life? Amen. How many want to renounce right now the dead, routine, empty religion that gives nothing, brothers and sisters? God wants a people filled with the Holy Spirit who can conquer the nations, a people who can break through the hard rock of this barren society, which is ensnared in Satan’s demonic net and of which the apostle’s words are fulfilled: if the Gospel is hidden, it is hidden among those who are perishing, among whom the god of this world has blinded their minds so that the light of the Gospel will not shine upon them. And this church has to break that yoke, it has to tear apart that net of blindness, and it has to bring souls in.

I believe that God has a revival for the nations, but that revival will be carried out by a church anointed and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit—a church that knows how to return to the ancient paths, a church that recovers the vessels of the temple that are in Babylon, searches for them, and brings them back into the temple of God. Those vessels are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Oh, may the Lord allow a great hunger, a longing, to spread among us. On these Sundays, I have sought to awaken in you—and to rekindle in my own life—a passion for the Holy Spirit, a keen awareness of the crucial importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and a desire for a church that walks solidly and wholly in the power, the flow, and the empowering of God.

Stand to your feet now. As we have done during these days, I want to invite you to renew your covenant with the Spirit of God. If you wish, raise your hands to the Lord right now and say to Him: Father, fill me again; refresh me today, refresh me. Bring fresh anointing into my life. Pour Your oil upon me, Lord; pour Your oil upon my life. I want more of You, Holy Spirit. Transform me, fill me, change me, break me, undo me, reshape me, transform me.

Spirit of God, I need You; Spirit of God, I need You. Lord, we need You; without You we can do nothing. Make us fall in love with You, Lord. We love You so much; we love You so much, Spirit of God. Strengthen us. We want to take root in Your soil; we want to drink from those underground waters; we want to drink from those secret waters. Even in desert places, we want to sink our roots deep and drink from the water of Your Spirit, Lord, because You want a people who will walk and not grow weary. You want a people who will run without becoming faint. You want a people who will soar on wings like eagles, renewing their strength in flight without having to land, because You renew them day by day, and they walk on, eating food not made by human hands.

Father, raise up Your people. We ask for a revived church in New England, Lord. We ask for a church that, like David, will defeat the giant with a single well-aimed stone, Lord, cut off his head, and bring revival to Your church.

Oh, begin with us, Lord; begin with us. Begin with me, Father. Break our vessel, undo the misshapen clay, Father, and shape it anew. Give us a new heart, Father.

Oh, in the name of Jesus, Lord, allow a new course to be set for this congregation through this word. And so I bless my brothers and sisters from Barbara Anne Rossler, Lord, who have come to visit this morning, and I ask that their church also be renewed and that today, Lord, they may experience a gentle breath of Your breeze, and that their pastors there, Lord, and that congregation may be strengthened in the Spirit.

And we pray for our nations, Lord, wherever we come from, the different countries represented here. Continue to strengthen Your church, Lord. Continue pouring out Your anointing, Father, upon the Anglo-American community, the African American community, the Asian community, Lord, and the Haitian and Brazilian communities in this region, Father.

Pour out Your Spirit, oh Lord; pour out Your glory. Father, we want to see Your glory manifested. Revive Your people, Father, so that Goliath will no longer laugh at the army of the living God, so that he may know there is authority on the earth.

Oh Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your people this morning.

We receive it. Say: I receive, and I receive the baptism; I receive the filling of the Holy Spirit in my life. You strengthen me, Lord; You give me wings like eagles. Thank You, Lord; thank You for renewing me, thank You for strengthening me, thank You for filling me. Say it to the Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory to the name of the Lord. Thank You, Jesus.