S. Receiving the Holy Spirit
RECEIVING THE HOLY SPIRIT
01-24-54a
You’re listening to the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. And this is the pastor bringing the morning message from the first part of Acts 19:1-41. In our preaching through the Word, last Sunday, we closed, we stopped on the first part of Acts 19:1.
"And it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth" -- and that’s where we stopped. While Apollos was at Corinth. Now we continue in Acts 19:1-41.
"While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus." The capital city of proconsular Asia, the Roman province of Asia came to Ephesus.
"And finding certain disciples,
"He said unto them, `Have you received the Holy Spirit since ye believed?’ And they said unto him, `We have not so much have heard whether there be any Holy Spirit.’
"And he said unto them, `Unto what then were you baptized?’ And they said, `Unto John’s baptism.’
"Then says Paul, `John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on Him which should come after Him, that is, on Christ Jesus.’
"When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
"And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied.
"And all of the men were about twelve." That possibly is one of the most difficult passages to understand in the whole New Testament. For example, you have here a generation after John the Baptist is dead, you have disciples of John the Baptist.
John has been martyred for more than thirty years. And yet here are disciples of the John the Baptist. And not only that, but these disciples of John the Baptist in this Acts 19:1-41 are not on the banks of the Jordan River nor are they even in the wilderness of Judea, but they are in Ephesus. Far, far away in the capital city of Asia. And if you remember in the few verses just above, you have another disciple of John the Baptist, the eloquent Apollos who hailed from Alexandria, the capital of Egypt, on the other side of the Mediterranean world. That causes an unusual question. Disciples of John the Baptist. A Baptist movement that had its origins in the great forerunner that continues on through the years and the years. Where did they come from? Who are they and what became of them? Then you have another problem here. The baptism of John. That was the only baptism that Jesus had. It was the only baptism that the apostles had. In fact, the qualification for a man to be an apostle were two.
One, He had to be baptized by John the Baptist. And second, he had to be a personal witness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Yet in this passage are disciples of John the Baptist who said they were baptized in John’s baptism. Whom Paul baptized again. That was to give your casting aspersion and discredit upon the baptism of John.
That’s just some of the problems that lie in this passage. So let’s start out on them. Because in finding an answer, there is in it a marvelous truth for us who are Christians. The first startling fact when you began to pull back into those days, the first startling fact you will discover is this, that there was a movement, the John the Baptist movement that was parallel to and alongside the Christian movement. They, too, were side by side. May [have] simultaneously developed.
You and I think of the great forerunner as announcing the coming of the Lord, preparing disciples for the Lord and that his movement was enmeshed and amalgamated and finally, encompassed by the Christian movement.
That’s not true at all. The John the Baptist movement continuous alongside the Christian movement. And John made disciples and those disciples made disciples. And Jesus made disciples. And those disciples made disciples. And the two movements went along side by side. And almost from the beginning, there was a bitter antipathy and antagonism between the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have time this morning, barely to refer to that conflict. But you look at it. In John 3:1-36, beginning in John 3:22 it said, "After these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land of Judea and they tarried there and baptized." So Jesus is there in the land of Judea, baptizing. "And John also was baptizing, in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there." Whatever baptism John was using, he had to have lots of water. Not a cup full. Not a glass full. Not a trunk phone [sic] fen full, but lots of water. A tub full. A baptistry full. A river full. A pond full.
Now, "John also was baptizing in Aenon because there was much water there and they came and were baptized,
"Because John was not yet cast in prison." The two are side by side. Making disciples, baptizing those disciples and making converts.
"Then there arose an altercation between John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying." Now, what was that purifying? Look at it.
"And they came unto John and said unto thee [him], `Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan to Whom thou barest witness, behold the same baptizeth, yet He is more popular than you. You have lost your rabbit’s foot. It is Jesus that is the song on the lips and the praise from the heart and all men come to Him." And the disciples of John the Baptist were taking it hard. They were taking it hard. That altercation over purifying was over baptizing. Baptism is a purification. It is a sign of purification. It is a sign of washing and of cleansing. The cleansing of the soul and of the heart are a sign and a washing of the body. And they were in an altercation as the disciples of John the Baptist said, "The true baptism is from John. He got it from heaven." And the disciples of Jesus were saying, "The true baptism is from Christ. He is the great Messiah promised."
They were having a lot of trouble there among those Jewish people. Now, you take one other. The disciples of John the Baptist made a direct frontal attack upon the Lord Jesus in the days of His ministry.
Here in Acts 5:33 [sic, Luke], "And they said unto Him, `Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers? But Thou, Brother, all You are doing is eating and drinking and having a good time.’"
"You’re over there staying with that bunch of kids. And You ought to be praying. You are up there with these men in those bowling lanes and you ought to be fasting. Then You wouldn’t have enough strength to bowl.
"You are around there with this crowd out at Mount Lebanon in a camp out there with these young idiots. And You ought to be there down on your knees. Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers and you, you eat and drink?"
You’ll find the same thing in Mark 2:1-28. And the disciples of John came to Him and said, "Here we are fasting and look at You. Look at You."
Now, I haven’t time to go into that. Let’s continue on. I am pointing out to you that even in the days of the flesh of our Lord, there was antipathy and jealousy and conflicts and antagonism between the disciples of John and the disciples of the Lord Jesus.
I kind of hate to preach like this because I haven’t the beginning of time to encompass it all. And there is a lot more to this than I am saying. John the Baptist was loyal. And he died loyal to the Savior. John the Baptist was raised of God to introduce the Lord Jesus and he did it. And the true disciples of John the Baptist entered the Christian movement. John, the man who wrote the fourth Gospel, Simon Peter, Andrew, all of the apostles of the Lord Jesus were disciples of John the Baptist. But there was a difference in them. Some of the disciples of John entered the Christian movement, but a great host of them didn’t. And as we go on, that will appear. But in no sense, must you get the idea that John was not faithful to his witness and loyal to the Lord Jesus, and he died that.
Now, let me go back. From the beginning, I say, there was conflict and altercation and jealousy and enmity between many of the disciples of John and the popularity and prestige and growing fame of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, when John died, that did not in any wise take away from his prophetic stature. Even in his prison, the disciples of John loved their master. And Herod gave them opportunity to visit him and to minister to him. And when John was beheaded, it just made him a greater prophet in their eyes. You remember Mat 21:1-46 and other Gospel. The Lord Jesus Himself said, "John’s baptism, was it of men or was it of heaven?" And the Jews said, "If we say it is from heaven, why, the Lord will say, `Well, why didn’t you believe Him and accept Me as the Messiah?’ But if we say it is from him, why the people will stone us. Because” -- the Bible says - “all men took John for a prophet.” And he’s been dead and is beheaded and yet, beheaded and dead, he was still the stature of the great prophet before the people. So the death of John the Baptist made no difference in the worship of the disciples as they remembered their glorious master.
Now, that John the Baptist movement continued like the rippling out of the waves to a drop of a rock in a lake. The John the Baptist movement went out and out and out until it conquered the entire civilized world. For one thing, many pilgrims came to Judea, to the feast and they heard the great prophet preach. And they repented of their sins and they were baptized by John. And when they went back home, they took the message of the great forerunner with them. And they made converts and the movement went on.
You will find over here in Alexandria I say, Apollos is a disciple of John the Baptist. And here in Ephesus, you will find these twelve men who are disciples of disciples of John the Baptist.
Then when you go beyond the veil of older Scriptures, you will find these church fathers, those early ecclesiastical historians, you will find them mentioning the disciples of John the Baptist.
One author is Justin Martyr. He refers to the disciples of John. As Justin was martyred in 110 A. D. Then you will find in Hegesippus. Hegesippus was an early church historian. And he lived about 160 A. D. And he mentioned the disciples of John the Baptist. And there is a pseudo literature called the Clementine Homilies and the Clementine Organization. They have been reported to have been written by Clement who was reported to have been a bishop in the church at Rome. And they are an unusual collection of literature. And the heart of the Clementine literature is this: they are struggling with problems in their own day. Say about 200 A. D. So Clement, the early bishop, pastor of the church at Rome is writing back there what happened back in the apostolic day. And so have Peter and John and the rest of them giving answers to problems that they are meeting in 200 A. D. It is a spiritual epigraphic literature. It is a soft literature. It is not authentic but it shows you the time. And this -- these Clementine recognitions I’m going to read a passage, a little brief passage. Look at it.
"And behold, one of the disciples of John asserted that John was the Christ and not Jesus. Inasmuch as Jesus Himself declared that John was greater than all men and all prophets.
"If then, said he, he be greater than all, he must be greater than Moses and of Jesus Himself. But if he be the greatest of all, is not he then the Christ?" The disciples of John the Baptist, two hundred years now after the Lord Jesus. The disciples of John the Baptist are declaring that the great forerunner is the Christ, the Messiah Himself.
Now, I can find that thing here in the Bible. John the sainted author of the fourth Gospel. John lived to be about one hundred years old. And in 100 A. D., John was still living and he was at Ephesus. He was at Ephesus, the city of Ephesus. And he pastored the church at Ephesus for many, many years.
Now, John said that if you were to try to write down everything that the Lord Jesus did, the world itself could not contain the book[s] that could be written. So John says he picked out this little bit, what little bit that he has written here in the Gospel, he has chosen that in order that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
Now, it is perfectly -- in his perfect selection of what he is going to write about the Lord Jesus, John in Ephesus is careful to write down even in the little bit that he chooses, he is careful to write down the testimony of John the Baptist concerning his being the Christ.
John 1:20, "And John confessed, John the Baptist confessed and denied not. But confessed, I am not the Christ."
Well, who said he was the Christ? There were lots of people saying John was the Christ. There were many disciples of disciples of John the Baptist who were saying the forerunner was the promised Messiah. So here in the Gospel of John, John took pains to turn aside and write down the testimony of the Baptist. And the whole chapter there, that whole section which I haven’t time to read is the testimony of John. And that’s the strongest way you can say it, "He confessed, denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ."
Now, the reason that Luke wrote this passage here in the 19th chapter of the Book of Acts, where we are preaching from this morning. It was a libation in the first Christian century, these disciples of John the Baptist. So Luke was writing here how Paul dealt with the problem. And gave that illustration. Now let me tell you something that is one of the most unusual things you could ever dig out.
There are disciples of John the Baptist today. In the Mesopotamian Valley, there are about two thousand souls who call themselves, Mandaeans. Or disciples of John the Baptist. And they have a John’s book and they look upon John as the promised teacher and Messiah who was to come into the world.
Now, what kind of a religion was that John the Baptist movement? What kind of a people were they? Well, it is easy to answer that question. The John the Baptist religion, the disciples of John the Baptist and the kind of people they were, they were severe and aesthetic.
John the Baptist himself was one of the most impressive of all of the men who have ever appeared across the stage of human history. He looked like and he talked like a prophet that had stepped out of the pages of the Old Testament. His beard was unkempt. His hair had never been cut for over thirty years and hanged in jagged, and hung in shaggy locks around his shoulders. He was dressed in poor camel cast cloth with a leather curtain around his waist. And he thundered the repentance and the judgment and the coming fury of the kingdom of God. And he was bold and impressive in his implacable and inflexible countenance. And John and his disciples were amazed at the congeniality of Jesus. And the disciples of the Lord. They were rigorous. They are monastic. [But these others,] they were common. And the movement had in it a tremendous appeal to all classes, to people who are classless and aesthetic or the worldly religion. So as time went on, people who thought that the Christian movement was dilettante. It was effeminate. It was effete. It was too much here down in the world. And they liked the fury and the judgment and the preaching of the fire and the brimstone of John the Baptist. So they just kept on in that religion. And the thing echoed and reverberated and made converts and continued through the years and the centuries. So when Paul came to Ephesus, he looked at those twelve men.
How did he know there was something wrong with their religion? Why, to the discerning eye of the apostle, I can tell you exactly how Paul saw it. Was sensitive to it. And in solicitude and in love and in anxiety searched it out.
Whenever you see a people who have lost the optimism of their religion. When you see a people that have lost the triumph of their religion. When you see people who have lost the glory and the happiness and the joy and the fullness and the look and the work and the gladness and the ecstasy of their religion there is something wrong.
There is something wrong. Because religion puts a soul in man’s heart. Religion puts a smile on his face. Religion puts a persuasion, a feeling of triumph in his life. Whether we live or whether we die. Whether we have or have not. Whether we are sick or whether we are well. Whether we are here or there.
True religion in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ has a song even in the night. So Paul looked at those twelve disciples. They were twelve men, twelve heads bowed. Twelve faces lined with austerity. And the monasticism and the severity of a religion of fear and subservient and resentment.
They were pulled out of the world. The world wretched and vile. And when they touch it, the violin is an instrument of the devil and we must never bring it into the church. So said the Monastics. And they -- the whole set up of the creation is vile and iniquitous and we must pull out from it.
Now, how do I preach and be misunderstood again? We ought to pull out from the compromise and iniquity of the world. But we ought to stay down there in the world where the folks are. If they live on the breach of hell, our church ought to be on the brink of hell trying to minister to the people who walk around on its verge. Where the people are, the church ought to be. Where the young people are, the church ought to be. Where the folks are, you ought to be. Whether you have all eternity to live up there in glory, God needs somebody down here, just like you. Just like you. And that’s what Christians say. The Christian religion is a down-to-earth religion. Get lost in the dust of the ground. It will be for the people, it knocks at the door. The Lord Jesus said, "I come to break bread at your house this day." So Paul looked at them and they were the lugubrious, sad, pathetic monastics. And Paul looked at them and said, "My soul, my soul. Does religion affect you that way?" The judgment of God coming in this way? We have a message of hope. So he asked them a question, "Tell me, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Was there a gladness of regeneration in your heart when you found religion? Did you find God and victory and triumph, did you?" And they said, "This Holy Spirit? All we know is monastic aesthetic. We never heard of whether there ever be any Holy Spirit or not."
Now, there is a key that I can see what kind of people they were. And now, I cannot pass by the little comment on the movement of John the Baptist. As the movement progressed, some of it was good like Apollos. He wasn’t that type. Apollos had the same baptism Jesus did and the apostles did. And he was a true disciple of the John the Baptist made ready for the coming of the Lord. And when Aquila and Priscilla told him about the Lord Jesus, immediately he was ready and received him. That’s the true John the Baptist movement from the Lord Himself. But these men, the disciples of John the Baptist made disciples. And these disciples made disciples. And these disciples made disciples. And this made disciples and finally, they got away from the original intention and meaning and purpose of the Baptist movement altogether. So these men here never heard of the Holy Spirit and yet they said they were disciples of John the Baptist. Why, they didn’t know anything about God. Tell me, when John the Baptist preached, didn’t he preach like this?
"I baptize you in water. But He that cometh after me Who is greater than I, He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." Did he do that? Yet these men had never heard about the Holy Spirit. Never heard about the Holy Spirit. They got away altogether from the true meaning of the movement of John the Baptist. So Paul when he looked at them he said, "Listen here, that baptism that you have is nothing. And that religion that you have is worse than nothing." So he told them the truth of the faith by the Lord Jesus. And then they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Now, the best I can, may I encompass a whole hour’s appeal in a few sentences? One, one, baptism, this baptism, the baptism in water, the baptism they are talking about here, baptism and the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as any meaning in baptism apart from the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.
You might as well go out there and let the president of the Chamber of Commerce dunk you in a pool as to say, "My baptism has meaning apart from the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit."
It has no meaning at all. It has to be upon a confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you must be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. An unconscious influx, a somebody who is not converted, one who is not prepared for baptism, it is nothing. It is nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Apart from the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, a baptism in water is nothing, nothing. And another word regarding the baptism itself. The baptizing itself. Paul then said, "Then you must be baptized again." Or re-baptized.
"You must be baptized again." There that briefing that you will find here in that action of Paul, one is, Paul refused to allow Christianity to dissolve, to fall in the empty, hollow, ceremonialism of the Jews’ religion, of Judaism.
There is no rite. There is no ceremony. Baptism or any other rite. There is no other rite in the earth that has in any effect or any meaning or any spiritual power aside from a regeneration in the heart. The movement of God in the spirit and in the soul. And the rite on the outside is nothing at all. Nothing at all. Because you have been baptized means nothing at all. Nothing at all.
"But Preacher, I get baptized and I belong to such and such church." It means nothing at all. It has to believe. It is a moving of the Spirit on the inside. The thing is genuine and real according to the inside and the outside is just a token symbol, a pronouncement, a heralding.
First, Paul refused to allow the Christian faith just as it stands in the heart of ceremony. I baptize. I am in the church. I’m on the way to heaven. "Not so," says Paul. "Not so."
You may be good and you may read the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, but you are lost. No matter how many times you are baptized or how many preachers told you belong unless there is something that is moved on the inside of the soul and the heart.
All right. The second thing here. Paul also insisted on the right administration of the ordinance. You can baptize, yes. But were you baptized for the right motive? Were you baptized for the right purpose? Were you baptized by the right administrative? Were you? Were you?
Paul insists. He insists that a true baptism, to be a baptism must be the right purpose, the right cause, the right meaning, the right person and the right administrator. And you have here the Scripture for the insistence of your present pastor and many, many men who stand by his side or by whom I stand, you have the Scripture here why we insist on the rebaptizing or the real baptizing of these who come to us and say. And now may I make illustration just a moment?
I do not know how many and this will be typical who will come to me and say, "Pastor, I want to join the First Baptist Church. We love this church. And we love to go hear the Word preached. And I want to join the church."
I say, "Welcome, a thousand times welcome. Have you given your heart to God?"
"Sir, I’ve been saved. I’ve been converted."
"Have you been baptized?"