Jun P. Espina 8 min read
Updated on May 28th, 2022
God’s Promised Holy Spirit
What is the primary cause of our powerlessness in the pulpit? Most preachers and church workers are so powerless that it is difficult to fill the church auditorium with people without using extra-biblical teachings and strategies. It is one of the subjects discussed thoroughly in my eBook, PENTECOSTALISM, ITS THEOLOGY & THE CHARISMATIC CHAOS REVISITED: Reexamining the Scriptural Works of the Holy Spirit on Miracles, Speaking in Tongues, and Church Worship of Extreme Pentecostalism. God’s promised Holy Spirit is occupying a chapter or two in this paper that is now available at Amazon through this LINK.
I want to share a part of Chapter 3 of this eBook:
Tarry Ye in the City: Be Filled with the Spirit First
After Christ breathed into them the Holy Spirit, He said don’t preach yet but wait in Jerusalem for the needed power. (Luke 24:49) Don’t do evangelization, so to say; rather, wait for the “tools”!
FULLNESS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
We have already provided supporting Scriptures that prove God’s promised Holy Spirit to the saved soul. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens as part of our Second Birth experience. That is why the unbelievers of Christ love to ridicule born-again Christianity in the ways of a dog barking the wrong tree. They show ignorance about the Holy Spirit in our soul.
In Acts 7, we find the stoning of Stephen by the unbelievers as one proof of people misunderstanding the person, faith, and experience of the man born of God. In verses 55 up to 58, the Bible states:
But being full of the Holy Spirit [God’s promise Holy Spirit for service], he [Stephen] gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him.”
The signature of a born-again Christian is people hating, including relatives. In Matthew 10:22, Christ taught that “You will be hated by all because of My name.” In the Beatitudes, He also said: “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”
But the fake Christians don’t have a similar experience. Why because they don’t have Christ’s Spirit upon their souls!
The Promised Holy Spirit
Let us now discuss God’s promised Holy Spirit intended for preaching and witnessing that is unclaimed by most leaders of the Christian churches.
God’s promised Holy Spirit for pastors and workers of the church is different. It is the promise of the Father. (KJV) I want to give you a specimen of the little difference of the translations without changing the meaning that God’s promised Holy Spirit is the “promise of the Father.”
Of Luke 24:49
The first Scripture that we want to touch is Luke 24 and the other one in Acts 1 and 2.
Luke 24:49 (Italics added):
KJV: And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
NASB: And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
ESV: And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
[Note: KJV, NASB, ESV: Word-for-word translations]
NIV: I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
NLT: And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.
[Note: NIV, Paraphrased; NLT, a New translation]
Power from Heaven
We learned Christ’s Great Commission in Luke 24 focusing more on God’s promised Holy Spirit for service. For the same great task mentioned by Matthew 28:19-20, the stress was on Christ’s “I am with you always.” Note the promise of the Father in verses numbered 45 to 49 of the same Chapter 24 of Luke:
“Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’” (NASB. Italics added.)
What is that God’s promised Holy Spirit also termed as the promise of the Father?
Well, when Christ commissioned His disciples to preach the Gospel, He ordered them to tarry ye or to stay in the city; don’t preach until you are clothed [endued – KJV] with power. God’s promised Holy Spirit as “divine clothing” before preaching and winning souls is the power from heaven thus giving us a clear view of the Father’s promise.
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AND, BEHOLD, I SEND THE PROMISE OF MY FATHER UPON YOU: BUT TARRY YE IN THE CITY OF JERUSALEM, UNTIL YE BE ENDUED WITH POWER FROM ON HIGH.—LUKE 24:49, KJV
Sad that many church workers don’t claim this promise of the Father, which is also termed as the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is the reason there is no revival in true Christianity—we, Christians don’t have the unction of the Holy Spirit!
If we can just unload our theological revolver for a moment and inquire the promise of the Father or the baptism of the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues for the work of the ministry, then our preaching loads with spiritual power, convicts the hearts and reduces the population of the snoring or Facebooking church members—seeing our powerlessness in the pulpit.
Holy Spirit Baptism Without Speaking in Tongues
I love the books of R. A. Torrey (Reuben Archer Torrey, 1856-1928). In “The Person & Work of the Holy Spirit,” He wrote:
“In these days we hear of many who say they are ‘waiting for their Pentecost’; some have been waiting weeks, some have been waiting months, some have been waiting years. This is not scriptural and it is dishonoring to God. These brethren have an unscriptural view of what constitutes Pentecost. They have fixed it in their minds that certain manifestations should occur and when these particular manifestations, which they themselves have prescribed, do not come, they think they have not received the Holy Spirit. There are many who have been led into the error, already confuted in this book, that the baptism with the Holy Spirit always manifests itself in the gift of tongues. They have not received the gift of tongues and therefore they conclude that they have not received the baptism with the Holy Spirit. But as already seen, one may receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit and not receive the gift of tongues. Others still are waiting for some ecstatic feeling. We do not need to wait at all. We may meet the conditions, we may claim the blessing at once on the ground of God’s sure Word.
“There was a time in my ministry when I was led to say that I would never enter my pulpit again until I had been definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit and knew it, or until God in some way told me to go. I shut myself up in my study and day by day waited upon God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It was a time of struggle. The thought would arise, ‘Suppose you do not receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit before Sunday. How will it look for you to refuse to go into your pulpit?’ But I held fast to my resolution. I had a more or less definite thought in my mind of what might happen when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit, but it did not come that way at all. One morning as I waited upon God, one of the quietest and calmest moments of my life, it was just as if God said to me, ‘The blessing is yours. Now go and preach.’ If I had known my Bible the as I know it now, I might have heard that voice the very first day speaking to me through the Word, but I did not know it and God in His infinite condescension, looking upon my weakness, spoke it directly to my heart. There was no particular ecstasy or emotion, simply the calm assurance that the blessing was mine.” 4
The tendency of the Baptist and other non-charismatic denominations is to shy away from the Bible doctrine of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. “Such was a onetime occurrence during Pentecost”—we hear it many times in the Sunday school and in the pulpit. For the resistance and tension we have against the Pentecostal’s suspicious speaking in tongues, we give a blind eye on Peter’s exhortation: “and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Acts 2:38b-39) We saw the doctrine; we need to study it and ask our Lord Jesus for the correct interpretation of it.
I am not enthusiastic teaching Spirit baptism to close-minded leaders who prefer the help of the Microsoft’s PowerPoint than the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Christ told me to stay for the unction of the Holy Spirit and I believed it sincerely and experienced Christ’s using me somehow for His glory—without an overhead projector.
I was invited to speak to a group of public school teachers one Friday afternoon. The Gospel presentation was not a big deal since we knew it by heart. A few verses from the “Roman Road to Salvation” are enough and no need to prepare like you were a guest speaker of the United Nations. One week before my speaking engagement, I asked our Lord Jesus to anoint me and cover me with His Spirit and use me.
Long story short, Friday came and my wife and I arrived at the school moments before the schedule and faced immediately with the bad news that the meeting was cancelled.
To make use of the time, our contact invited us to her house instead so I could share the Gospel to her 70-year-old mother-in-law, her visitor, who was a retired teacher. I could hardly communicate with her as she could not understand my dialect. When I opened the Bible and explained to her the message of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, I saw her so enlightened her face vibrating with interest as she inquired: “What, am I a sinner?”
That old woman received our Lord that evening, but it was not the end of the story for she returned a year after desiring to attend our church.
The Gospel message opened her need for a Saviour, but I couldn’t have done it without the Holy Spirit using me. People saw themselves before God as sinners needing our Lord Jesus once the Holy Spirit is in attendance. God requires the unction of the Spirit if we want Christ’s message understood and souls saved!
Commenting on Lamentations 2:19, C. H. Spurgeon wrote:
“From the daughter of Zion her beauty is departed. Thus saith the Lord, ‘Arise, cry out in the night . . . pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord,’ and the Lord will return and be gracious to His inheritance.
“When God visits a people they not only attend to prayer and preaching, but they specifically go to ‘seek the Lord of hosts’. It is so easy to fall into formal worship. ‘I have been to the prayer meeting. I have done my duty, and I can go home satisfied. I have taken a seat at the Tabernacle and listened to two sermons on the Sunday, and I feel I have done my duty.’ What a poor way of living! We must want a great deal more than that. At the prayer meeting I must see God. I must pour out my soul before Him. I must feel that the spirit of prayer has been there, and that I have participated in it, otherwise, what was the good of my being there?” 5 ~
Note that the footnotes mentioned here are available at the eBook named above. Here’s the LINK.
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