If there is anything that always comes up when you get nearest to God, that is the thing to deal with. Some years ago at a convention in a Southern state, the presiding officer, a minister in the Baptist Church, called my attention to a man and said, “That man is the pope of our denomination in ——; everything he says goes, but he is not at all with us in this matter, but I am glad to see him here.” This minister kept attending the meetings. At the close of the last meeting where I had spoken upon the conditions of receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit, I found this man awaiting me in the vestibule. He said, “I did not stand up on your invitation to-day.” I replied, “I saw you did not.” “I thought you said,” he continued, “that you only wanted those to stand who could say they had absolutely surrendered to God?” “That is what I did say,” I replied. “Well, I could not say that.” “Then you did perfectly right not to stand. I did not want you to lie to God.” “Say,” he continued, “you hit me pretty hard to-day. You said if there was anything that always comes up when you get nearest to God, that is the thing to deal with. Now there is something that always comes up when I get nearest to God. I am not going to tell you what it is. I think you know.” “Yes,” I replied. (I could smell it.) “Well, I simply wanted to say this to you.” This was on Friday afternoon. I had occasion to go to another city, and returning through that city the following Tuesday morning, the minister who had presided at the meeting was at the station. “I wish you could have been in our Baptist ministers’ meeting yesterday morning,” he said; “that man I pointed out to you from the north part of the state was present. He got up in our meeting and said, ‘Brethren, we have been all wrong about this matter,’ and then he told what he had done. He had settled his controversy with God, had given up the thing which had always come up when he got nearest to God, then he continued and said, ‘Brethren, I have received a more definite experience than I had when I was converted.’ ” Just such an experience is waiting many another, both minister and layman, just as soon as he will judge his sin, just as soon as he will put away the thing that is a matter of controversy between him and God, no matter how small the thing may seem. If any one sincerely desires the baptism with the Holy Spirit, he should go alone with God and ask God to search him and bring to light anything in his heart or life that is displeasing to Him, and when He brings it to light, he should put it away. If after sincerely waiting on God, nothing is brought to light, then we may proceed to take the other steps. But there is no use praying, no use going to conventions, no use in reading books about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, no use in doing anything else, until we judge our sins.
3. The third step is _an open confession of our renunciation of sin and our acceptance of Jesus Christ_. After telling his hearers to repent in Acts ii. 38, Peter continues and tells them to be “baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins.” Heart repentance alone was not enough. There must be an open confession of that repentance, and God’s appointed way of confession of repentance is baptism. None of those to whom Peter spoke had ever been baptized, and, of course, what Peter meant in that case was water baptism. But suppose one has already been baptized, what then? Even in that case, there must be that for which baptism stands, namely, an open confession of our renunciation of sin and our acceptance of Jesus Christ. The baptism with the Spirit is not for the secret disciple, but for the open confessed disciple. There are many doubtless to-day who are trying to be Christians in their hearts, many who really believe that they have accepted Jesus as their Saviour and their Lord and have renounced sin, but they are not willing to make an open confession of their renunciation of sin and their acceptance of Christ. Such an one cannot have the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Some one may ask, “Do not the Friends (‘Quakers’), who do not believe in water baptism, give evidence of being baptized with the Holy Spirit?” Doubtless many of them do, but this does not alter the teaching of God’s Word. God doubtless condescends in many instances where people are misled as to the teaching of His Word to their ignorance, if they are sincere, but that fact does not alter His Word, and even with a member of the congregation of Friends, who sincerely does not believe in water baptism, there must be before the blessing is received that for which baptism stands, namely, the open confession of our acceptance of Christ and of our renunciation of sin.