Part 94

3. The third question that will arise with some is, _May we not have to wait for the baptism with the Holy __ Spirit?_ Did not the Apostles have to wait ten days, and may we not have to wait ten days or even more? No, there is no necessity that we wait. We are told distinctly in the Bible why the Apostles had to wait ten days. In Acts ii. 1, we read, “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come” (literally “When the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled,” R. V., margin). Way back in the Old Testament types, and back of that in the eternal counsels of God, the day of Pentecost was set for the coming of the Holy Spirit and the gathering of the church, and the Holy Spirit could not be given until the day of Pentecost was fully come, therefore the Apostles had to wait until the day of Pentecost was fulfilled, but there was no waiting after Pentecost. There was no waiting for example in Acts iv. 31; scarcely had they finished the prayer when the place where they were gathered together was shaken and “they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” There was no waiting in the household of Cornelius. They were listening to their first Gospel sermon and Peter said as the climax of his argument “to Him (that is Jesus) bear all the prophets witness that through His name every one that believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins” (R. V.), and no sooner had Peter spoken these words than they believed and “the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word.” There was no waiting in Samaria after Peter and John came down and told them about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayed with them. There was no waiting in Ephesus after Paul came and told them that there was not only the baptism of John unto repentance, but the baptism of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. It is true that they had been waiting some time until then, but it was simply because they did not know that there was such a baptism for them. And many may wait to-day because they do not know that there is the baptism with the Spirit for them, or they may have to wait because they are not resting in the finished work of Christ, or because they have not put away sin, or because they have not surrendered fully to God, or because they will not definitely ask and believe and take; but the reason for the waiting is not in God, it is in ourselves. Any one who will, can lay this book down at this point, take the steps which have been stated and immediately receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I would not say a word to dissuade men from spending much time in waiting upon God in prayer for “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength” (Isa. xl. 31). There are few of us indeed in these days who spend as many hours as we should in waiting upon God. The writer can bear joyful testimony to the manifest outpourings of the Spirit that have come time and again as he has waited upon God through the hours of the night with believing brethren, but the point I would emphasize is that the baptism with the Holy Spirit may be had at once. The Bible proves this; experience proves it. There are many waiting for feeling who ought to be claiming by faith. 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 dishonouring to God. These brethren have an unscriptural view of what constitutes Pentecost. They have fixed it in their minds that certain manifestations are to occur and as 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 the writer’s ministry when he was led to say that he would never enter his pulpit again until he had been definitely baptized with the Holy Spirit and knew it, or until God in some way told him 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 it will 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 then 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. I went into my work and God manifested His power in that work. Some time passed, I do not remember just how long, and I was sitting in that same study. I do not remember that I was thinking about this subject at all, but suddenly it was just as if I had been knocked out of my chair on to the floor, and I lay upon my face crying, “Glory to God! Glory to God!” I could not stop. Some power, not my own, had taken possession of my lips and my whole person. The writer is not of an excitable, hysterical or even emotional temperament, but I lost control of myself absolutely. I had never shouted before in my life, but I could not stop. When after a while I got control of myself, I went to my wife and told her what had happened. I tell this experience, not to magnify it, but to say that the time when this wonderful experience (which I cannot really fully describe) came was not the moment when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. The moment when I was baptized with the Holy Spirit was in that calm hour when God said, “It is yours. Now go and preach.”