04.03. The Power of the Holy Spirit Promised

Now I am going to ask you the question in a moment, as Paul did, but first I want to give you the promise and command. In Acts 2:39 remember this promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost is to you and to your children: "For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Now that says the gift of the Holy Ghost is a promise to everybody who will ever be saved. There is a promise for you. It is the same thing that Jesus said to His disciples in Luk 24:49 , "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you" -- ’the promise,’ ’the promise’! And Peter says at Pentecost, ’The promise is to you, too. It was promised to us apostles. The same promise is to you.’ "Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem," Jesus said, "until ye be endued with power from on high." That promise of power from on high, the promise of the gift of the Holy Ghost, is to you, to your children, and to everybody whom God ever calls. In Eph 1:13 , Paul says, "In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise"- the Holy Ghost that God promised you might have, whose power you might have, whose fullness you might have for soul-winning effort. And in Eph 5:18 is the plain command, "Be not drunk with wine." Now the Bible ought to be taken at face value. Here the Word of God commands, "Be not drunk with wine." Then getting drunk is a sin. Let us just take that part of the verse alone. How many believe that getting drunk is a sin? To be drunk with wine is a sin. How many believe that? Let me see your hands. All right. I wonder if you are the kind of a modernist that takes half of a verse and throws the rest of it away? Are you? Well, all of that verse reads, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit". Now I ask you, if violating the first half of that verse and getting drunk is a sin, then is not the failure to be filled with the Spirit the same kind of a sin? Do you think you can say you are a good Christian and take only one-half of that verse? No you cannot. You are not a good Christian until you take all of it. I did not say you were not converted. I did not say that a Christian never gets drunk. It would certainly be wrong to get drunk. It was wrong for Lot. It was wrong for Noah. And it is wrong for anybody else. But I am saying that just because you keep half of that and do not get drunk, that does not make you a good Christian. You are not a very good Christian until you keep all of the verse, including the part that says, "Be filled with the Spirit." You are not given any latitude. You are not left any choice in the matter. You are to be filled. There is the plain command of Jesus Christ, written down by Paul the apostle in the book of Ephesians. "Be filled with the Spirit."

Now let me ask you a question. What did Paul do? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if preachers, every time they went to a new crowd, would ask the question Paul asked when he got back to Ephesus and found some converts there? He said to these new converts, ’Wonderful, I am so glad you are saved! That is fine. You believe in Jesus and that is fine. You have been baptized and that is fine. Now tell me, did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed? Or after you believed, did you receive the Holy Ghost?’

’Well,’ they said, ’we did not know there was any such thing as that. We do not understand about being filled with the Spirit.’

Then Paul explained to them, ’If you are saved, if you have been baptized and are saved, that old sinner that you were is dead, and you want to live a new life, and carry out the Great Commission and win souls. Well,’ Paul said, ’how are you going to do that? How can you mean that? How can you live that? How can you have that power to do what you are trying to do unless you receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, or the filling of the Spirit, or the baptism of the Spirit, or the pouring out of the Spirit?’ (If you are sensitive about using those terms, just use the term of Luk 24:49 , "Endued with power from on high.")

I will tell you now, you had better hear me. God’s people in this town of Seattle need to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Now, do you want to have revival? All right, I will tell you how we can have it just as they did at Pentecost, just as they did in other Bible times. I say, we can have a revival when God’s people pay the price and are filled with the Holy Ghost. Now do not misunderstand me, we can have a marvelous revival if God’s people are filled with the Holy Ghost. I want you to think about this a little bit.