Anton Bosch emphasizes the transformative power of the Holy Spirit as described in Acts 1:8, highlighting that believers receive power not merely for the sake of spiritual gifts, but to be effective witnesses of Christ in their lives. He critiques the overemphasis on the gifts of the Spirit within Pentecostal traditions, arguing that true evidence of being filled with the Spirit is reflected in a changed life and a commitment to living out the gospel. Bosch calls for a deeper understanding of the Holy Spirit's role in guiding, empowering, and transforming believers, urging them to seek ongoing filling rather than relying on past experiences. He stresses that the power of the Holy Spirit is meant to enable believers to live as authentic witnesses of Jesus, demonstrating His love and truth in their daily lives.

Acts chapter 1, and we'll read the first 8 verses again. We did read those verses before, and we're going to read them again, and I want to share with you again this evening, from Acts chapter 1 verse 8, you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And I want to just examine the, really what is the function and the work of the Holy Spirit, how did it work in the New Testament, and especially in the book of Acts. I'm going to just speak from my heart, I have some notes prepared, but I just feel that I want to have a little bit more liberty, so I trust that you'll bear with me as I just go along as we feel we need to do. So Acts chapter 1 verse 1, Luke writing, and he says, The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, until the day in which he was taken up after he through the Holy Spirit had given commands to the apostles who he had chosen, to whom also he presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together with them, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Therefore when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now the problem is that we have a thing we call Pentecostal tradition. There are certain things that if you've grown up in Pentecost or you've been in Pentecost for a long time, that we accept to be the truth because that's just part of our tradition. And we need to examine those traditions. There are good traditions. Paul speaks about good traditions, but there are also bad traditions. And obviously there are some traditions that are really neither here nor there, but we need to examine them all to determine whether what we believe is in fact the truth, being Bereans. It's one of the phrases that's come up over and over on the weekend. One of the things that we have inherited in Pentecost is what I believe to be, and this is just my opinion as I understand the Scriptures, an overemphasis on the gifts of the Spirit. Now the gifts are important. I do not deny the importance and the value of the gifts, and I want to have all of those gifts in operation. But the gifts are not an end in themselves. And the emphasis that has traditionally been placed on the gifts of the Spirit in Pentecost, I believe is an overemphasis based on the emphasis we find in the Scriptures. Now if you go to Jesus' teachings in the book of John particularly, you'll find that Jesus makes no emphasis on the gifts. In fact He doesn't mention the gifts at all. And I've written down the most important Scriptures from the Gospel of John. In John chapter 14 verse 12 to 18, we examined that this morning. You will do the works that I did and greater will you do. In John chapter 16, the Spirit will convict the world. Remember, I hear many times people speak about Him doing this to the church. No, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. In chapter 16 verse 13, He will guide us into all truth. In chapter 16 verse 14, He will glorify Jesus. Now you'll see in all of those, and there are others that say basically the same things, that in none of those does He make mention of the gifts. And then in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, which is the Scripture I want to examine in more detail this evening, He makes this very important statement that you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Again, He does not say that you will receive gifts. Now hear me clearly, I'm not saying that the gifts are unimportant. I'm not saying that they are invalid. But the only reference we find to the gifts, of course Acts speaks about them speaking in tongues, which is one of those. But the only reference we find to the gifts really is in Corinthians, to the nine gifts of the Spirit. And Paul gives extensive teaching on that. And obviously we hold to that teaching. We believe that they are valid. But here's the problem. We have this mindset I think sometimes, and maybe not you, but in general we have this mindset that it's really about the gifts. If I can just speak in tongues, well then that's really great because that's evidence that I've been filled with the Spirit and now I have a gift. But you'll find that really there is much more to the work of the Holy Spirit than just the nine gifts of the Spirit, leading us into all truth, glorifying Jesus, revealing Jesus to us. These are important things that the Holy Spirit does for us. The interesting thing is that the nine gifts of the Spirit are largely, not exclusively, but largely have to do with the church. They operate in the context of the church. They operate in the context of the church mainly. Some of them, like miracles and healings, have to do with evangelism. But the book of Acts, you find, is about the preaching of the gospel. And it's about the Great Commission. And so in chapter 1 and verse 8, the passage which we all refer to, and Pentecostals like it and Charismatics like it and the crazy people like it, the only people who don't like that verse are those who don't believe in the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit and the baptism of the Spirit. But Jesus says you will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. What will you receive? Power. But notice he says that it is power to be witnesses. Now the first thing, I just need to clarify that word power. Again, one of our traditions is to say, well, the word power is the Greek word dunamis, and that's correct. And so from dunamis we get the word dynamite. And so this is dynamite power. You ever heard that before? Yeah. Well, I don't like that. The word dunamis is correct, we get the word dynamite from that. But unfortunately for many Christians that's what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is all about. It's one big explosion and then what? Dust and smoke and nothing left. It's all gone. One big experience. And here's one of the problems we have. Is that we have this mindset that as long as you were able to speak in tongues once, that's evidence, initial evidence, and I really have a problem with that idea. But because you spoke in tongues once, you're filled with the Holy Spirit, and everything's good, now you're on your way. And so brother, have you been filled with the Spirit? Yes, I was filled with the Spirit in 1923. Somebody said big deal. Yeah, exactly. It's the same problem we have, and obviously I'm not saying that there is not an initial experience. There clearly is an initial experience. In all of the accounts that we have in the book of Acts, there was an initial experience. The accounts that Pastor Gary read for us last night from a number of historic characters, there was a crisis point, a point in their lives when things changed. So there needs to be that initial experience. The same way as in salvation, there needs to be a time and a moment when we turn to the Lord. Now, I understand that some, in my own experience, I can't tell you exactly when that moment was. Because as a young boy, I used to go to the altar every Sunday night. And I was really never changed. I would go back and do the same bad stuff. I was really a hard case. But somewhere along the line, one of those many decisions stuck, if you like. It actually worked. And I was changed. Now, I really date my salvation to when I was 16 when I had an experience and believed I was filled with the Holy Spirit. That's really the date I stick to it. But I think I was probably saved before then. So sometimes we don't really... But clearly, even though we may not know that moment, there was a moment when I was translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son. That before I was dead, now I'm alive. Now, the problem is that we have, again, in evangelical and Pentecostal circles, we have this thing about this decision card. And so, brother, are you saved? Yes, I'm saved. Because here in the back of my Bible, I have this little card. In 1922, I walked down the aisle at a Billy Graham crusade, or whatever it was, and I prayed the sinner's prayer, and I'm saved. But is that the question? Is that the evidence that you are born again? No, the evidence is a changed life today. The question is not so much about when this happened. Of course that's important. But more important is, what does your faith look like and what does your life look like today? And unfortunately, we have too many people in the world today who claim to be born again because so many years ago, at such and such a time, they prayed the sinner's prayer, signed the decision card, and so everything's cool, I'm born again. But there's no evidence. So the question is, is there evidence that you are born again today? That's the question that really matters. And the same with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Yes, there's an initial experience. But I'm really not so much interested in your initial experience. What I'm looking for is evidence that you are filled with the Spirit today. The fact that you had some experience in the past, that's great, that's your experience. But that doesn't help you today. And so there needs to be, as we've said all along today, there needs to be this ongoing filling of the Holy Spirit. And so the word dunamis, this dynamite experience, which really is an explosion and then there's nothing after that, I don't think that that represents that word correctly. From the same Greek word, we have the word dynamo. And I think we all understand what a dynamo is. A dynamo is something that generates power. And you can drive it with steam or with whatever device you like. And as this thing is turned, it generates power constantly. And in fact, the lights that we have running here come from a dynamo that's driven somewhere by natural gas or steam or whatever it may be. But that's evidence that there is a power generator, a dynamo somewhere. It's the same word. And I believe that this is really more of what Jesus had in mind when he said you will receive power. It is this source of power and it's an ongoing generation of power. Because he said from your innermost being will flow continually rivers of living water. It's not just an initial flowing and then the whole thing stops, but a constant flowing. And so those are some of the little problems we have with this passage. Now the next thing he says then is you will receive power to be witnesses to me and you will be my witnesses. And again, and I think I may have touched on this before in this church, but this is something that is very important to me and I believe to the Lord. Again, it doesn't say you will receive power to witness. To me. There is a difference between witnessing and witnessing is important. In case you go away and say, well, Brother Bosch says we don't have to witness. No, we must witness. But more important than witnessing with our words is witnessing with our lives. And that's the message of the book of Acts. These people were living witnesses. They lived lives that testified to the risen Christ. And that's where we really come to the crunch. Because in the Pentecostal tradition, having grown up in it, is this problem that I see people who say, well, Brother, I speak in tongues. But I'm addicted to pornography. I steal from my boss. I don't love my wife. I have all sorts of issues. But I speak in tongues. And my neighbors say, well, you know, he's not a nice guy. Am I being a witness? No, sir. It doesn't matter how many fishes you have on the back of your car. It doesn't matter how many times you claim to be a Christian. Remember that little saying, I can't hear what you say, because your actions speak too loud. In fact, here's the thing. This is what we need today. The world is sick and tired of hearing preaching. The world is tired of seeing this kind of stuff, of Christians claiming to have power. Claiming to have power to roll on the floor, to zap people, to bam people, whatever, to do all of these things. And those same people go out of that meeting, and they're just as bad and just as miserable and wicked as the unbelievers around them. What kind of power is that? Part of my personal testimony is when I was a young preacher, the second church they sent me to was a church in the middle of South Africa, in the middle of the country with the equivalent of the Midwest here, a very similar kind of environment. And I was 20 years old. This was my second church when I was 20 years old. And the first church I was the pastor. Eight people, but I was the pastor. Second church, I'm now the youth pastor of a bigger church. And I'm just a gopher, really. I'm running the youth and so on. And the main pastors, they make all the decisions. They do the stuff. And so one day they tell me, well, you know, we have this visiting evangelist coming from America, from all places. I don't know if any of you have come across him, but his name was Lorne Fox. And his claim to fame was two things. He showed movies. He was a cinematographer, a guy who did movies those days. 16mm was what he did. And so he had these 16mm movies that he had taken all over the world of beautiful scenes of nature. And it was really magnificent. It was really beautiful to watch. And so he comes and he sets up in a church, a very similar church to this, probably a similar size. And he's setting up his projector, and he has a number of ladies as an entourage who are there helping him. And one of the things I see is they're packing out towels, packing out towels on the platform. And I look at this. Well, it's not a baptismal service, so I don't know what the towels are for. Well, you know what happens. So he shows these movies, preaches a short message, and people come forward to be prayed for. And so people come because they have addictions. Others were sick. Others had pains. All sorts of things. Some for rededication. Some want to receive the Holy Spirit. All sorts of things that he had asked people to come forward for. And so he started praying for people, and sure enough people start doing what we call the carpet ministry. They get zapped and they go down, and of course the towels were there to cover the ladies. Now this was the first time I'd seen this thing, and I was 20 years old, but I knew that theology is not very hard. Because really the only thing you need to know is one simple question, and I call it the Kansas question. And the Kansas question is, show me. Show me in the scriptures where this happened. And I went to the senior pastor the next morning. I said, I didn't like what happened there. Oh, no, no, you're just quenching the Spirit, and all this kind of stuff. I said, well, just show me. And of course he showed me the times when people fell. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Who are you looking for? Jesus. I am He. They fell. But I said, but this is not the same thing. First of all, most of the people, all the people except in Gethsemane, if I remember right, fell forward on their faces. But then I said, well, just maybe this is something of God. So what I did is I went to everyone, and I knew there were probably, I would imagine 15 people, maybe 20, that were prayed for that day, that night. So I went to every one of those 20 people in the next week. And I said, brother, when you went forward to be prayed for, what did you go to be prayed for? And they would say, well, you know, I went to pray because I have a sore back. Was your back healed? No. I went to be filled with the Spirit. Were you filled with the Spirit? No. Well, you can understand the conclusion that I came to. If God's power was so great that you could not stand before that great power of God, then surely what you had come to ask for would have been done. And this is the problem, is that we shout about the power, we jump up and down, we roll on the floor, we do all these crazy things, not us but some, and we say, well, this is evidence of the power of God. But the basic fundamental issues of sin in my life, of addictions, of whatever it is, are not dealt with. So where's the power? You've got that I'm a realist and I'm very, very practical. And I'm not interested in something that's all show and no go. I don't care how much noise your motor car makes. If it doesn't have the horsepower, it doesn't count. You know, the world is crazy. You know, Brother Gary, they've just brought out a new Mustang. But it's a four-cylinder Mustang. But it has speakers. I'm serious. It's loudspeakers to make it sound like a V8 produced by the Ford factory. Look it up, it's true. Sounds to me very much like some churches. We have big speakers and a lot of noise and a lot of stuff, but there's no power. I'm not interested in that. And I don't believe that that's what God is talking about. Who are we speaking about here? We're speaking about the Almighty God. The Lord Jesus who said, All power and authority is given unto me. And we say that His power is present in our lives, but He can't fix the smallest little issues that we have. But is it not time that we get real and say there is no power, if there is no power. And so the Spirit will give us power to be witnesses. And here is the power of the gospel. What did Paul say in Romans chapter 1? I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God unto salvation. Now where is the power of God revealed in salvation? It's not just in translating us from hell to heaven. But I believe the power of the gospel lies in the gospel's ability to fundamentally change who I am. To change me from a sinner into a saint. To change my desires, to change my appetites, to change my personality. There is nothing in this world that can change a man's or a woman's personality. This thing keeps running away from me. There is nothing in the world that can change. You can read every self-help book that you like. You can go to every Dale Carnegie and visit every psychologist you like, and you will never change your personality. But the gospel of Jesus Christ will change your personality. That is power. But we need more of that power. And so the power that Jesus is speaking about is the ability to change our lives so that when people look at us, they say, Maybe he's been with Jesus. That's what we need. They're not interested anymore in hearing about all of this stuff. What they want to do is see something. They want to see it in our lives. And so, yes, we need the gifts. We need to speak in tongues. We need all of the other gifts. But what we need more than any of those things is lives that testify to the risen Jesus Christ. And so let's go back to the book of Acts then. And I want to just highlight a few things for you from Acts. The first thing, and let me just give you a few of these statistics. I made reference to them yesterday. I didn't give them to you in detail. The first is that the word spirit appears 68 times in the book of Acts. Well, that gives you an idea of how important that is. And I'm going to very, very quickly, I'm not going to bore you for a long time, and I didn't check what time we started. But I'm going to give you about 22 of those times that the word spirit is used and what the spirit did, what he did. But here's the other thing. The word tongues appears four times and in three passages. So it appears twice in one passage. So three passages contains the word tongues. The word preached or preaching or preach, any word connected to preach appears 35 times. Ten times more than the word tongues. The word pray appears 32 times. That's based on the New King James. 32 times. You get different results depending on your translation because different words are... Now, add preaching to praying and you've got almost 70 times. You have tongues four times. Does that say something? I think it does. Now, folks, here's the thing. One of the questions we had today is, you know, why don't we, I was referring to a particular denomination, why don't we see tongues in that denomination? Well, guess what? You don't see a lot of tongues in the book of Acts. Now, I'm not denying tongues. I believe it's an important gift that God gives us, both for our personal communication with the Lord and personal edification and as a means of the Lord communicating with the body of Christ accompanied with the interpretation. I accept all of that. But I think that if we have less tongues and more preaching, it's not necessarily wrong. Obviously, it depends on what kind of preaching we have. So let's have a look quickly in the book of Acts and let's see what happens. Obviously, we have to begin in Acts 2 in verse 4. The Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues. In Acts 2, verse 17 and 18, it speaks about prophesying, the prophecy of Joel, that there will be prophecy and visions. Now, let me just stop here for a moment. And just, you know, I really, we shouldn't be going into each one of these gifts and we're going to try not to do that too much. But at the same time, I think that there's some corrections we have to bring here. One of the problems that the cessationists have with Pentecostals and Charismatics is that they say, we add to Scripture. We, through prophecy, through visions, through interpretation, through these things, we add and we go beyond Scripture. And some people do that. And obviously that is wrong. We cannot add to Scripture. We have the clear warning in the book of Revelation. And it's not just applying to the book of Revelation because we have the same warning in the book of Deuteronomy. Don't add to his words, don't subtract from his words. And so we cannot add to his words. So prophecy or visions cannot add to Scripture. Now, this is a new fad. This is something that's only happened in the last 30 or 40 years. This was not always part of Pentecostal tradition. My grandfather published a book of 140, if I remember right, heavenly visions that he received. He was known for this in South Africa. Not one of those visions taught any new doctrine. Every single one of them illuminated existing Scripture. Let me give you one example and one that really changed and affected my life. He told me this story personally and it's in his book. But he says that he saw this vision or this dream, some of them were visions while he was awake, some of them were dreams, and there was a church and there's a preacher. And behind the preacher is a window in the form of a cross. But there's no other windows. And in the congregation are no people but flowers. But the flowers are wilting and they're dying. And the problem is the preacher is standing in front of the light, in front of the cross. And then God spoke to the preacher and said, step aside, the preacher steps aside, the light comes barreling through and the flowers pick up their heads and the flowers flourish. No great revelation, nothing outside of Scripture, simply saying give Jesus his proper place in the body of Christ. That's the valid use of interpretation of prophecy and of dreams and of visions. And in fact someone sent me one last night, also pertaining to my grandfather to a very important meeting that happened in South Africa many years ago and I wasn't even aware of this and I hadn't come across this and someone had sent me that testimony last night, a similar kind of thing. And so the visions are not about adding to Scripture, some new revelation that there's no Trinity anymore, that there's now four in the Godhead or whatever, that Jesus is going to appear on my platform in Sun Valley next week. That kind of stuff, it's not part of that. And then there's prophecy. We made reference to one of those prophets this morning. Let me just share with you another. One of the things that we shared this afternoon, I want to emphasize that again tonight, is that many times we look for these things to be in this really spectacular form, I the Lord say unto thee, this and this and this and this, and so something powerful is going to happen. You remember the Ethiopian man who comes to a prophet and he has leprosy and he says, go and wash in the river Jordan seven times and he's very upset. He said, I thought that the man of God would come out and he would be like the TV preachers. He would come and he would slap his hand on the place and he would say some magic stuff and some power would happen and I would be delivered. But he's asking me just to go to the river and wash. This is not what I wanted. We want that spectacular stuff when many times God is working through his still small voice. And one of the events that changed my life and it's something that I have lived with all of my life and I've been in the ministry now for over 40 years and it has affected every day of my life. I was at a conference as a young guy. I was at school still. I was 17 years old, really just being filled with the spirit, just zealous for the things of God and the pastor dragged me along to the conference and here's all these men of God, all the pastors from all over the country and they're talking about these deep things and I can remember going out weeping one night because I couldn't even understand half of what these guys were talking about. I said, Lord, I just don't understand. But on one of the evenings at that particular meeting, at that conference, an old missionary lady, and I've never been able to find who she is and I've never been able to find her song, but she sang a song, what you guys would call a special that night. And I remember it very, very clearly because it's burnt into my memory. The piano was on that side of the hall and she sat down and she was grey and bent of many years of serving the Lord on the mission field and she just sat down and she played the song and the song said something to this effect and I just remember the gist of the song and that was that when I see Jesus, I will understand for the first time the price He paid for me. For the first time I will appreciate what it cost Him. And then I will, and the chorus said, then I will wish that I had served Him more. That I had given Him more, more, so much more. That changed my life. And it continues to change my life. She was speaking prophetically by the Spirit of God. It was a song that somebody else had written, printed on a piece of paper. She didn't have a clue who I was. But God was speaking through this old lady. Nothing magic, nothing powerful. And maybe there were people there present who were criticizing that she was maybe a little flat or maybe this or maybe that. But God had anointed her in a powerful way to change the life of a young boy. That's prophecy. But because she didn't stand up there and say, God has told me. We say, oh, well, it doesn't count. So sorry, I digress, but let's get back to Acts. Acts 2, verse 38. Peter preached. Now let me stop there for a moment. I really have lost track of time. How far are we, Kyle, please? 34 minutes, thanks. Peter preached. Not all preaching is prophecy. But preaching needs to happen under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And as we said this afternoon, preaching is not made up in shouting and spit and sweat, even though I do that. It's no evidence that I'm speaking under the anointing of the Spirit. But our preaching needs to be anointed and directed by the Holy Spirit, otherwise we're wasting our time. A few months ago I was preaching in another country, and they invited me. Well, there was a clash of dates, and so I ended up going to one of the local churches there, and there was a man, a visiting preacher, he had come a long way to preach about revival. He was doing a series of, I think, four on revival. Well, I can tell you what, I've never heard a deader, more boring presentation on any subject in my life. The man clearly, and while he was an older guy who had been all his life in the ministry, his passion, believe it or not, was revival. He'd read just about every book you could read on revival. He'd read every scripture that there is about revival. But there was no revival in his own soul. It was dead, dead, dead, dead. I may as well have gone to the university and listened to a lecture on genetics or whatever else. I'm serious. God was not speaking through him. What he was speaking about was not real in his own heart. There was no power, there was no anointing, there was no blessing. And folks, please understand, it's got nothing to do with volume, it's got nothing to do with stage antics, it's got nothing to do with any of these things. But you know, and here's the thing, we know when God is speaking. Whether He speaks through the lightning or the thunder or the still small voice. We recognize His voice. And so we need to preach by the anointing of the Spirit. The next thing that happens, chapter 4 verse 8, Peter is preaching again. Chapter 4 verse 31, In the face of persecution they were filled and spoke the word with boldness. Now here's one of the important things. We need to be bold. Especially in these days when Christianity is becoming less and less popular in this country. And we need boldness. And we need, and this is one of the threads that you see right through the book of Acts, is the boldness that they had to speak the word of God in the face of opposition and the face of persecution. And that comes by the anointing and the filling of the Spirit. Chapter 6 verse 3, They were filled with the Spirit. And they served at tables. Remember Acts chapter 6? The choosing of the seven. Most people call them deacons. The Bible doesn't actually say that they were deacons. But it looks like they did deacons work. But their job was to feed the widows, you remember. But one of the qualifications, the most important qualification was what? They needed to be filled with the Spirit. Now folks, it's not just for the pastor to be filled with the Spirit. If you're going to do anything in the body of Christ, whether it's feeding the widows, whether it's sweeping the floor, whether it's ushering at the door, whatever it is, you need to be filled with the Spirit. If you needed to be filled with the Spirit to feed the widows, which had really almost nothing to do with spiritual ministry, it was purely an administrative function, then how much more do you not need to be filled with the Spirit? If you're going to operate the sound board, if you're going to play the music, if you're going to have anything to do with the body of Christ. Chapter 6 verse 10, Stephen defends the faith, preaches powerfully in the face of opposition. Chapter 7 verse 55, Stephen endures martyrdom. And in every one of these verses, if you look the verse up, you'll see the connection with being filled with the Spirit. Chapter 8 verse 29, the Spirit directs Philip to the chariot to go and speak to the Ethiopian eunuch. But we need to be led by the Spirit. Now, let me just quickly explain that there are two kinds of being led by the Spirit. Paul says in Galatians, if you are led by the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Now, that is not this leading of the Spirit. That's just the leading of the Spirit to make the right decisions, to say no to sin, to say yes to righteousness. But there is a different level, if you like, of the leading of the Spirit where I know this is what I need to be doing right now. Now, if we cannot hear the Spirit as far as the flesh and the Spirit is concerned, how are we going to hear the Spirit when it comes to go over there? Call this person. Read this passage. Preach on that subject. We need to be led by the Spirit. Again, what we're looking for generally is we're looking for some kind of flashing lights, some kind of sign saying this is what you need to do. No, really, I don't believe that when it speaks about that in the Book of Acts and in the rest of the New Testament. Sometimes it's in that form, but mostly it's just an inner conviction, knowing that that's what you need to do. Now, how do you know that that was the Spirit? Well, the proof is in the pudding. The evidence is in having obeyed that, you look back and you say, yes, that was the Spirit. Because the fruit of my obedience is evidence that that is what God wanted me to do. Now, again, we live our regimented lives. We have our cell phones with our calendars and our diaries and we say, well, this is what I've got to do. We have our programs and we don't have time to be led by the Spirit. When last did you pick up the telephone and just call somebody that God had put upon your heart? Just call. Brother, I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for you. And so Philip goes to speak to the Ethiopian. Chapter 8, verse 39, here's one of the spectacular ones. Philip is caught away. He's translated, he's raptured and he appears somewhere else. Chapter 11, verse 25. People come to salvation under Barnabas. Now, one of the things you'll see in every one of these, and I've only picked out ones that I think are just average and representative, but most of these have to do with the preaching of the gospel. Philip is sent to the chariot to go and preach the gospel. He is caught away and he appears in Caesarea for the preaching of the gospel. Peter is directed to the Gentiles, chapter 10, verse 19, to go and confirm the work in Samaria. Chapter 11, verse 25. People are saved under Barnabas' ministry. Then we get to chapter 11, verse 28. I should have left that one out. Agabus prophesies about the drought. Now, very, very quickly, there are clearly, there's two instances. There's the drought and then Paul's capture that is predicted by Agabus and by some of the other prophets that are predictive. This is not the major thing in the New Testament. This is not the norm and it's a very dangerous practice because it can be abused. And so we have to be very, very careful. We cannot deny it as much as I don't like it. I cannot deny it because it's in Scripture. But a word of caution. Then in chapter 13, verse 2, Barnabas and Paul are called by the Spirit. Chapter 13, verse 4, Barnabas and Paul are sent. Two very important concepts. Being called and sent. Why are we called? We speak about, oh, pastors have a calling. Well, Jesus called the disciples. For what purpose? That they might be with Him. That's the first step. There's no sending until you've been with Him. You can't be sent unless you've been called. And it's not being called into the ministry. There's no such concept in the New Testament. We're not called into the ministry. We are called into a relationship with Jesus Christ. We are sent in the ministry. And so the next thing that happens is that Paul and Barnabas are sent in chapter 13, verse 4. In chapter 13, verse 9, Paul confronts the sorcerer. Chapter 13, verse 52, the church is comforted in the face of persecution. Chapter 15, verse 28, guidance in decisions and doctrine. Chapter 16, verse 6, Paul is forbidden to go to Asia. 18, verse 5, Paul is compelled to preach. Chapter 19, verse 6, the Ephesians speak in tongues. Chapter 20, verse 28, overseers are appointed by the Holy Spirit. Now, while most of these things have to do with the preaching of the gospel, one of the other things that I see as I go through all of these examples is that the fullness and the anointing and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call it, permeates every area of church life, from serving at the door to the preaching of the gospel to making decisions concerning doctrine, making decisions concerning ministry and the appointment of people in ministry. Every single area of the life of the church, and I believe that that's the message of the book of Acts, is directed by the Holy Spirit. And so we're not saying that tongues is not important. The problem is that we have all this whole other area that is non-existent in many Pentecostal churches. So we need to keep the tongues and the prophecy if that's there, but we need to get all of the rest of this right. But the problem is that we live in the 21st century, we've been taught business economics, we've been taught management techniques, we've been taught marketing, we know all of these things, and we just go about the business of the church like it's a business. Whereas in the book of Acts, every single step was anointed, was directed by the Holy Spirit. And so that's what we need. And that's what changes the church, I believe, from a business into a living organism. And then of course you go to the book of Corinthians and you find that the gifts are there for the body of Christ, for the edifying of the body of Christ. So the Spirit needs to help us out there. The Spirit needs to help me in my private walk with God. And the Spirit needs to help us in our fellowship together. So that there's not a single area of our life that is not directed, that is not inspired, that is not anointed, that is not dressed, if you like, with the Holy Spirit. But the problem is that, and we're going to address some of this tomorrow night when we speak about why the church is powerless, part of the problem is that we think we've got it all together. I don't need the Holy Spirit when I make business decisions about the budget. I just have to apply some sound common sense in business decisions. No, I need the Holy Spirit when I deal with the budget. I need the Holy Spirit. Do we need the Holy Spirit? Next week at our church we have to paint the fence. The fence needs a coat of paint. Do we need the Holy Spirit to paint the fence? Yes, we need the Holy Spirit to paint the fence. You say, well, what does that have to do with painting the fence? Well, one of the things about painting the fence is that we need Christians who are filled with the Spirit and thereby brought to come to the work day for a start. And if you're filled with the Spirit, you'll be there. It's practical and it's real. But now we have a whole bunch of Christians who have to work together on this task. And you know how that goes sometimes. Now you've got to do it my way, brother. But if we're filled with the Spirit, we don't have those issues. Here's the thing. The baptism in the fullness of the Spirit is an incredibly practical helper that the Lord has given to us, who helps us in every area of our lives. Not in the sense of making us rich and all that kind of nonsense, but how to live lives that are a testimony to those around us. Now, I know that some churches are more placid than others, but I know that other churches, just a little task like painting the fence can result in all sorts of blow-ups. Oh, you know, I've done two sections and you've only done half a section, brother. I was here at 8 o'clock and you arrived and it's 10 o'clock now. We need the Lord. We need the Spirit to change who we are. That we might be a testimony to the unbelievers who are watching us from across the street. Next Saturday. This is just real. This is practical. We need the power of God because these things are not things that we do well naturally. Now, the last thing I want to deal with before I close is that none of these things, none of the work of the Spirit, none of the gifts of the Spirit are for my personal entertainment. So what's that mean? Well, you saw the videos this afternoon. Most of what the Holy Spirit is for today is so that I can have some kind of experience. So I can pogo up and down or I can fall on the floor or I can go away and say, I laughed and I had this kind of experience. The Spirit is nowhere given to us for some kind of personal experience. The Spirit is given to us to empower us for service. To help us in our relationship with the Lord. To help us in our relationship with one another. But it has nothing to do with me having some kind of experience. And if that's what we're chasing, you're never going to get it. Well, you're going to get that, but it's not the real deal. And so here's the problem. One of the problems is that the Christians are saying, well, I want more of the Spirit. But really what they mean is, I want to have some kind of supernatural experience. Well, guess what? Brother Tom reminded us that if we ask Him, He'll give us. But one of the problems we have, we'll deal with this tomorrow night again, is James says that you don't have because you ask for the wrong reasons. And many people want the power so they can have a personal experience or so that they can have a great ministry. I don't believe that God honors those kinds of requests. James says very clearly, you have not because you ask not, and you ask and don't receive because you ask amiss to consume upon your own desires or your own lusts. And so really, folk, I think that what I'm trying to share with you this evening is just, can we clarify our thinking? Let's cut through the clutter. Let's cut through the tradition. Let's just say, what is this all about? Do I have it? Do I have enough of it? Do I need it? For what reason do I need it? And let me get my heart right. And as I do that, I believe that the Lord will honor our request for more of Him. Amen. Pastor Gary.