Episode Transcript
Christie: Hey, friends, you're listening to a podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. Today we are really excited to bring to you a special message that we are featuring in our new book, Rivers of Living Water Talks on the Holy Spirit. This was an audio message that we had recorded that Lance gave at the Christian family conference in 1984. But when we were preparing it for the book, the audio was missing a section from, I guess when the tape was flipped over or got recorded over or something happened, I'm not sure. But we couldn't be certain what we were missing. And so we had some hesitancy to wonder if we were even going to be able to include the whole chapter in the book.
So around this time, we happened to be working from a tape room that had a whole archive of old messages from Brother Kaung, Stephen Kaung, Lance Lambert, and many other people from many decades. And so we hoped that this being from the Christian Family Conference in Richmond, that maybe this cassette would be able to be found there. But we searched and we couldn't find this cassette anywhere in the tape room. So we were thinking this may not be available. But one day we were realizing that there was this closet full of old VHS tapes and reels, and we thought probably they didn't record on VHS back in 84. But I looked to see how old the oldest VHS tape was, and the oldest VHS was from 1983. But I kept looking forward because these messages were from the Christian Family Conference. And sure enough, that message on Christ the Baptizer and the Holy Spirit was available.
So soon after, we went to a memory lab to see if we could convert the old VHS to digital media, and it was available.
Now, this quality, of course, of this 1984 message is maybe a little bit rough, but in it you will find a energized young Lance Lambert with black hair. And we don't have much footage of him from back in these days. So it was really a joy to find this message and to see him so lively and excited about this. This word that he had for the people that year. And it's a blessing to be able to bring it to you today. So enjoy this listen and watch as you see Lance share on Christ the Baptizer and the Holy Spirit.
Lance Lambert: Would you come with me to a number of passages in the New Testament in the Gospel of Matthew and chapter three, verse 11 and 12.
Matthew's gospel, chapter three, verse 11. "Of course, I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance. But he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, and in fire whose fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing flesh, and he will gather his wheat into the garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire."
And then in the Gospel of Mark, chapter one and verse seven and eight, verses seven and eight of the first chapter of Mark's Gospel.
"And he preached, saying, there cometh after me he that is mightier than I the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I baptized you in water, but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit."
In the Gospel according to Luke and chapter three. Luke's gospel and chapter three, verse 15. From verse 15 to 17: "And as the people were in expectation, and all men reasoned in their hearts concerning John, whether haply he were the Christ, John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water. But there cometh he that is mightier than I the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose. He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit, and in fire, whose fan is in his hand thoroughly to cleanse his threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into his garner but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire."
The gospel of John, John's gospel and chapter 1. From verse 29: "On the morrow John the Baptist seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me cometh a man who is come before me for he was before me, and I knew him not, but that he should be made manifest to Israel. For this cause am I baptizing in water. And John bare witness saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize in water, he said unto me, upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding upon him. The same is he that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God."
And lastly in Acts, chapter one, the first chapter of Acts, verse four and five: "And being assembled together with them, Jesus charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. Which said he, ye heard from me for John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit, not many days hence."
Shall we just bow together in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just want to bow here in your presence this morning. And we want very simply to recognize that apart from you, we can do nothing. Whether it is in speaking or hearing, Lord, we can do nothing. We can speak words. We can hear words. But, Lord, if something of your purpose for this time is to be fulfilled, then you need, Lord, to be here yourself. And you need by your spirit to reveal things and illuminate things, and so anoint Lord, both speaking and hearing, that your glorious purpose, your specific purpose for a time such as this, be fulfilled. Then, Lord, we commit ourselves to you by faith, taking that anointing which is ours for the speaker and for every hearer, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The burden I have had has been centered in these words in 2 Corinthians, chapter 11 and verse 2: "I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband that I might preserve you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means the as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ."
In these last days, in this last phase of world history, you and I need to get clear that the end of all our walk with the Lord, of all the dealings of the Lord with us, of all Christian life, of all service and work and of church life, is that you and I should be presented a pure virgin to Christ, that we should not have our minds corrupted from the singleness which is toward him, the unaffectedness which is toward him, that our mind should not be corrupted from the purity which is toward him.
Yesterday morning I spoke about the need of knowing the Lord Jesus as our covering. That is foundational, not kindergarten. It is foundational. And if you and I have not had revealed to us something of the nature of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, something of the nature of justification, something of what it means for him who knew no sin to be made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him, we shall be compromised, contaminated, diverted, tripped up by the enemy somewhere along the way, and certainly in these last days, for this accuser of the brethren will have come down onto the earth, knowing his time is short and will do such an insidious and such a powerful work that there will not be two brothers left together. There will not be a fellowship in harmony with each other in the Lord. There will be even clouds between believers and their Lord.
We need to know the Lord Jesus as our covenant. They overcame the accuser of the brethren by the blood of the Lamb.
Now, this morning, I would very much like to have talked about Christ as the life and the power. But I feel that in some ways, Verne has already said quite a bit about that.
I find it a tremendous joy and a tremendous discovery to find that the Lord Jesus is the life. There's no such thing as the Christian life. You know, this Christian life is so complex. I don't know if you've discovered that yet, but it is the most complex thing in the whole world. Trying to be holy in an unholy world is a dreadful business. And trying to turn the other cheek in a world that's continually hitting you is no easy matter. It's bad enough amongst the believers when they're hitting you. You must have all discovered that.
We all talk so much about the Christian life. The interesting thing is the Christian life is not mentioned once in the whole Bible. You would almost think it doesn't exist. But what we call the Christian life, the New Testament calls eternal life. That is the life of Jesus. And that life of Jesus is communicated to us, transmitted to us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
You don't have to try and tie apples on an apple tree to make it fruitful. It may look pretty, but it's a dreadful job. Can you imagine going down to the supermarket, buying so many pounds of apples, then going out to the poor old tree, getting a ladder, going up in it, and tying each apple on the branches. Now, my dear friends, for a few days it will look good, which is what happens with many people in these kind of conferences.
The apples are tied on the branches, they look pretty good, but within a week the apples have withered. They never came out of the life in the apple tree. They never went through the organic process. They don't actually belong to that particular apple tree. They've been borrowed from another. That's what it means to be affected. That's why we need this simplicity of Christ to get back to the simple truth that Jesus is the life.
If you and I would only see that Jesus is the life and that he is within you and me, and if he is only free and we will obey the law of the life, then we'll have fruit. There will be fruit, there will be character, there will be fulfillment. Our problem is to get the life flowing.
And that's what the Word has, I think, put his finger on by the spirit of God. There's no way to know the release of the life of the Lord Jesus in a human being apart from the work of the cross. In other words, you must know death so that his life may flow through you. And that is our problem.
The thought of dying somehow, for many of us is not part of the gospel. That he should die for us, that is the gospel. But that we should die with him, that is not the gospel. We are here to get what we can. Life, salvation, an eternal position in the kingdom of God, peace, joy, power, anything. But we don't want to die. Now, when we cannot come to that simple falling into the ground and dying, we may know all the theory. But the life of Jesus is trapped within you. It will never be expressed, it will never grow, it will never bear fruit. It's trapped within you. It's there, but it's trapped within you.
Or again, think of Jesus as the power. What a need there is for power. Power to pray. Some people are so frightened, they can't even open their mouths in a time of prayer. And when they do, you can't hear. There's so afraid. No power.
When you've got no power, you become self conscious. All you're conscious of is your inadequacy, your inability, your unworthiness, everything that you are. But when there is power, you can forget yourself and get on with the job. You can minister to the Lord, you can minister to your brothers and sisters. You can witness spontaneously, not in that dreadful cornering of some poor soul and asking them if they've seen the light or whether they're saved, what a disaster this has been.
Just because God used D.L. Moody so greatly in this way, the many believers that have followed have not been so singularly blessed in following the technique of D.L. Moody. People corner things, shove a tract in their hand, tell them that they're going to hell, that they need the Lord. That's not what I mean by witnessing.
I mean that when people begin to note that there's a fire in you and there's a life in you, and there's a love in you, and there's a peace in you, and there's a joy in you, they begin to ask, you have an answer, you are able to share the Lord Jesus in the most spontaneous, unaffected, normal way. Such power. Jesus is the power. It is the power of his resurrection.
And doesn't that give the clue straight away that if we are to know the power of his resurrection, we have to know something of what it is to die with Him? In other words, there is no power unless you and I are broke, unless you and I become weak, then the power of the Lord Jesus tabernacles upon us.
But that is not my subject for this morning. I would like to talk very much about it. But to know Christ as the life and the power, that is tremendous. What I want to talk about this morning is to know Christ as the baptizer in the spirit.
Now, I am very well aware that this is the most controversial subject. But I have to point out to you that at the beginning of all four Gospels and the beginning of the book of Acts, we have this "he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire." You can't get away from it. It must be not only vitally important, but deeply significant.
It's not as if one of the Gospels mentions it and none of the others do. Every one of the four gospels, the three Synoptic Gospels, and John, which is the interpretation, every one of them mentions this statement of John the Baptist, "I indeed baptize you in water, but he that cometh after me, he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire."
And when we come to the book of the Acts, which is another foundational book as far as the Gospel goes, we discover right at the beginning the words of the Lord Jesus, "John indeed baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence."
Now I want just to point out two or three things. I know that there is colossal controversy over this subject. And I know that it would be much easier not to use the word baptism of the Spirit in this way. We worm out and everybody is happy. But the fact is the book speaks of this baptism in the Spirit. And therefore it is best for us to face square what it's all about.
Now, it is interesting that John the Baptist described the heart of his ministry. Now, I don't suppose there is a single one of us who has any question about the calling of John the Baptist. We know that he was called by God. He was a man sent by God. He was a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophetic word. A voice crying in the wilderness, make ready, make straight a way for the Lord.
And this John the Baptist described his ministry as "I indeed baptize you in water," as if that was the summing up of his ministry. His call to repentance, his call to turn away from an old life, from an old way. As if in this baptism it was a preparation for the coming kingdom. And he summed it up in his baptism.
When certain people tried to misuse and abuse his ministry. Certain Sadducees and Pharisees, he said to them, "Who warned you, you brood of vipers, to escape from the wrath that is coming." It wasn't just a little ritual that he didn't mind administering to anybody and everybody. John, as far as was in him, wanted to be certain that everyone who was baptized understood a little, at least of what they were doing.
Now, he described and summed up his ministry, the heart of it, as this baptism in water. If you lived in those days, then you would have been identified with the purpose of God at that particular time in history by being baptized with John's baptism. That's how you would have identified yourself with the purpose of God, with the phase of the purpose of God that the people of God were in.
And this John the Baptist describes the heart of the Messiah's ministry as "he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire."
Now, I just find it impossible to relegate that to some sort of shelf theologically. I say, oh, well, I mean, don't put too much emphasis on that. I mean, there are much more important things than that. I mean, you rolling on the floor and behaving in an inordinate manner, all that kind of thing, if that's what you're talking about. I mean, I'm not going to alienate myself from believers who've had such an exotic experience, but I don't think it touches the heart of things.
But what an extraordinary thing if John the Baptist were to describe the heart of his ministry as baptism in water and the heart of the Lord Jesus ministry as baptism in the spirit and in fire. And it is only an exotic experience for elite people, something that is not necessary only for a few, perhaps one segment of the family of God.
I do not believe we can ignore or devalue this whole matter without doing serious damage to our own life in the Lord and to the service of God that we are involved in and in the church life that you and I long to see.
Now, I say there is colossal controversy over this minute, but I think we can clear the ground of certain misapprehensions. First of all, there is nothing at all possible without the person of the Holy Spirit. Nothing at all possible without the person of the Holy Spirit.
For instance, there is no such thing as repentance and conviction of sin without the person of the Holy Spirit. If you look in John 16, 7, 8, Jesus said, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you. But if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, of righteousness and of judgment."
In other words, there is not a single person who ever repented from their sin, who has been convicted of their lost state, who has been convicted of their destiny for hell, but by the Holy Spirit.
Nor has there been ever a single believer who has become convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. They may not know it, they may never have heard of the Holy Spirit. But it is the Holy Spirit who takes the salvation of the Lord Jesus, who is at the right hand of God the Father and makes it a living reality to a human being.
Who opened your eyes? Who caused you first to behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world? The person of the Holy Spirit. You did not even know him, but it was he who graciously came to you and began to lead you, pricking your conscience, convicting you of sin, of righteousness and of judgment, and leading you into a vision, however dim, of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God, the Saviour of the world.
Born again. No one can be born of God apart from the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "You must be born of water and of the Spirit." There's no way that anyone can be born again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead apart from the person of the Holy Spirit, how else?
There is no way. You may not even have known it, but you are born of God. You're in the family of God. The Spirit of God has been shed abroad in your heart, crying "Abba Father." For the first time you have a relationship with God. He is Father to you, not just some awesome God, but Father.
Or again, there can be no life and power without the Holy Spirit. In Romans chapter eight we read in verse six, "For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace."
Or again I think of those words in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8: "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses." There's no way that you can know the life of the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus, if I may put it very poorly and almost irreverently, is the located person of the Godhead. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? What I am saying is this, that the Lord Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father. How then are you in Christ? How then can you know the resurrection life of Christ? Only by the Spirit. There's no other way.
For the Holy Spirit is everywhere at one time. He has no body. Do you understand what I mean? Now, I'm very well aware that whenever we touch the trinity, we are touching essential mysteries. And I'm not at all sure that any one of us and I in particular, would ever be able to interpret or adequately explain the Godhead.
But what I do know is this. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say that Jesus is everywhere. He is at the right hand of the majesty on high from whence he shall come. As God he is everywhere. But he even bears in his hands and his side and his feet the marks of his passion. The God man, the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.
But the Spirit of the Lord, he is everywhere. And he makes the Lord Jesus at the right hand of the majesty on high a living reality in any human being that is saved by the grace of God. He communicates the life of the Lord Jesus. He transmits the power of the Lord Jesus. He is the one who opens the eyes to the fathomless fullness of the Lord Jesus. He is the one who leads us into everything that the Lord Jesus is. The Spirit of truth who leads us into all truth. Or, I like it another way, the Spirit of reality who leads us into all reality.
Or again, there can be no fruit without the person of the Holy Spirit. For it says in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22, "The fruit of the Spirit." There can be no fruit. That's why so many Christian lives are religious. They are not spiritual, they're not Christian lives, they're religious lives. They're saved. But there is no such thing as organic fruit being produced by the indwelling Christ through the person of the Holy Spirit.
I hope I'm getting this over to you. For the Holy Spirit is the ignored person of the Trinity. He's an it, an influence, a power, an agency instead of God, the Spirit. You know, the discovery of the person of the Holy Spirit is as tremendous as a discovery of the person of Christ.
Now, my dear friends, let me just go on, get this right over to you. There is no such thing as any experience of the cross apart from the Holy Spirit. Oh, would to God this would burn into every heart. I have been in so many places, especially in Europe, where I've seen people who have got this teaching of the cross and they are bound, crabby, narrow, straight laced, without any life or power at all. Yet they've got the whole teaching of the cross up here.
My dear friends, you can apprehend the teaching of the cross mentally. You can make it an affliction of the flesh. You can make it a will worship. "I'm going to suffer. I am going to suffer." My dear friend, if you've ever suffered or know anything of the fellowship of the sufferings of the Lord, you'll never again say "I am going to suffer."
It is something inescapable, but you will not ask for it. You know that it is something that lies in the way. Through many tribulations we enter into the kingdom of God.
Now, my dear friends, we can make this whole matter of the cross a heaviness, a darkness, a somber seriousness, which is religion. That's what the Hindus do. Even the Buddhists are a bit more light headed. It's a matter of religion.
Now I think of those poor saints. I don't want to say anything unkind—I may have to meet some of them one day. But when I think of some of those poor saints in the early churches, early ages of the church, who sat up on poles in the desert... Well, they had to be Greek. That's not anything unkind to anybody here who's Greek. But it is a mentality that you must do affliction to the body in order to save the spirit.
They sat up on top of poles all day and all night and had the food put up on another pole. Very little of it, of course. Or I think of others who... I sometimes walked in the wadis and valleys around Jerusalem in the wilderness of Judea. And there you to this day can see some of the caves that are walled up. And there are still some who have never been out of those walled up caves. A little bit of food is put through a little hole to them. They spend their lives, they say, in prayer and devotion.
Now, God forbid that I should devalue them if it really is of God. But I can only say the lamas do it in Tibet. We can make this matter of the cross just something like that. But the book says, "If by the Spirit you do put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
The whole work of the cross is not simply to leave us in some kind of somber sobriety, a kind of heavy bondage. The whole work of the cross is to move us into resurrection, into fruit, into life, into power. Something swallowed up by life.
The real work of the cross is impossible without the Holy Spirit. And I have noticed that those who really have an experience of the cross, and thank God, there are many who really have such a real experience, you see the beauty of the Lord upon their very faces. You see a radiance shining out of their inner man. You see when you touch them, something of the Lord Jesus. There's a fragrance left by their presence.
Well, take church life. There can be no true church life without the person of the Holy Spirit. All it is is a collection of people with an understanding of the nature of the church, as denominational as anything else, because they make the very truth of the church a thing and divide over it, so that it becomes, in the end, just like everything else. They are built on baptism. Someone else is built on tongues. Somebody else is built on a second experience of sanctification. Somebody else is built on something, gifts or something. And we are built on the truth of the church.
But that's not the church. The church is inclusive. Everyone born of God is in the church. We belong to them and they belong to us. We are not partakers of other men's sin. But, my dear friend, there's all the difference between an inclusive spirit and an exclusive spirit.
When the Holy Spirit begins to bring believers together and relate them one to another so that they begin to flow together, so that they begin to maintain the unity of the Spirit together, so that they begin to function by the power of the Holy Spirit, then the church is built and the testimony of Jesus is held.
Otherwise, we are forever talking about truth and never experiencing in reality church life. Oh, we need the Holy Spirit.
And then I don't think I need to say that gifts and equipment for service are impossible without the Holy Spirit. There are some strange notions. I was once standing in a queue for lunch and this is where, generally speaking, most people get hold of me for theological questions, or when we're eating.
And this brother said to me, "Oh, brother," putting his arm on my back, "isn't it wonderful to know Jesus?" "Oh," I said, "yes, it is." He was a dear old brother. And then he said to me, "What do you think about the gifts of the Spirit?"
So trying to think of my meal, I looked at him straight in the eyes and said, "I believe there are such things as gifts of the Spirit." "Oh, brother," he said, "Jesus is enough for me." "Oh," I said, "well, he's enough for me. But I said, I don't see it as you evidently do. You see the gifts of the Spirit there and Jesus here. I see the gifts of the Spirit as gifts of Jesus. Every time there is a real gift of the Spirit manifested, there's something more of Jesus imparted because it is Jesus who's been manifested."
He looked at me in a rather sad manner. And then I said to him, "Do you mean to tell me if you had appendicitis and you had to be rushed into hospital and operated on and your wife came to you and said, 'Don't worry, dear, the man who's going to operate on you has degrees like this behind his name.' But when he came, he came with a tree saw, a chisel, a hacksaw, and some garden shears. I said, would you be happy? You think it doesn't matter? This man has character. This man has maturity. That's all that matters."
"My dear friend," I said, "I think if your appendix were coming out, you'd like him to have character, maturity, and the right equipment."
How can you and I do the job that God has given us to do if we don't have the right gifts and the right equipment? It is a monstrous idea. It is an error. You and I need the gifts and the equipment of the Holy Spirit, and we can only have them through the Holy Spirit. Any gift or any equipment that is not through the work and person of the Holy Spirit is counterfeit and dangerous.
And then think about the lordship of Jesus. You know, this is a good thing. Just mention this. People say "Lord, Lord," and then do their own thing. Nobody can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit. That's what it says in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 3.
"No man can say Jesus is Lord, but by the Spirit." Now, my dear friends, in the Greek, it's very interesting. This is how it puts it. No man can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit.
Try. I don't mean... I know that those who are really afflicted by the enemy are not even able to call Jesus Lord. I know that, but I'm not talking about things that perhaps are a little more, if you understand what I mean, superficial.
I mean, do you... Have you ever found a single believer or a single company of believers that is really under the lordship of Jesus, hearing the will of God, hearing the word of God and obeying except in the Holy Spirit? There's no way to do it.
Everybody puts their own little heads together and either with a consensus of opinion or from one man's opinion, they do what they think is right. They say, "Jesus is Lord," but he's not Lord.
People go off and say, "The Lord has told them to do this." He's had nothing to do with it at all. They just want to do their own thing. When later they discover that's wrong, they say, "Oh, the Lord has shown me something else." And off they go. As if the Lord doesn't know his own mind. First he tells me this, then that, then back, then forward, then over here, then back. It's ridiculous, but it's all "the Lord."
It makes a mockery of the lordship of Jesus. There is no way to know the lordship of Jesus until in the Holy Spirit your spiritual ear has been opened to hear the voice of God.
My dear friends, you see, I think this matter is quite an important matter. I don't know why people are so afraid of the Holy Spirit. What is there to be afraid of the Holy Spirit?
I have in my little life found the Holy Spirit to be at one and the same time the most gentle, the most sweet and the most marvelous person in handling one. And at the same time the most firm. If I may put it in one way, the most obstinate, the most uncompromising person in dealing with me. There's nothing to be afraid of, as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned.
He has come to take you home. And if you're going to have problems with him all the way through, you're going to make it very difficult. He wants to change you from sinner to saint. That's a job. He wants to conform you to the image of the Lord Jesus. Oh, the glory of it. The wonder of it.
He wants to take those who are by nature so difficult, so ugly, so unlike Christ, and conform us to the image of God's Son. What in the world is wrong with us that we are so afraid of the Holy Spirit?
You know, I hope this doesn't upset anybody, but I don't mean it in a malicious way. But you know, you can talk about Jesus as a form of escapism. You can almost talk about Jesus and everything being in Jesus and Jesus being everything. And in reality, you do not know the life and nature and power of Jesus because we are avoiding the person of the Holy Spirit.
Only the Holy Spirit can make the life and nature and power of Jesus a living reality, both in me and in you and in us as the Church.
Would you note something about this statement we find in all four of the Gospels? "He that baptizeth in the Holy Spirit and fire."
Now, I don't know about you. I don't know your theological persuasion. I know quite a lot here, but I understand baptism as immersion. I don't think anybody with a Jewish background could understand baptism in any other way. Because that's the way everybody was baptized in the time of Jesus. I mean, before the Christian baptism, not even John's baptism. What we call proselyte baptism. We have found over Jerusalem and throughout every single one of the Jewish sites uncovered in the whole of the Middle East. Baptistry after baptistry after baptistry. We now see that everybody was immersed. Everybody. People have tried to keep the truth away for religious reasons, but now we know. And the very word in Greek means to dip.
Originally, primitively, it means to dip. In fact, it's used in classical Greek of dyeing a garment. Now, have you ever heard of someone taking a garment and you want to change it from yellow to deep green, and you sprinkle green dye over it? Nobody's ever heard of such a thing. Or suppose you take a piece of yellow cloth and you say, "Well, I won't sprinkle, but I will pour some dye over it." You're going to have a very blotchy business.
What do you do when you dye material? You dip the whole thing in a great vat of dye, and it goes completely in and out. You don't leave it in. Who can wear a piece of cloth that's left in the dye? You've got to get it out. So it goes in and it comes out. That's baptism. You go into the waters and you come out of the waters. And in the waters you are immersed. You are dyed.
Now listen again. "He that cometh after me, he shall immerse you in the Holy Spirit."
For me, this takes this whole question out of controversy and puts it into a new dimension. Immersed in the person of the Holy Spirit.
My dear friends, sometimes I hear people say they have had an experience of the Holy Spirit. And I would have imagined from the way they talk that they've got the Holy Spirit. It's as if they've somehow obtained the Spirit, tracked the Spirit, encompassed the Spirit. They've got the spirit located. They've got him.
I don't find this to be baptism in the Spirit. I find baptism in the spirit is that you are dipped in the Holy Spirit. You are immersed in the Holy Spirit. Somehow or other you discover that it's not you got the Spirit, the Holy Spirit has got you.
Do you notice that John the Baptist doesn't say "he shall baptize you in spirit and fire"? He doesn't say that. He says very carefully, in every instance in the Gospel, "he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire."
In other words, this marvelous thing is that you and I should somehow or other be immersed in the person of the Holy Spirit.
I think of these words of Jesus that come to me in John, chapter 7 and verse 37 and 38. "Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, from within him, as the Scripture hath said, shall flow out rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
"If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." That's how we get born of God, isn't it? We receive the Spirit within us. He comes to live within us.
But then there is something else. "He that believeth on me," as the Scriptures have said, "from within him shall flow out rivers of living water." Not a river, not a stream. Rivers of living water able to turn desert areas into a garden, able to transform whole great areas around us. Rivers of living water.
Dear friend, note, it's all to do with Jesus. "He that believeth" not on the Spirit, but "he that believeth on me, from within him shall flow out rivers of living water." I believe that almost every time you believe more deeply in the Lord Jesus, the rivers of God flow out of you more powerfully. It's a faith position.
Or I think of the wonderful words in Colossians chapter 2 and verse 9 and 10. I expect all of you know them so well. "For in him that is in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And in him ye are made full."
In him, not he in you, trapped inside of you, but in him you are made full. As if your little vessel is submerged in the fullness of God in Christ.
But again, I think of another marvelous word. I'm sure these are so well known to you in Ephesians chapter 3, from verse 16. Listen to these words: "That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man. That Christ may dwell in your heart through faith to the end. That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and length, and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fullness of God."
Theory, theology, ideal or reality? For many believers, it is an ideal. It is meant to be a reality. For on the day of Pentecost, when the Lord Jesus obtained the promise of the Spirit and poured him forth, then it was as if those hundred and twenty suddenly were submerged in a fullness they had never known before.
Rivers of living water began to flow out of them, to turn the whole Roman world and far beyond it upside down, to turn a wilderness into a garden. They were filled to all the fullness of God. So filled that people looking on them thought they were drunk. Something had taken them over, submerged them as it were. Overflowing.
Would to God the meetings of our fellowships and assemblies are like that, overflowing with the Lord.
Oh, my dear friends. I think of a little poem by Amy Carmichael, but I have to watch the time now. But it's one that's meant a lot to me.
"Upon the sandy shore an empty shell beyond the shell infinity of sea. O Saviour, I am like that empty shell. Thou art the sea to me. A sweeping wave rides up the shore and lo, each dim recess the coiled shell within is searched, is filled, is filled to overflowing with thy crystalline water.
Not to the shell is any glory then all glory give we to the glorious sea. And not to me is any glory when thou dost overflow me. Sweep over me, thy shell, as low I lie. I yield me to the purpose of thy will. Sweep up, all conquering wave, and purify and with thy fullness fill."
That is what it means to be immersed in the Holy Spirit.
But there is something else. I go on from what we've just said. It's fire. Now, I think fire is the most wonderful thing in the whole world. Really? And also the most terrible.
Fire speaks of warmth, of love. It speaks of energy and power. It speaks of radiance and light. It speaks of refining and purity. Fire. The symbol of the New Covenant is fire.
On the Day of Pentecost, it was a rushing sound of a mighty wind that came in and fire fell upon every one of them. Fire.
You know, those who've had a gift for poetry or hymn writing, this thing has caught them again, and again and again. I think of Charles Wesley's wonderful hymn. I wish we had it to sing.
"O Thou who camest from above the pure celestial fire to impart, kindle a sacred flame of love on the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn with inextinguishable blaze and trembling to its source return in humble prayer and fervent praise.
Jesus, confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for Thee. Still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up thy gift in me, ready for all thy perfect will. My acts of faith and love repeat till death thine endless mercies seal and make the sacrifice complete."
No wonder God owns men like that.
Or I think again of another little word by Amy Carmichael. I don't know if it means anything to you, but I have seen a fiery flame take to his pure burning half mere dust of earth to it impart his virtue till that dust became transparent loveliness of flame.
"O fire of God, Thou fervent flame. Thy dust of earth in thee would fall and so be lost beyond recall, transformed by thee, its very name forgotten in thine own."
My dear friends, that is fire. If that doesn't awaken in you a hunger, nothing will. You will never win another soul to Christ. If there's not fire in you, no one will ever turn aside to see this great sight. Unless you're a thorn bush burning with fire and not being consumed. It's fire.
Oh, my dear friends, I think of Moses' cry when he'd seen so much and heard so much. "Show me thy glory."
And so, my friends, the last thing I want to say—that was the second, this is the last point.
I want you to note that the whole emphasis in all four gospels in this statement is not, if I may say it reverently, not on the person of the Holy Spirit as much as on the baptizer. "He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire."
There's only one person in the universe who can take you, saved by the grace of God and immerse you in the person of the Holy Spirit and in fire. And that is the Lord Jesus. He is the baptizer. Your zeal will not bring it about. Your waiting will not bring it about. Your tears will not bring it about. Your sacrifice will not bring it about. Your knowledge will not bring it about. Your devotion will not bring it about. There is only one person. Not even your good works can bring upon you that immersion in the person of the Holy Spirit. There is only one who can do it.
He is the One who died for you. And because he died for you, he has won for you an eternal and so great salvation. He has won for you a birthright. And the birthright is that you be immersed in the person of the Holy Spirit.
When we see Jesus at the right hand of God the Father, and we see that he has obtained the promise of the Father and poured forth this which ye see and hear, then for the first time we might understand. He is the one who can take you and me and immerse us in the person of the Holy Spirit and the fire.
Dear friends, there will be no way in which you and I will be presented a pure virgin to the Lord Jesus apart from the person of the Holy Spirit.
I don't know about you. I don't know whether your circumstances are too much for you. I'll tell you, no amount of knowledge will get you over those circumstances. You can know all mysteries and all kinds of things. It may help you quite considerably. But you won't come through those circumstances unscathed.
Maybe you've got situations too much for you and you say, "Well, if I'm more devoted, won't it help?" Of course it will, but it won't change the situation.
The only way that you and I can come through these things is if we have been immersed in the person of the Holy Spirit. It's like the tide coming up and covering everything.
Oh dear brother and sister, may God open your eyes and deliver you from this spirit of controversy over this subject. Different techniques, different steps, different ways. I'm not bothered about that. All I'm bothered about is this. Do you know Jesus as the baptizer in the Holy Spirit and in fire?
You say, "Well, yes, I'm converted." That's not what I said. I know you're converted. I know you're saved. "Well," you say, "I'm walking with the Lord." Yes, I know you are. I'm asking whether you're immersed in the person of the Holy Spirit and in fire.
If God were to open our eyes to see Jesus as the one through whose finished work he has obtained the promise of the Father and poured forth the Holy Spirit, then you and I may come to know what it is to be lost in the fullness and power of God.
May the Lord do it for every one of us in these last days. And may that glorious power and fire of the Holy Spirit enable us to be unaffected, single hearted and single eyed, not corrupted from the simplicity and purity which is toward Christ.
