Are You Ignorant About Spiritual Gifts?

Let’s turn to First Corinthians, chapter 12, just one verse, verse 1, which is the desire of the Holy Spirit for you, for me, for our church, the desire of the Holy Spirit expressed through the voice of the Apostle Paul. And the Apostle Paul tells us, and the Holy Spirit tells us: “I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers and sisters—and that ‘brothers and sisters’ means you; put your name there—I do not want you, Lion of Judah Congregation, I do not want you, believers, Christians, I do not want you to be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts…”

God does not want you to be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts, and that is my message this afternoon. I want you to take that with you. God does not want you to be childish regarding the depths of the Spirit. Rather, God wants us to know the elements of the Christian life, the nutrients, the science of the deep life in the Spirit. God wants us to be well informed and instructed concerning the things that provide for a powerful, Spirit-filled life.

Paul is speaking here about spiritual things, the matters of the Spirit. The expression translated as “spiritual gifts,” I personally believe, does not do justice to the complexity of what Paul is saying. The word in the original Greek—and it is a single word—is pneumatikon. Everyone say pneumatikon. Now you are all experts in Greek. And the translators of Scripture, both in English and Spanish and, I suspect, in other languages, translated it, in light of the context of what follows, as “spiritual gifts”; but the original idea is—in passing, the specific grammatical category is the neuter plural genitive, which indicates possession.

I do not want you to be ignorant of the things of the Spirit and the matters of the Spirit. It is more comprehensive than simply the gifts of the Spirit. Paul is speaking about everything related to the deeper life of the Spirit. God does not want you to be ignorant about those things.

From the context of chapter 12, we understand that, yes, this deals largely with the gifts, with the working and moving of the Holy Spirit. In other words, Paul is not speaking about the Christian life in general but about a specific area, namely the deeper life of the Spirit, the supernatural manifestations, that supernatural, mysterious dimension of the Christian experience. And that is why he goes into a series of elements that lead him through First Corinthians 12, 13, and 14.

Remember that the Bible was not written in chapters and verses; that was something added for convenience many centuries later. In reality, this is one continuous line of reasoning. He begins to speak about spiritual gifts and then says that the Spirit who manifests the gifts is one and the same; there are not different gods—a god of tongues, a god of this, a god of that—as we have today in Santería: one of rain, another saint for lovers who have been deceived and rejected, another for those hoping to find lovers, and so forth, as though each one were a different god. He says, no, no, it is all one Spirit.

Not only that, but he also says that there is a unity we must have: those with greater and lesser gifts must tolerate one another; we are one body. In chapter 13, he says that love is more important than any gift. In chapter 14, he teaches that the gifts must be manifested with wisdom, sobriety, understanding, and consideration for the others around you.

In other words, he is speaking about all those mysteries and all those things having to do with the administration, handling, and processing of the gifts and mysteries of the Spirit in the believer’s life. And he says: God does not want—I do not want—you to be ignorant concerning what we might call the science of the Holy Spirit.

The word translated into Spanish as “ignorant” is agnoeo. Wow, it seems I woke up with a spirit of erudition. In fact, it means that ag, like ab, is a prefix meaning “lacking,” and noeo is gnosis, knowledge. I do not want you to lack knowledge about the things of the Spirit. God wants to give you all the information, all the doctrine, all the teaching you need concerning…

And the Bible places great importance—the Lord places great importance—on our not being immature, because there are many immature Christians who love God but do not have a deeper knowledge of the things of the Spirit; they are innocent, like children.

Look, for example, at what Hebrews, chapter 5, verse 12, says about this kind of ignorance. It does not mean that these Christians behave badly or are immoral; no, they are simply like children and do not know… and there are many children in the churches, including this one. I do not say that to make you feel bad, but simply so you will understand that there are deeper dimensions of the life of the Spirit.

Hebrews 5:13 says, “And everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, because he is a child; but solid food—those mysteries, those deeper teachings—is for those who through use, that is, through practice, through experience, through contact with the things of the Spirit and the mysteries, have trained their senses to discern good and evil.”

God does not want you to be childish, to remain in first grade or second grade. God wants you to go to high school and then to university, to study the physics of the Spirit and the calculus of the Spirit, to go into the deepest things of the Spirit.

As I say, there is a great deal of ignorance in the Christian world in this area. There are people who believe that it is only a matter of accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, having sound doctrine and good teaching, behaving well, attending church, giving an offering or a tithe, and serving the Lord; and they turn the Christian life into something mechanical and external. But God wants us to live a deeper life, to be divers of the Spirit and go down to a deeper level. Do you understand what I mean?

That you would partake of those greater things, that you would not remain with the rudiments, that you would not keep eating cornflakes with milk, but would have a good chunk of plantain, your tortilla with refried beans, and your pupusa too, and all those things—that you would enter into the deeper things of the Spirit. Do not remain only at the most superficial level.

I believe that is what he is saying here, because I have observed this: much of the ineffectiveness and spiritual poverty of many Christians is due to the fact that they are ignorant about that deeper dimension of the Christian life, about how the power of God works. I believe that is why there are so many Christians who, as I say, are circumstantial—so many Christians who disappear when they go through a trial, who let themselves collapse; so many Christians whom the devil bullies however he pleases, setting all kinds of traps for them. They quickly deflate; they are here one day and gone the next, and so forth. They do not know about the mysteries of the deep Christian life, and they fall prey to all kinds of false doctrine.

I believe that, in part, it is because they have not had an experience with that depth of the life of the Spirit. And Paul says: I do not want you to be ignorant about these things. And one of those things, brothers and sisters, is that the deep Christian life is a life of power. Amen. Power. It is not knowledge alone; it is not behavior; it is having within you an energy that is not yours but God’s. One of the books of the Old Testament says, it is not by sword or by army, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. Amen.

How many times do we sing that little chorus without understanding what we are saying? There is an extra power that is required; it is as though they replaced your engine and put the engine of a battle tank inside you. It is the power of the Spirit within you. We are not supposed to live in our own strength, but in the strength of the Spirit within us.

That mentality of power permeates everything in the New Testament. Let us turn to just one verse, for example, First Corinthians 4:20. The Apostle Paul says:

“…For the Kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power…”

In other words, read there: not in doctrine, teaching, and a lot of talking, but in power. In the long run, what frightens the devil is whether or not you have power. It is not how much doctrine you know; you can talk to him about the depths of the Virgin and this and that, but he says: No, where is the power? Where is the authority?

Do you remember the sons of Sceva? There was a demon-possessed man, and they said, “In the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches, we rebuke you.” And the spirit told them, “Well, I know Paul, and I know Jesus, but who are you?” He fell upon them, tore their clothes to shreds, and they all ran out naked. Because the devil respects only the power, the authority of God within you.

There is another verse I will refer you to later; also look up First Corinthians 4:20, where Paul says the same thing. Power, when all is said and done.

What are some of those additional elements? What are some of those elements encapsulated, as it were, in that idea of pneumatikon, the deeper things of the Spirit? For example, I believe spiritual warfare is one, as I have just pointed out. The person who is filled with the Holy Spirit and lives a supernatural life knows that there are demons and evil spirits in the world, and that person has received good teaching, and the power of God enables him or her to have authority and victory over the power of the devil, who wants to create depression in that person’s life and cause problems in that person’s marriage, finances, and children.

The Christian filled with the Holy Spirit knows how to deal with those things, because that Christian knows there is a power. Paul said, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against evil spirits moving through the air.” Therefore, the Christian of power and depth knows.

That is one area in which you need to know something about what happens when the devil comes into your life to do harm. What happens when you encounter a person afflicted by a demon? What are you going to do in that case?

Another area is fasting and prayer: the person who lives in the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit knows that prayer and fasting are a source of power, that we must pray, that we must cover the lives of our children, our family, and our day in prayer. We must fast to seek more of God’s grace and power in our lives.

The Lord Jesus Christ said that there are spirits that come out only through fasting and prayer. And the Lord himself was a man of prayer, a being of prayer. The Christian who does not pray will cry. If you do not live a life of prayer and of seeking God’s power through prayer, you are going to have problems; you are going to be weak. Worship is important; that is why, when we come to the house of the Lord, we devote time to worship. Do not waste that glorious opportunity you have every time you come to church.

Sometimes, brothers and sisters, I watch with sadness as many people worship and have an experience with the Lord, while others do not open their mouths; they are gripping the seat in front of them with every fiber of their being and do not move a finger. Brothers and sisters, begin to use your mouth; begin to worship the Lord. Do not waste that opportunity. Even if you think you sing off-key, do not worry: by the time it reaches heaven, you are singing like Michael Jackson—or, better yet, like Gory Tembún or someone else. When it gets up there, the Lord has transformed it into stereo, hi-fi, or whatever. Sing however you can; worship the Lord; do not worry. Worship the Lord. Worship at home; set aside time to worship, to have devotions; God likes to be worshiped.

And worship has incredible power to break through mountains, to do tremendous things. Do you know how the Apostle Paul’s ministry began? Look it up in Acts, chapter 3; it is one of my favorite passages. It says there were apostles, prophets, and men of God in the city. One day, they gathered to pray in a house, and there, while they prayed and worshiped the Lord, it says that the Holy Spirit spoke and said, “Set apart for me Paul and Barnabas for the work I have appointed for them,” and from there began the most anointed ministry in all of history. Two-thirds of the New Testament were written by the Apostle Paul.

God used this man to establish the theology of the church. In a time of worship and prayer to the Lord, where the Spirit is present, there is worship; there is, as it were, a space where God can do powerful things. The mature Christian, the Christian who is not ignorant of the things of the Spirit, understands the importance of worship. And that is why we take our time. Many people come to church and wonder, “Why do these people take 40 minutes, 35 minutes to pray? Good grief, two little choruses are more than enough. God already knows these people believe in him.” No. You have to let yourself get thoroughly seasoned; the meat has to stay in there for a good while, and even then many of us still need more time. Worship is important.

There is a passage I like about Elisha, when he was in the desert and some kings who were lost and dying of thirst came to him—I do not know what Elisha was doing, but they found him there in the desert. Perhaps he was praying. The point is that they came to Elisha and said to him, “We need your help; prophesy to us. What can we do?” It says that Elisha called for a minstrel, an anointed musician, and said to him, “Sing me a couple of Marcos Witt choruses. God is here…” And then he began to get seasoned, and then the word of God arose, and he prophesied to them.

Why did a man as anointed as Elisha need worship beforehand? Because the truth is that many times you are so caught up in life that you need to change the channel, so to speak, isn’t that right? There are times when I am in an airport, for example—airports are some of the most demonized places in the entire world; there are all kinds of spiritual germs crossing everywhere—and many times, honestly, I am on my way to a conference or something, and I say, “Lord, if I had to preach here right now because there were a terrorist attack, I would first have to find a place to recover a little, to…” I hope not, but it is as though you are so immersed in that overpowering environment—the announcements, the shouting, the screens, the anxiety about the plane, and all these things—that you are out of sync. And then what you need is to return and be in the Spirit, and that is where you can worship the Lord, declare the presence of God, and then you come back. Because we are a total entity: we are body, mind, spirit, emotions, will, memories—all together—intellect, everything mixed together in there.

Do you think there is a Department of Intellect, a Department of Will, a Department of Emotion, a Department of the Body, and a Department of the Spirit? And you open a door: “Okay, I want a little spirit,” and you close it, and then, “A little bit…” No. You are a whole. God made you an integrated being, and if your emotions and your intellect are affected, that will affect your spirit, so you have to bring it all together. That is why worship is so important in the life of the believer.

When you come to church, prepare your spirit; declare the glory of the Lord. Spirits are confused, bound, and weakened when there is a people worshiping the Lord. I could give you many examples of this. All these things—spiritual warfare, fasting, aggressive prayer, worship, the use of the gifts—there are many times when you simply do not know what to pray. The Word says that the Spirit can pray with groanings too deep for words. You can pray in tongues. If you are so confused, so anxious, and your mind is so chaotic that you do not even have the presence of mind or the coherence to pray in Spanish, begin to speak in tongues. Pray in tongues. Get out whatever comes, some tongue-talk… Do not worry; God will interpret it correctly.

You know that many people have a problem with tongues, and you know that ultimately—I do not have time to delve into the mysteries of linguistics, which is the science of language—but as far as I can understand, languages, any language, any word, are really just like a container for energy. You say “pot,” and you can say it in French, Spanish, Chinese, or whatever, and the word does not matter as much as what registers in your mind and… yes or no? You say “father,” and for one person that word may mean something good, while another person may want to run away from the word because he had so many bad experiences with his father. So it is not so much the word that matters, but the energy inside it. The word is what I would call a somatization of internal energy. Wow, write that down for me quickly!

It is turning an energy within you into a body, into something material. Why do you cry out when you are sad? Why do you laugh when you are happy? Because you are, as it were, packaging what you feel inside in something physical, because human beings need to externalize what we feel within; but what really matters is not what you are saying, but what you feel inside. That is why you can say anything, and that interpreter par excellence—God, who knows every language—will know what you are saying, no matter what you say.

Do not worry so much about what you are saying. Speak to God and open your mouth. Many people do not understand this secret of tongues: God is the supreme interpreter, the one who will take what you are saying and turn it into language that He can understand. So open your mouth, sanctify what you are saying, and believe that it comes from God. And speak. I think that is the problem with many people: they are so tangled up, looking for a fifth leg on the cat; this is not that difficult. “Open your mouth, and I will fill it,” says the Word of the Lord. And if it does not say that, it ought to. I think it does; there is a verse that says that.

So tongues have power. It says that the one who speaks in the Spirit speaks directly with God. It is as though the cable had been plugged directly into the Lord, bypassing your intellect, and you are speaking a spirit-to-Spirit language. Glory to the Lord. If that is the only thing you learn today, you can go home happy; the visit was worthwhile.

I also believe that these mysteries of the Spirit refer to learning to think in a spiritual, supernatural way of faith. You know that the way God reasons is not the way man reasons. Do you know that the way a person filled with the Holy Spirit reasons is not the way an ordinary Christian reasons?

One of the things I see is that many of the Spirit’s lines of reasoning are contrary to reason; but it is not that they are contrary—it is that they are so reasonable that they go beyond reason. It is reason taken to an extreme degree of reasonableness. It is God’s reasoning, which is so complex that it appears to be foolishness. The Word likewise says that the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

Many times, there are things God tells you that will seem crazy. But I believe that Christians tend to reason like this: whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. When you give to the Lord beyond your strength, God gives you more, and instead of lacking, you have more than enough. When you praise the Lord amid great weakness and pain, that serves as a power that brings victory into your life. When you confess the goodness and power of God when not even the lilies can lift your spirits, that has power, because you are doing it in the Spirit and not in the flesh, and it is more powerful than a declaration that arises from your emotions when everything is going well. That is why we sing: How wonderful it is to praise God when things are going well for you. But if you praise Him amid your brokenness, that holy Christ is glorified within you. When you sing that, understand that you are reasoning in the way of the Spirit.

One of the most powerful and counterintuitive things in the history of humanity, brothers and sisters, is the cross. The cross—something horrifying, ugly, terrible, pure torture. The Lord Jesus, bound, nailed down, powerless—the Bible says that He defeated the principalities and powers. Hallelujah! And He won the definitive victory for all humanity on the cross of Calvary. Apparently defeated, He defeated the powers of the devil.

Paul says, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” God told Paul, “Paul, stop praying for Me to remove the thorn from you, because My power is perfected in weakness.” Learn to move in weakness through the Spirit. If you are weak, welcome to the club; you will have more power if you move in the power of the Spirit.

I was speaking with the brothers this morning, and I said, “Look, when I got up this morning, I don’t know what was wrong with me… and I still have it, some virus that I don’t know what it is, but it feels as though someone had cut off the electricity to my body.” Have you ever felt like that? I feel a little feverish; that is how I feel right now as I stand here. And I said, “Well, Lord…” But you know what? I reason this way: I would have had every right to say, “I am going to stay home; I am going to call one of the pastors to preach.” But I have learned to reason in the Spirit, because many times when I have been least fit to preach is when God has blessed the preaching the most—at least, that is what I have thought.

And by now I have learned that if I feel discouraged, if I fought with my wife because she did not make me a good breakfast on Sunday before coming to church and I do not feel anointed, if I said or thought something bad on the way, I am not going to let that keep me from standing up, declaring the virtues of the Lord, and speaking the Word of God, because it is not me; it is the power of God within me. And so you learn to move. Many times, it is when you are weak that you are strongest. When you are going through problems, that may be when God most wants you to worship and praise Him. When you think God is a thousand miles away from your life, that may be precisely when He is carrying you to bring you to a new level of life in the Spirit.

So you learn to move, not in your own flesh, not in your own strength, not according to your experience, not according to your holiness—and this is not a license to behave badly; rather, it is grace, grace, grace. It is the power of God in your life. If you are afraid to stand up and give a testimony, do not give in to fear; even if your knees are trembling and you do not know what to say, the Lord will put something in your mouth. I always say that I have never stepped down from a pulpit feeling ashamed; God has always provided, always, even at the very beginning of my ministry.

If God calls you to witness to someone, witness to that person even if your teeth are chattering. Speak in the Lord, in the power of the Spirit, because the Christian does not reason according to human reason, but according to the reasoning of the Spirit. All these things are mysteries; they are pneumatikon, things of the Spirit, deeper teachings. The Lord does not want you to be ignorant about these techniques of spiritual judo and karate. He wants you to understand these things. When the devil comes along and sees your black belt, let him say, “Oh, I’m not messing with this person—forget it. This one is a big shot in the Spirit,” as we say in good Dominican Spanish.

So He wants you to be filled with the Spirit and your life to be a life of power, fully connected. And the Bible says: How is that power obtained? How does one learn to reason in that dimension of the Spirit? Well, it is through the infilling and baptism of the Holy Spirit. I do not know any other way. It is the instrument God has chosen. I know it is something very profound and complex, but do not make life too complicated for yourself.

What did the Lord Jesus Christ say in Acts chapter 1, verses 7 and 8?

“… And He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has placed under His sole authority’”—because the disciples asked Him, “Lord, are You going to restore Israel when You come?” The Lord told them, “Look, stop all that theological foolishness; that is not what you need right now. You are going to go out and preach the Gospel. Focus on this: first you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…”

What does the Lord mean? When you have had that Pentecostal experience, that baptism of the Spirit. And to whom was the Lord speaking? Was it to people who did not know Jesus Christ? No, these people had spent years walking with the Son of God. Would you be an evangelical Christian if you spent three years walking with Jesus Christ every day and being instructed by Him? Of course you would. You know the Lord. But He said, “No, no, you still lack something. Do not leave Jerusalem until you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and then you will be able to be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

There is something, brothers and sisters, that you need and that I need: to be filled more and more with the Holy Spirit every day. You have to settle that once and for all, and that is why we are holding these Spirit gatherings, because I would like our entire church, in the name of the Lord, to reach the point where, if you ask any member of León de Judá who happens to be walking by—if there is a reporter out there—“Listen, they preach in there that all Christians have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Have you been filled?” “Of course I have! Why wouldn’t I be? How dare you ask me that? I attended a Spirit gathering, and I was filled there, and I confess that I was,” and so on. And right there, the person preaches the Four Spiritual Laws to the reporter, converts him, and keeps walking, like Philip.

You can see the impact of the anointing of the Holy Spirit on those disciples. When Jesus was crucified, they all… did what mice do when someone turns on the light: they scurried into the little holes in the wall. They could not be found anywhere. They left Jesus alone. They thought… Look at the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “We thought He was the one who was going to bring salvation to Israel.” The Lord became upset with them. Now what happens when they are filled with the Holy Spirit? Peter, who had denied Jesus a few days earlier, stands up and says, “Men of Israel, you crucified the Son of God. Repent.” And he preached one sermon, and five thousand were converted there in one fell swoop. Glory to the Lord.

There was a change. And those people revolutionized all Jerusalem. Before that, people did not even know there were evangelical believers in Jerusalem; now they call them “you who turn the whole earth and the whole world upside down.” Because a person filled with the Holy Spirit often breaks dishes and everything else and causes problems for the pastor, but they are people who have something different, because they are not exactly models of virtue either. It is not that the Holy Spirit turns you into a plaster saint. No. Do not provoke me on that subject, because my flesh will come out, along with all the wounds that many of my brothers and sisters filled with the Holy Spirit have inflicted on me over the years. But I can tell you one thing: they are passionate people, sealed people, and the devil does not know how to get his hands on them, because they know in whom they have believed, and they speak—sometimes talking nonsense, but they speak, proclaim, and preach the Gospel; and they love the Word and worship the Lord. Yes or no? It is because they have something; it is a seal. It is the experience of the Holy Spirit.

Of course we have to grow; there are many additional things. That is why Paul writes in First Corinthians: it is not just about having gifts—do you also have love? Do you have the fruit of the Holy Spirit? How do you treat your brother? Do not come and tell me that you speak in tongues over there and that you had an experience with an angel who appeared to you in a cave, and then, when you get home, you mistreat your wife and your children, who cannot stand the sight of you. Paul says, no, it is a totality of experience. There are many things to learn; it is a complete whole. The Bible says, I do not want you to be a child in the things of the Spirit.

There are also many Pentecostals who have other things to learn about the Spirit; it is a complete whole. So it is important: the Lord tells them, do not leave Jerusalem. When they are baptized, their lives are completely changed, and they are filled with the power of God. Because God does not want us to be ignorant.

One last thing… say, glory to God, hallelujah! Thank you, Pastor. Let us go to the Book of Acts, chapter 19. I do not know how many of you remember that last Sunday we looked at another passage about the Samaritans. Remember that it says that when the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received Jesus, they sent Peter and John to lay hands on them so that they might be filled with the Holy Spirit, recognizing that a person may have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior but may still lack a deeper, more intense experience of life in the Holy Spirit.

Look here at what happens with these men in Acts chapter 19, verse 1. Listen to this episode in the life and ministry of the Apostle. It says:

“...It happened that while Apollos was in Corinth”—by the way, Apollos was another person who also needed a tune-up concerning the Holy Spirit. He knew about God, he was preaching, and he was a highly educated man, but two humble people came along, Priscilla and Aquila. They were a missionary couple, simple-hearted people, not highly educated, but they had had an experience with the Holy Spirit. And one day they heard Apollos, a young believer who was nevertheless very highly educated. He was a Greek with a PhD in theology and philosophy who had come to know Christ, and Apollos did not wait: he began handing out tracts and preaching the Gospel in the streets. Priscilla and Aquila heard him and said, “Wow, this man has something special, but his preaching is missing something.” I believe what he was missing was anointing; he was missing that certain something—whatever you want to call it—but there was something he lacked.

Because that is what happens: when a person does not have that supernatural experience with the Spirit, they may have great piety, great love for God, and many other things, but you know there is something—some component—that they lack, judging by the way they express themselves and the way they reason about the Christian life. You say, wow, if that person had that other component, he would be a spiritual giant. Because it is not that you are nothing or do nothing. No, it is about how much you could do if you had that infilling of the Holy Spirit.

They heard Apollos preaching and said, this man—wow, tremendous—could become a great man of God. They took him aside. It says that they asked him about his faith, and then they discovered that he knew only the baptism of John. They spoke to him about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and then, although it does not say so explicitly, I imagine that they laid hands on him. He came away filled with the Holy Spirit, and suddenly Apollos begins to emerge on the pages of Scripture.

Incidentally, he came to be almost on the level of the Apostle Paul; he was well known. That is why Paul later speaks about him in another way. That is extra, but Acts 19 says:

“...It happened that while Apollos was in Corinth, Paul, after traveling through the upper regions, came to Ephesus and found certain disciples”—meaning disciples of Christ, believers; it does not mean that they did not know the Lord. They knew something about Jesus Christ. Finding certain disciples, he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” That question is very revealing because Paul is admitting there that a person can believe in Christ and yet not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Yes or no? It is that simple.

“...Did you receive the Spirit?”—and now, when he speaks of receiving the Holy Spirit, he means receiving that infilling, that power, that impartation, that baptism of the Holy Spirit.—And they said to him, “What is that all about?” It says here in verse 2—they said, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

You know, my brother, there are people in the Kingdom of God who do not know about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. They do not know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they do not know about the gifts, and they do not know about spiritual warfare. They have been told that all of that belonged to ancient times. They are like children.

I told you that recently I attended a very high-class gathering—and I promise I will finish with this—where the people... I believe that everyone there with me had at least a PhD or a ThD. It was an exquisite place, an exquisite sanctuary, and a service orchestrated with such sophistication and such a high degree of aesthetic refinement. There was a pianist who must have graduated from a great school of music, a conservatory—tremendous. Two women sang several solos, and they sang like angels. But in that entire glorious service, which was on such a high level, and throughout the whole setting, I never heard the name Jesus mentioned. And in a service that was supposed to offer comfort and remind people of God’s power to heal, none of that was mentioned. Everything consisted merely of lovely aesthetic expressions and a beautiful sermon, but I could have read it in Time magazine, Reader’s Digest, or some book of secular poetry. I said, wow, what a waste of time! How much could have been done in this context to point to God’s power to heal souls, heal hearts, and restore, but there was none of that. Why? Because that deeper teaching about the Spirit is absent. People believe that if you speak about the Great Creator, with a capital G and C—that spirit who created the universe and is on Pluto and Jupiter—that is enough. Yet the Bible says that there is no name given among men by which we may be saved except through Jesus Christ the man. And that when the name of Jesus is mentioned in power, demons tremble, and there is healing in the name of Jesus. Simply pointing people to the name of Christ is a balm to the troubled soul. And perhaps you may not be able to say much, but if you have the power of God, an energy will flow from you and you will communicate something healing to someone, and you will not waste time on superfluous things. That is why knowledge is necessary, because that is how we often are.

I wonder—if I were to ask many of those people, “Do you know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit?”—they would say, what is that? No, that was a long time ago; that was back when the canon... They would have given me a whole theological dissertation. But unfortunately, the power is not there. There are other things and good intentions. I am sure God loves those people, and they will probably go to heaven because, in some way, they profess Jesus. I do not know. But the truth is that it was a waste because they do not know pneumatikon; they do not know those deeper things.

I believe that at this point in history, when the devil has been given greater freedom to move with more power than ever before in human history, we need people sealed with the Holy Spirit. We need people with an experience of the Word of God, a supernatural experience—people who know that they know that they know. They may not be able to explain why, but that does not matter. They know in their hearts; they have something—a seal, a presence, a substance, an essence. That is the presence of the Holy Spirit within them. And the devil is going to have great difficulty neutralizing or seducing those people or leading them into heresies. And at this time, my brother, my sister, we cannot afford not to have that experience.

It is very complex and has many problematic dimensions, but one thing I know: it exists; it is real. You cannot know the Word if you do not understand that part. Seek it. Ask the Lord to make it clear to you. Hunger and thirst for it. Cry out to the Lord, and the Lord will answer; He will quench your thirst and satisfy your hunger.

The Word says that if you ask the Father for bread, He will not give you a stone. If you ask Him for the Holy Spirit, the Lord will give Him to you. The problem is that we do not seek enough, we do not ask enough, and we do not feel enough need. But if you need Him, He will come and speak to you. That is all I can tell you. These people were touched by the Apostle Paul. It says that they knew only about the baptism of John; they told him so. But it says that after Paul explained it to them more clearly, in verse 5 it says:

“...When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied...”

Glory to the name of the Lord. We must seek that experience more and more in our lives. Many of us—if I were to ask you right now and say, “Brother, sister, the Holy Spirit does not want you to be ignorant about the deeper things of the Spirit, and one of those questions is: are you filled with the Holy Spirit? Have you had an encounter with the Holy Spirit? Can you truly say, yes, I am sure?”

It is as if I were to ask someone, “Have you believed in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?” And they say, “Well, I am not sure. I am thinking about it; I will see. I think so, because they told me that if I do this...” No, you have to say, “Of course I have believed. In fact, I can tell you the date, the day, the hour, and the minute when I believed.”

I believe it also has to be that way with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You have to know. If you do not know, I encourage you to seek it. I am willing to do everything in my power. As I have told you, it has been painful for me to have to skip the 9:00 services, and I have done so with fear and trembling for many reasons that would take a long time to explain. But I have believed that if I glorify God and the Holy Spirit, the Lord will bless our church, and I am already seeing it. Somehow God will take care of it; God will make up the deficit in some way, because we are doing what we have to do. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the other things will be added to you.

Again, reasoning by the Spirit, contrary to human reason. Stand up. Take a moment. Cry out to the Lord; cry out to the Lord. I encourage you: you can settle the controversy over the baptism of the Holy Spirit in a moment if you want to and if you believe. All you need to do is believe the Lord.

I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I believe I had received it some time earlier, but I was always searching. I was not... I was always looking for the next anointed person to lay hands on me. And one day, when I was starting this church in the South End, before we moved to Cambridge, I arrived at the sanctuary. It was a tiny sanctuary they had allowed us to use for a few days, and I was there at the Emmanuel Gospel Center. No one was there; no one had arrived yet. That is why sometimes it is so important to arrive on time. I had a great thirst for the Lord. God was doing something very powerful in my life, and I arrived, and there was no one there. And I said, I am going to stop looking for people to pray for me.

The Bible says very clearly that if we ask the Lord, He will give us the Holy Spirit. I am going to settle this right now. We are going to end this controversy right here, and I am going to stop looking for the next anointed person and this, that, and the other. “Lord, fill me with Your Spirit.” I knelt down and looked around to make sure no one was there. “Lord, fill me with the Holy Spirit. I receive it; I believe,” and I opened my mouth. There was no electricity; no little angel appeared in front of me. I simply believed that if I asked the Lord... I opened my mouth and began to speak a complex language that, to this day, I use in my times of need, and I spoke in tongues. And God began to move in my life. He had already begun moving before, but this was something that accelerated the whole process. And look at me here, thirty-some years later, serving the Lord.

I remember that I was very much like Apollos, in the sense that I had a lot of intellect and a lot of education. I remember once being at home in the kitchen. My mother... I was talking with someone, and I was in my Marxist, revolutionary period; I was at Harvard, and I was talking about Marx and all those kinds of things, with some very strange theology, because I was still like Apollos—a big talker with some terrible errors. My mother, who was listening to the conversation from another room, came out of there like a lioness. “What are you saying?” And she went like this and corrected me; she scolded me, and I had to keep quiet. She was not a great educator or anything like that, but she corrected me. She told me two or three things, and she was filled with the Holy Spirit. And now I recognize that everything she told me was absolutely true. I did not know what I was talking about.

Lots of arguments, lots of intellect, but no experience with the power of God. She had the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She had the power of God within her. A simple woman, but when she heard the nonsense I was saying, she became like a lioness and immediately called me to account. Glory to God for those people who have it and know that they have it.

I ask the Lord that all of us in this church may be like that, brothers and sisters, that the least may be like David, as the Word says, that the least may put a legion of demons to flight, and the greatest—you already know—may conquer an entire nation.

Let us begin to seek more. I charge you before the Lord, I warn you, I exhort you in the name of the Lord: do not settle for a mediocre, average, conventional life. My brothers and sisters, do not waste your time or God’s time. Seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit in your life. Sanctify your life. Read the Word. Worship the Lord. Serve the Lord. Move forward despite physical or emotional weakness in your life; do not wait for your depression to go away before serving the Lord. Serve the Lord in the midst of depression, and one day you are going to say, ‘But where did it go?’

We must live in the Spirit. Raise your hand right now and once again ask for fresh anointing. The Lord gives you what you need. And I beg you: go home—if you are embarrassed here in public, shut yourself in your room, kneel down, ask the Holy Spirit to baptize you and fill you, and believe that in the life of the Spirit there are no favorites, no generals and privates. If you cry out, the Lord will hear you. If you have a contrite and humble heart, the Lord will hear you. Ask the Lord to give you the infilling of the Spirit. Come to the revival services. Knock on doors. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you, says the Lord.

The one who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened, says the Lord. Believe. Believe. Live that life of believing God. You have a license from the Holy Spirit to cry out, preach, anoint, pray for healing, behead demons, interpret Scripture, and live a powerful life. God gives you everything you need; the thing is that some believe and others do not. That is the difference.

I encourage you in the name of the Lord: do not be led by your emotions. In the—in the name of Jesus, I release a fighting spirit in the—in the name of Jesus among this people. I declare in the name of Christ that eyes are opened, minds are set free, hearts are opened and made porous so that God’s anointing may penetrate them.

Father, I declare a spirit of understanding, wisdom, and knowledge over Your people now, Lord. Uncover the eyes of Your children. Uncover the mind and the spirit. We rebuke all spiritual dullness, Lord, in the—in the name of Jesus. And Father, we surrender this church to You. Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, we cry out to You. We do not have the answer, but You do, Lord. We do not have the power, but You do, Lord. I know that You are going to do something great among Your people, and as a congregation we commit ourselves to stop playing games with You, Father. Forgive us. Child of God, receive this call from the Lord, and if your hand is raised, raise it a little higher; if it is not, raise both hands, and believe that the Lord, right now—I release a spirit of power, grace, wisdom, anointing, consecration, and the infilling of the Spirit.